Corales Puntacana Championship: Higgo chanced in the Dominican

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Tournament History

This will be the 10^th edition of the Corales Puntacana Championship but it's only the eighth time it will feature on the PGA Tour.

The first two editions, won by Dominic Bozzelli and Nate Lashley, were held on the Korn Ferry Tour. 

The Corales Puntacana Championship is an opposite field event and it's the first event on the PGA Tour to be staged in the Dominican Republic.

Now played in the same week as the RBC Heritage, it used to be held in the same week as the now defunct WGC Match Play tournament at the end of March. 

Venue 

The Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship, Corales Golf Club, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

Course Details

Par 72, 7,670 yards
Stroke Average in 2024 - 70.46

The 2010 Tom Fazio designed Corales Course is set among natural cliffs, coralina quarries and ocean coves, adjacent to the Caribbean Sea.

Six holes play alongside the Caribbean, culminating in the three-hole "Devil's Elbow" finishing stretch that showcases a dramatic forced carry over the Bay of Corales at the par four 18th.

In kind conditions, the par four 18^th averaged 3.98 last year but that was the first time in six springtime editions that any of the three finishing holes have averaged below par so it's a tough finishing.

The Corales Course is a very long Paspalum course with wide, flat, generous fairways and very little rough so despite its length, it's an easy course for touring professionals. The greens are usually set up to be slow (usually no more than 11 on Stimpmeter) because of the course's proximity to the coast with its only real defence being the wind but they were set at 12.5 12 months ago.

Three players shot ten-under-par 62s in the inaugural edition, the winner, Brice Garnett, opened-up with a nine-under-par 63 in 2018 and the 2019 victor, Graeme McDowell, fired back-to-back 64s in rounds two and three. And last year's winner, Billy Horschel, came form behind to win with a nine-under-par 63 in round four so low scores are out there if the wind doesn't blow too hard.

Weather Forecast

TV Coverage

No coverage in the UK

First Nine Winners with Pre-event Exchange Prices

2023 - Billy Horschel -23 25.024/1
2023 - Matt Wallace -19 48.047/1
2022 - Chad Ramey -17 85.084/1
2021 - Joel Dahmen -12 50.049/1
2020 - Hudson Swafford -18 300.0299/1
2019 - Graeme McDowell -18 80.079/1
2018 - Brice Garnett -18 80.079/1
2017 - Nate Lashley -20
2016 - Dominic Bozzelli -24

What Will it Take to Win the Corales Puntacana?

We don't have any Strokes Gained data for this event so looking at the more traditional stats is all we can do, but we don't have any stats at all for the first two editions when it was a Korn Ferry Tour event or any Driving Distance numbers for last year's edition.

The six winners before Horschel last year ranked 51^st, 12^th, 17^th, 53^rd, 51^st and 15^th for Driving Distance and the last seven winners have ranked 14^th, 14^th, 40^th, 31^st, 20^th, 31^st and ninth for Driving Accuracy so, neither driving metric looks especially relevant.

The last three winners have ranked 21^st, 12^th and 26^th for Greens In Regulation and the three winners between 2018 and 2020 only ranked 24^th, 16^th and 25^th so that hasn't been a hugely important stat, although the first 12 home in 2021 all ranked inside the top-12 for GIR.

Wallace only ranked 12^th for Putting Average in 2023 but that's the worst any of the top seven ranked and PA has been far and away the most important stat to date.

Last year's first and second, Horschel and Wesley Bryan, ranked second and first for Putting Average, the two winners before Wallace, Chad Ramey and Joel Dahmen, both ranked second for PA, the 2020 winner, Hudson Swafford, only ranked fifth for PA, despite not making a single three-putt all week long, and the two winners before him both ranked first so it's basically just a putting contest.

Is There an Angle In?

A number of PGA Tour events are staged at courses similar to this. The Sony Open, the RBC Heritage (this week's other event) and the RSM Classic are all held on coastal, wind-affected tracks but the tournaments that correlate the best are the World Wide Technology Championship (when staged at Mayakoba) and the Puerto Rico Open. 

El Camaleon, the home of the WWT Championship until it switched to the Tiger Woods-designed El Cardonal golf course in 2023, and the Coco Beach Golf Course, the host course in Puerto Rico, like this venue, are both wind-affected Paspalum grass track whereas the other three tournament venues, Waialae Country Club (Sony Open), Harbour Town Golf Links (RBC Heritage) and Sea Island Resort (RSM Classic) are all Bermuda. 

The 2019 winner, McDowell, in addition to his US Open win in 2010, at another coastal course, Pebble Beach, has only won two other PGA Tour events - the RBC Heritage and the WWT Championship at Mayakoba and the 2018 winner of this event, Brice Garnett, has only won one other event on the PGA Tour - last year's Puerto Rico Open.

