Mexico Open at VidantaWorld 20-02-2025

We move from the US to Mexico this week to play the Mexico Open at the Vidanta Vallarta course. The tournament is a prestigious golf tournament on the PGA Tour and some of the world's best golfers are set to start. In the 2024 edition, it was Jake Knapp who ran away with the victory and the odds experts give Akshay Bhatia the favorite stamp in this year's edition. If he is to fulfill this, he will have to better 131 other players.

The courses and the area

The Greg Norman-designed Vidanta Vallarta course plays as a Par 71 with a length of 7,436 yards. That's more than 250 yards longer than the original course. There are five par-3 holes and four par-5 holes in this tournament, and the course design offers a mix of challenge and playability, with firm fairways, beautiful greens and striking natural scenery. The course was awarded "Renovation of the Year" by Golf Inc. magazine, and has become a must-play destination for golf enthusiasts. The PGA rated hole 10 on this course as the toughest on the Tour in 2023 and the second most challenging in 2024. So the course can be demanding. That said, hole 7 has been the easiest hole on the PGA Tour every year since 2022.

Here we will find large and wide fairways with short rough on the sides, and considering that the course is played relatively long, it will be an advantage to hit far from the Tee. So we have to look a little extra at the Off-the-Tee statistics here, as well as the Approach and Putting statistics are also important. There are 132 players at the start, and the cut goes as usual in 65th place and shared 65th place after two days.

Who can be good tips?

Players who could have an advantage here due to long drives off the tee and being good with the irons are Rasmus Højgaard, Kurt Kitayama and Patrick Rodgers. But I'm also looking at players like Alex Smalley, Michael Kim and Aldrich Potgieter this week.

• Rasmus Højgaard played well at Pebble Beach this year, finishing tied for 22nd, but he played even better at the Phoenix Open, finishing 12th, before missing the cut last week. Højgaard is tipped to be one of the favorites, but his putter is ice cold this year. Still, he manages to get in with his driver and irons, so he usually hits the green and ends up with a good score.
• Kurt Kitayama is also a long hitter and could have an advantage here because of that. But his results before this year suggest that he hasn't quite figured it out yet. With 37-58-MC-49 on the board, I'm a little skeptical of a top result. The statistics show that he does it workable at the start of the holes, but slows down a bit on the green.
• Patrick Rodgers has never been worse than No. 10 on this course, with his best finish being 6th last year. So far this year he has had mixed results with MC-70-56-22-MC and 3rd place this past weekend in the Genesis Invitational. Rodgers is also good off the tee, but his putting hasn't been quite there this year either.
• Alex Smalley has played four tournaments in 2025 and made the cut in three. His results have been 16-11-MC-21, so he hasn't been able to break into the top 10 in a while. The last time was as far back as June 2024. Smalley has a 6th place here from 2022, but in 23 and 24 he missed the cut both times. The reason I've considered him this year is his statistics, where he is 7th best TTG, 26th place Approach and 18th place with the putter.
• Michael Kim started the season without the greatest results, with a missed cut, a tied 43rd place and another missed cut. January was probably not quite what he had hoped for. But in the Phoenix Open he played brilliantly and was rewarded with 2nd place and then became no. 13 the following week. He is ranked 19th in TTG and 37th in Approach, and his putting has been good the last two tournaments. Last year he missed the cut here, but he seems to be in better shape now.
• Aldrich Potgieter is an exciting 20-year-old from South Africa who has incredible drive and hits the ball the furthest of all. He has two MCs this year, but finished tied for 15th in the Farmers Insurance Open at the end of January. He may be a bit too unstable in his approach, but his putting is perfectly fine. Potgieter could be a potential outsider here.

All of these could make the top 20 on a good day, but what would I choose if I had to choose just one of them?

Conclusion

Of those I have studied here, my choice falls on the Danish Rasmus Højgaard. This despite a bad tournament last week. Because if we look past that, he was best from the Tee and 23rd in putting in the Phoenix Open, in addition he was third best in hitting the green. Højgaard hits incredibly far, which is positive here, and he hits an average of 70% of the greens with his irons. Last week nothing worked out for the Dane, but I think he is better suited on this course than at Torrey Pines. So with the information I have, my tip this week is:

Golf at 14:30: Rasmus Højgaard top 20 (1.95)

Alternative bets:
Golf at 2.30pm: Alex Smalley top 20 (2.45)
Golf at 2.30pm: Patrick Rodgers top 20 (2.10)

As usual, there will also be tips on H2H duels during the weekend, and you will find these on our Oddslisten