Puerto Rico Open: Chad chanced at 59/1

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Puerto Rico Open Tournament History

Greg Kraft won the inaugural Puerto Rico Open in 2008, but this will be just the 18th edition after the 2018 renewal was postponed due to Hurricane Maria in September 2017.

The Puerto Rico Open has always been played opposite another event and this year it plays second fiddle to the Arnold Palmer Invitational for the fourth year in-a-row.

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Venue

Grand Reserve Country Club (Composite Course), Rio Grande, Puerto Rico.

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Course Details

Par 72, 7506 yards, stroke average in 2025 - 69.61

Sitting at the foothills of the El Yunque Rainforest and formally named the Coco Beach Golf Club, the Grand Reserve is a diverse wind-exposed and flat composite of two courses that were originally four nine-hole courses, designed by Tom Kite in 2004.

The grass here is paspalum, which is the same type used at the Corales Golf Club, which hosts the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship and at both the old and new venues of for the World Wide Technology Championship - El Camaleon and the Tiger Woods designed El Cardonal Golf Course. And Vidanta Vallarta, which hosts the Mexico Open, is another Greg Norman designed coastal paspalum layout.

Water is in play on 13 holes and the average-sized greens usually run at around 11 on the Stimpmeter.

The two nines were reversed last year so we now have an easy finish to the front nine and a tough finish to the course.

The par five 14^th was the second easiest on the layout last year but holes 13 and 17 were the joint -hardest and the 15^th was the fifth toughest.

It's not a tough track if the wind doesn't blow though. Holes 13 and 17 may have ranked as the hardest two encountered 12 months ago but they averaged only 0.04 of a stroke over-par.

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Weather Forecast

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TV Coverage

No live coverage in the UK.

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Last 10 Winners with Pre-event Exchange Prices

2025 - Karl Vilips -26 75.074/1
2024 - Brice Garnett -19 300.0299/1 (playoff)
2023 - Nico Echavarria -21 110.0109/1
2022 - Ryan Brehm -20 70.069/1
2021 - Branden Grace -19 21.020/1
2020 - Viktor Hovland -20 18.017/1
2019 - Martin Trainer -15 120.0119/1
2018 - Tournament Cancelled
2017 - D.A Points -20 220.0219/1
2016 - Tony Finau -12 50.049/1 (playoff)
2015 - Alex Cjeka -7 100.099/1 (playoff)

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What Will it Take to Win the Puerto Rico Open?

No Strokes Gained data has been produced for this event and there were no stats at all for the inaugural staging, so I've only been able to analyse the last 16 results.

The driving metrics appear largely irrelevant with neither length nor accuracy being close to crucial and the main stat to consider is Greens In Regulation.

Last year's winner, Kark Vilips, only ranked 21^st (he scrambled and putted really well) but three of the top five ranked inside the top six for GIR and the 2024 winner, Brice Garnett, ranked 10^th, with five of the top eight ranking inside the top 10 for greens hit.

The 2023 winner, Nico Echavarria, ranked second, the 2022 winner, Ryan Brehm, ranked 11^th and the first and second in 2021, Branden Grace and Jhonattan Vegas, ranked third and seventh. A year earlier, the winner, Viktor Hovland, ranked eighth and the runner-up, Josh Teater, ranked first.

The 2016 winner, Tony Finau, only ranked 18th for GIR and the 2013 champ, Scott Brown, ranked a lowly 62nd but last year's victor aside, they're the only other winners in the last 16 years to rank outside the top 10 for that key stat.

This is an exposed layout, and the wind is nearly always a factor.

The winning scores have varied between -7 a decade ago and last year's record winning score of -26 so the weather has a huge say in how tough the tournament plays.

Is There an Angle In?

A number of events are staged at courses like this. Look closely at the form of the Sony Open, the RBC Heritage, the RSM Classic, the World Wide Technology Championship and the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship.

As previously mentioned, El Camaleon, which used to be the home of the World Wide Technology Championship, and the Corales Golf Club, host venue for the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship, are both wind-affected Paspalum grass tracks and we've recently witnessed how nicely this event links with the two venues.

The 2020 winner of this event, Viktor Hovland, won two of the last three editions of the World Wide Technology Championship staged at El Camaleon and the 2024 victor, Brice Garnett, got off the mark on the PGA Tour at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship in 2018.