Tyler Duncan was matched at a low of 1.774/5 in 2023 before he finished third and his only PGA Tour success to date was at the 2019 RSM Classic and last year's winner, Horschel, lost in a playoff at the RSM Classic in 2016. 

And the 2020 winner, Hudson Swafford gives the Sony link a big boost given he's finished inside the top-ten at Waialae three times. 

If you fancy digging even deeper, Garnett's two Web.com Tour wins came at the Utah Championship and the now defunct Portland Open and looking at the top-tens at those two events, plenty of the same names keep appearing, so they look like worth checking out too.

Karl Vilips, who won this year's edition of the Puerto Rico Open, won the Utah Championship in August last year.

Is There an Identikit Winner?

The inaugural winner, Dominic Bozzelli, was in his mid-20s and the 2022 winner, Ramey, was 29 when he won here but the five winners in-between were all in their 30s, and the last two winners have been 31 and 37.

Horschel was fairly well fancied 12 months ago but the six winners before him were all outsiders to varying degrees.

Having been matched at a high of 110.0109/1, Ramey went off at 85.084/1 three years ago, G-Mac and Garnett were 80.079/1 chances before the off, and Swafford was matched at a high of 370.0369/1 before going off at around 300.0299/1.

Wallace, who was a 48.047/1 chance in 2023, was the shortest priced winner since the event was elevated to the PGA Tour before 25.024/1 chance Horschel last year so it's been a tough tournament for favourite backers.

Winner's Position and Exchange Price Pre-Round Four

2024 - Billy Horschel - solo fifth, trailing by three 8.615/2
2023 - Matt Wallace - tied third, trailing by one 9.417/2
2022 - Chad Ramey - solo second, trailing by two 5.85/1
2021 - Joel Dahmen - tied for the lead 4.77/2
2020 - Hudson Swafford - solo second, trailing by two 6.411/2
2019 - Graeme McDowell - led by one 3.1511/5
2018 - Brice Garnett - led by two 1.9310/11
2017 - Nate Lashley - trailed by two
2016 - Dominic Bozzelli - tied for the lead

In-Play Tactics

It's a bit of a mixed bag of results but it's certainly possible to win after a slow start.

Wallace was never outside the top-three places or more than a stroke behind after any round two years ago and having sat tied for 15^th and four adrift, Ramey sat third at halfway and second with a round to go in 2022.

Dahmen was never outside the top-four or more than a stroke off the lead in 2021, Swafford led after rounds one and two before being headed after round three but he sat solo second through 54 holes, trailing by just two in 2020, and Garnett shot the lowest round of the week on Thursday and was never headed after that in 2018, but a slow start was overcome in three of the first four editions and Horschel sat 12^th and seven off the lead at halfway last year.

Dominic Bozzelli sat tied for 45^th after the opening round, Nate Lashley was tied 53^rd, and G-Mac was matched at a high of 230.0229/1 after his first round 73 had seen him trailing by seven in a tie for 81^st! A slow start is clearly not the end of the world, and I wouldn't get too alarmed if your picks aren't right up with the pace straight away.

Bozzelli was still four back at halfway but he'd moved up to fifth and Lashley was eighth and still five adrift through 36 holes in 2017, but G-Mac moved all the way up to seventh and only three off the lead after the first of two back-to-back 64s in round two.

As demonstrated with the stats above, this is not an easy event to pick the winner in in-running, even when there's only one round to play.

We've seen four of the nine winners leading with a round to go but the last three clear 54-hole leaders have all been beaten and Horschel was three off the lead with 18 to play 12 months ago, although he was the first winner to be any further than two adrift through 54 holes so we're yet to see anyone take the title from well off the pace.

Higgo chanced in the Dominican

With the likes of Ben Griffin, Taylor Moore and Thorbjorn Olesen all pulling out of the event, the often-flaky Keith Mitchell narrowly heads the wide-open market over Alex Smalley and Harry Hall.

It's currently 18/119.00 the field and those three are the only players trading at less than 30.029/1.

The strong putting Englishman, Hall, was the only one of the market leaders that interested me, and he looks likely to contend after a good two weeks when he finished 18^th at the Houston Open and 26^th at the Valero Texas Open.

That's decent form in the context of a weak event like this and he was 13^th on debut two years ago.

For now my only play is the 25-year-old South African, Garrick Higgo.

Higgo missed the cut here on debut 12 months ago but arrives here in nice form this year having finished third on the Korn Ferry Tour a fortnight ago, a month after finishing 12^th in Puerto Rico.

He's a three-time winner on the DP World Tour and he got off the mark on the PGA Tour in only his second start at the once only staged Palmetto Championship back in 2021 .

Given he's no bigger than 45/146.00 on the High Street, I was happy to play him modestly at 60.059/1.

*You can follow me on Twitter @SteveThePunter

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