Puerto Rico Open presented by Banco Popular
Thursday Mar 11 – Sunday Mar 14, 2010
While the WGC goes on in Florida, the PGA continues in Puerto Rico and comprises of a distinctly average field made up of over the hill and Nationwide Tour legible players. With little course form and no stand out players what does become apparent when looking over the past two year's results from this tournament is that it is essentially a lottery picking a winner here, Greg Kraft and Michael Bradley's victories prove this.
What we do know about this Latino detour is that it will be held at the Trump International Golf Club for the third year running which is a long Par 72 course at just over 7500 yards so a bigger hitter off the tee will have a disinct advantage especially if the wind blows. With regards to the wind, being a coastal course and exposed to the weather it is generally expected that players will encounter blustery 20+ mph winds and sometimes even rain, making the course much harder than its 31st out of 54 ranking suggests. While conditions could make the Puerto Rico Open more suited to the experienced player it is also worth noting that the lst two years have provided winners who have carded in the 14 under pars so it may be worth looking for a player who ranks highly in par breaking.
This week's lottery pick comes down to......
Chad Collins - The Nationwide Tour graduate has made six cuts in six appearances which is a pretty solid return so far this year, only made more impressive by the fact that three of those were top 20 finishes. Collins was T4th in Mayakoba last month in conditions that will be similar to here in Puerto Rico but more importantly it is his stats that scream out, most notably ranking 15th in Putting Average. As mentioned above, going low will be important here and to add to his PA we can find him ranked a stellar 36th in Par Breaking and 22nd in Scoring Average with 69.98 and throw into the mix the fact that he is 3rd in Par 5 performance on a course with four tough Par 5s. 1pt e/w @ 40/1 (Coral)