Mayakoba Classic: Form stats for the final PGA Tour event of 2020

The curtain comes down on the PGA Tour year with the 14th staging of the Mayakoba Classic.

Normally the penultimate event on the calendar, and usually staged in mid-November, the Mayakoba Classic at El Camaleon has been moved to December and welcomes a fairly decent field highlighted by the arrivals of Justin Thomas and Brooks Koepka.

World No 1 - and this year's Masters' champion - Dustin Johnson had originally been pencilled in for this event only to withdraw last week.

As for Thomas and Koepka, both will be making their second appearances at El Camaleon, with the latter missing the cut in 2013.

World No 3 Thomas is rarely off the leaderboard nowadays and he tees-up in Mexico on the back of finishing fourth at Augusta in his most recent start.

Home challenge

Two golfers who may be more motivated than most to finish this difficult year in style are Mexican duo Abraham Ancer and Carlos Ortiz.

Ancer, the host country's top ranked player at No 22, is a three-time runner-up on the PGA Tour and has twice posted top-10s at El Camaleon.

Ortiz, the world No 65, will be making his first start since winning the Houston Open, which was also his first top-10 of 2020.

His victory in Texas in early November was all the more impressive, because he held off DJ who finished in a tie-for-second.

The 29-year-old Ortiz was himself joint-second at the Mayakoba Classic in 2019 when, over the final three days, he posted rounds of 65-65-66.

Check out the latest betting for this week's Mayakoba Classic

Harris English can combine decent current form with a good course history, while Charles Howell has had eight top-20 finishes at El Camaleon in 10 years.

Viktor Hovland, the world No 26 from Norway, has certainly impressed this autumn having secured his maiden Tour triumph in Costa Rico a month before lockdown was imposed in March.

And since golf re-opened for business in June, Hovland, 23, hasn't missed a single cut in 15 starts, while posting 10 top-25s, which is remarkable consistency for a golfer of that young age.

Course info

A traditionally low-scoring event, the average 72-hole total for all winners and runners-up at El Camaleon, since 2013, is 265.05.

Designed by Greg Norman and opened 14 years ago, El Camaleon combines three very different landscapes of dense jungle, mangrove forests and coastal settings.

With a number of holes running extremely close to the coast, where the Gulf of Mexico meets the Caribbean Sea, wind is usually a constant factor throughout the tournament.

Although there are no giant lakes or ponds on the course, water comes into play on 11 holes, with plenty of dense vegetation ready to gobble up any wayward drive or approach.

The key at El Camaleon is to find fairways off the tee and possess solid course management skills.

Accomplish both of these and birdies are certainly up for grabs, as the venue's low-scoring history confirms.

For its first six instalments, the tournament was staged during February before being moved to November in 2013.

El Camaleon is situated within the holiday resort of Playa del Carmen, in the south-east of the country, approximately 140 miles from Cuba's western edge.

Not since 1973, has an official points-scoring event on the PGA Tour edged into December.

Twitter: Andy Swales@GolfStatsAlive

MC* - Missed Additional 54-Hole Cut

Note: List Contains Leading Reserves