WGC-Mexico Championship Picks

The West Coast Swing is done and the Florida Swing is right around the corner. In the meantime, we take a trip south of the border this week to Mexico for the World Golf Championship – Mexico Championship. The WGC-Mexico Championship is the first no-cut WGC event of the 2019 calendar year, meaning everyone is guaranteed four rounds and a pay day come Sunday.

Here are our overall records.

(2019 – 7 Events)CorrectIncorrect
The Stiff Shaft25
D Money07
Two Inches Short04

Here is who we are going with this week:

DMoney

I’m 0-for the season so make of that what you will with this week’s pick.

This week I am riding Dustin Johnson. We all know that Tiger is the all-time leader in WGC wins at 18. While nobody is ever getting close to that, DJ currently sits second on that list with 5. It’s no secret that DJ seems to play his best golf during the biggest stretches of the season and this week kicks off a stretch that includes 2 WGCs, the Florida Swing, and the Masters. He’s already got a couple top-10 finishes this season and this week he gets WGC win #6.

Two Inches Short (@TwoInchesShort)

Fresh off another incorrect pick, we head south of the boarder this week to the WGC-Mexico Championship thirsty for some local tequila and our first win of 2019.

Justin Thomas seems like an obvious choice to win at Club De Golf Chapultepec because he’s going to, and not just because we said so.

This season he leads the the Tour in strokes gained: tee-to-green, approach-the-green, and by default total strokes gained … aka he’s really good. Plus he’s finished T3 or better in his last 4 starts this year.

JT is clearly comfortable playing golf at elevation (the clubhouse sits almost 8,000 ft above sea level). In his two previous trips to to Mexico City, he’s notched a T5 and a runner-up. We don’t expect anything different this week as long as he isn’t forced to play with JB Holmes (see what happened last week at Riviera).

¡Vamos JT!

The Stiff Shaft

I really like Justin Thomas this week since he’s coming off of a disappointing second place finish at Riviera and finished second in this event last season behind Phil, but since Two Inches picked him I’m going to throw out another name…

Rory McIlroy

That’s right. Rory has been pretty hot lately and although he has yet to win this season, he’s got three straight top 5 finishes (T4 at Tournament of Champions, T5 at Farmers, T4 at Genesis).

Rory also leads the PGA Tour in strokes gained off-the-tee, is third in strokes gained tee-to-green, and is fifth in strokes gained total.

He hasn’t played in this event since 2017 when he held the 36-hole lead, but it really feels like he’s done everything but win this season.

Book it, Rory is going to give me a 3rd correct pick this season and put me in the driver’s seat in our standings!

Author: Dan Hauser

Dan is the co-founder of The Stiff Shaft and the website's Senior Writer. A South Florida native, Dan has been covering golf since 2013 and playing it his entire life. He is still waiting for his first hole-in-one.

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