El Camaleon Key Fantasy Stats

OHL Classic at Mayakoba

November 9th – 12th, 2017

El Camaleon G.C.

Playa Del Carmen, Mexico

Par: 71 / Yardage: 6,987

Purse: $7.1 million

with $1,260,001 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Pat Perez

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

This is based on the most vital stats from El Camaleon based on data from last year’s OHL Classic at Mayakoba and using data from all the players in the field with stats from 2018.
This is the 11th year that the OHL Classic at Mayakoba is being played at El Camaleon. With it played in Mexico, we don’t have true Shotlink stats to work with, so we are stuck with the old-fashion stats of fairways hit, driving distance, greens hit, scrambling, number of putts, birdies and eagles made. The one thing to understand about this week, last year El Camaleon played to a 69.61 average which was a shot and a half under par as only nine other courses on the PGA Tour were easier in 2017, with only four of those courses having full field events on a single course held on them.
So the course is very easy, it ranked 42nd in fairways hit and 9th in driving distance, meaning that players hit it long on this course. But that doesn’t mean you have to be a bomber to win this event. Graeme McDowell, who won in 2016 and Pat Perez who won last year aren’t considered bombers, matter of fact most of the ten past winners with the exception of Charley Hoffman and Harris English aren’t long, so you can’t call El Camaleon a bombers delight.

So what can we look at historically to help us find players that should do well this week? Looking at the field from last year, all of them hit six and a half out of ten fairways, a very high percentage. They also hit lot’s of greens, just under 7 of 10. Of the greens that they missed they got it up and down 6 out of every 10 tries and averaged 28.66 putts per round. So it’s easy to see how each of the players in the field averaged 4.15 birdies per round and either made birdie or eagle on a quarter of the holes that they played. So frankly for the average pro, El Camaleon is a lay up.

In looking at the 22 players that have finished 5th or better in the last four Mayakoba’s, the trend is that driving the ball is not important. Of the 22 players, only seven players finished the week in the top-ten in fairways hit and on four players finished in the top-ten in driving distance. Now of those same 22 players, ten of them were in the top-ten of greens hit, with two players leading those stat. Of the 22 players, nine of the players finished in the top-ten in putts per round. Also looking at the 22 players, they averaged playing the par 3s in 3 under, the par 4s in 6 under and the par 5s in 8 under. The 22 players average making 22 birdies so you can see it’s very important to play the par 5s well and make lot’s of birdies.
In looking at last year’s winner Pat Perez, he was 19th in driving distance and T-49th in fairways hit so that holds up with our thoughts that driving is meaningless at El Camaleon. Now he was T-11th in greens hit, T-9th in scrambling and T-8th in putts per round. Going a step further, Perez didn’t have any 3-putts and was T-8th in one-putts, showing that around the greens and on the greens was important in his win. On the par 3s, he played them in 4 under, the best of the week was Graeme McDowell at 9 under. Were Perez excel on was the par 4s and par 5s. He was 8 under on the par 4s, the best was Zac Blair at 9 under but he was just 1 under on the par 5s. Meanwhile Perez was 9 under on the par 5s, three players were 11 under on them and the best was Russell Knox who played the par 4s in 4 under. Perez make 23 birdies (and one eagle), the best was 3 players making 26 birdies but with no eagles.

So in looking at our four categories, we are going to bring a premium on around and on the green. So we pick Putts per round as our first category, now the only reason we aren’t picking strokes gained putting, but since we are looking at 2018 stats of the five events being played, only two had complete stats so we are going to avoid strokes gained for this week and next week. Our next important stat is greens hit, again that is a stat that is important for El Camaleon. Our third important stat is par breakers, again making lot’s of eagles and birdies is important. Last we are going to look at Par 4 leaders since this was an important stat for those on top of the leaderboard.

One last thing to watch for is players that did well last year and be sure not to forget about Web.Com tour players. Yes Ryan Armour who won the Sanderson didn’t have a good 2017, but he did finish up strongly which has carried over. But of the other winners, they had good 2017s.

*Putts per round: A look at who has the less amount of putts on the green, per round. On some courses this is a bit deceiving since scrambling and greens hit knocks the importance of number of putts, but on this course number of putts does mean something.

*Greens in Regulation: Who hits the most greens during the week.

*Par Breakers: A combination of eagles and birdies made during the week to see who has the most.

*Par 4 leaders: A look at who plays the par 4s the most for the week.

115 of the 132 Players from this year’s field with stats from 2018

Click any column title in the table header to sort columns.