The new WWT Championship venue, El Cardonal, is another wind exposed track with paspalum greens and the 2023 winner here, Echavarria, was leading there in in 2024 with a round to go.

The other three event venues, Waialae Country Club, Harbour Town Golf Links and Sea Island Resort are all Bermuda, which is a very similar surface to paspalum, and all three are wind-affected coastal courses.

Branden Grace, who won this event five years ago, also won the 2016 RBC Heritage at Harbour Town, and that's his only other victory on the PGA Tour.

El Cardonal, the new venue for the World Wide Technology Championship, and the Norman Signature Course at Vidanta, which hosts the Mexico Open, are both paspalum tracks so they're worthy of consideration but they're much longer than this layout.

Current form is definitely not something to worry about here and none of the previous 17 winners were setting the world alight before arriving here.

Vilips had current form figures reading MC-MC-20-46-72-39 coming into the event, Garnett had 2024 form figures reading MC-MC-51 on the Korn Ferry Tour and the 2023 winner, Echavarria, had missed his previous four cuts before winning here so a poor set of current form figures is nothing to worry about at all.

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Is There an Identikit Winner?

Vilips was 23 last year and Echavarria was only 28 when he won here three ago but out of form veterans seem to do really well here.

Playing on the final start of his Minor Medical Extension, Ryan Brehm won at the age of 35 four years ago (his only PGA Tour win) and like the 2017 winner, D.A Points, the 2024 champ, Garnett, had just turned 40. Alex Cejka was winning on the PGA Tour for the first time at the age of 45 when he took the title 11 years ago.

The first five editions went to experienced vets, although none of them were prolific, and Echavarria and the top-class pair, Tony Finau and Viktor Hovland, are the only Puerto Rico Open winners to win on the PGA Tour subsequently.

Grace was very well backed five years ago, Hovland went of favourite 12 months earlier, Finau was matched at a high of 55.054/1, Chesson Hadley was around that price 13 years ago too and Vilips was a 75.074/1 chance last year but every other winner has been matched at a triple-figure price before the off.

Hovland, in 2020, was the first winner under 50/151.00 so don't be afraid to take a chance or two. This is an event where an out-of-form outsider could pop up and cause a massive surprise.

And finally, there might just be another real superstar in the field somewhere. In addition to Hovland and Finau winning here, Jason Day, Jordon Spieth, Daniel Berger and Bryson DeChambeau have all finished runner-up.

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Winner's Position and Price Pre-Round Four

2025 - Karl Vilips - led by one 3.02/1
2024 - Brice Garnett - tied second, trailing by two 10.09/1
2023 - Nico Echavarria led by two strokes 2.111/10
2022 - Ryan Brehm led by three strokes 2.35/4
2021 - Branden Grace tied third, trailing by one 5.49/2
2020 - Viktor Hovland led by a stroke 1.784/5
2019 - Martin Trainer alone in third, trailing by two 12.011/1
2018 - Tournament Cancelled
2017 - D.A Points tied second, one off the lead 9.28/1
2016 - Tony Finau tied second, one off the lead 7.26/1

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In-Play Tactics

Karl Vilips was inside the top five places all week and that was fairly typical for the venue.

Every winner has shot a first round of 70 or below and they've all been within five strokes of the lead after round one.

Finau, who sat 15th and four adrift in 2016, and Derek Lamely, who was 35th and six off the lead after 36 holes in 2010, are the only winners not to be inside the top seven at halfway.

Alex Cejka dropped from first to fifth between rounds two and three but he and Lamely, who also sat fifth after three rounds are the only winners to be outside the top-three places with a round to go so it's a tough place to make up ground.

Given that the event isn't on Sky and that it's up against the Arnold Palmer Invitational (which I've previewed here), the chances are that liquidity will be poor so it might be sensible to trade in-between rounds only.

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Chad Ramey the sole selection

Chad Ramey finished fifth here on debut in 2022, three weeks before he won the Corales Puntacana, and he finished 26^th last year, on only his second visit, after a poor final round saw him slip from 13th after round three.

His 2022 form figures prior to his course debut read MC-MC-39-MC-28-MC and his 2025 numbers read MC-MC-48-MC-34-MC prior to last year's 26^th.

He'd ended 2021 and 2024 weakly too so the fact that he finished second at the World Wide Technology in November and that he's made his last six cuts should bode well.

He finished a respectable 17^th at the Cognizant Classic last week and is a fair price at 60.059/1.

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