El Camaleon Key Fantasy Stats

Mayakoba Golf Classic

November 14th – 17th, 2019

El Camaleon

Playa Del Carmen,, Mexico

Par: 71 / Yardage: 6,987

Purse: $7.2 million

with $1,296,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Matt Kuchar

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 2020.
This is the 13th 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 69.25 average which was a shot and three-quarters of a shot under par as it ranked the 39th hardest course on the PGA Tour. It played easy last year due to low winds which is rare for this area which normally gets high winds. In 2018 it played to a 70.32 average while in 2016 it was played at 70.02, both years in windy conditions. In looking at the long-range forecast, winds won’t get higher than 11 mph on Saturday so scoring should be lower this year.

So the course did play easier, it ranked 27th in fairways hit while in 2018 it ranked 32nd. In driving distance it ranked 15th compared to 4th in 2018, meaning that players don’t hit it very long on this course, last year it averaged 287.4, probably again due to winds. Maybe that is the reason that short hitter tends to do very well on this course as Charley Hoffman in 2015 was the only long hitter. Last year Matt Kuchar won and he ranked 135th on tour in driving distance for 2019. The point is that this event doesn’t see bombers doing well, you need a lot of other things to win, 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 lots of greens, 7 of 10. Of the greens that they missed, they got it up and down just under 6 out of every 10 tries and averaged 28.59 putts per round. So it’s easy to see how each of the players in the field averaged 4.35 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 layup.

In looking at the 27 players that have finished 5th or better in the last five Mayakoba’s, the trend is that driving the ball is not important. Of the 27 players, only eight players finished the week in the top-ten in fairways hit and on six players finished in the top-ten in driving distance. In 2018 only one player in the top-ten finished in the top-ten in fairways hit while in 2019 two finished in the top-ten. Now of those same 27 players, 11 of them were in the top-ten of greens hit, with two players leading that stat. Of the 27 players, 12 of the players finished in the top-ten in putts per round. Also looking at the 27 players, they averaged playing the par 3s in 4 under, the par 4s in 6 under and the par 5s in 8 under. The 27 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 Matt Kuchar, he was T-28th in driving distance and T-3rd in fairways hit so that holds up with our thoughts that driving is meaningless at El Camaleon. Now he was T-9th in greens hit, T-5th in scrambling and T-21st in putts per round. Going a step further, Kuchar had one 3-putts and was T-39th 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 Danny Lee at 6 under. Were Kuchar excel on was the par 4s and par 5s. He was 10 under on the par 4s, (he was best in the field) and he was also best in the field on the par 5s at 8 under. Kuchar made 26 birdies, again best in the field.

So in looking at our four categories, we are going to bring a premium on putting and hitting greens. Normally we would pick strokes gained – putting, but since we are using 2019 stats and only three of the six events have that stat, we are picking putting average as our first category, last year El Camaleon ranked 46th in this stat. Our next important stat is greens hit, again that is a stat that is important for El Camaleon, on tour it was 34th. Our third important stat is par breakers, again making lot’s of eagles and birdies is important, last year it ranked 43rd best. Last we are going to look at Par 4 leaders since this was an important stat for those on top of the leaderboard, on tour El Camaleon ranked T-24th.

One last thing to watch for is players that did well last year and be sure not to forget about Web.Com tour players. Remember the tour has been in Asia for three weeks and with the tour off last week most of these guys have not played in four weeks so they could be a bit rusty.

*Putting Average: A look at who has the least amount of putts per round.

*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.

117 of the 132 players from this year’s field with stats from 2020

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