Tour Guide: The Pirate Goes to Mexico

Welcome back to Tour Guide, a Club TFE weekly preview, review, and ramble around the pro golf scene. This week we try to find some positives about the Mexico Open venue, examine a telling conversation between player and caddie, and uncover some personal history on a former Mexico Open winner.

Searching for Intrigue at the Mexico Open

By Joseph LaMagna

There are plenty of weak-field PGA Tour events where I still enjoy watching golf shots thanks to a compelling venue. I’ve just never found a lot to like about Vidanta Vallarta, host of this week’s Mexico Open.

A par-71 course measuring over 7300 yards, Vidanta Vallarta often plays even longer than the scorecard yardage because conditions can be windy. I’ll at least give it credit for requiring long irons; Vidanta Vallarta is not a wedge fest. But in terms of design, I don’t find many of the holes very interesting.

If forced to pick a favorite hole, I guess I’d go with the ninth, a par 3 over water that requires control when the wind is up.

Scoring at the ninth hole last year, with pars removed to highlight the variance.

Outside of the ninth and maybe the first hole, I find Vidanta Vallarta to be extremely underwhelming. Perhaps this could be a fun Club TFE challenge. If you watch the Mexico Open this week and find redeeming qualities about the golf course and/or specific holes, drop them in the comment section. Buena suerte…

One player I’m keeping an eye on this week is Erik Van Rooyen. Vidanta Vallarta shares a few similarities with El Cardonal at Diamante, where Van Rooyen won last fall’s World Wide Technology Championship. Though I find El Cardonal to be more architecturally interesting, the two golf courses play somewhat similarly for the pros. Van Rooyen is a strong ball-striker amidst a weak field, and this should be an opportunity for him to get in the mix.

Through two months, it’s been difficult for many golfers not at the top of the priority ranking to gain entry into PGA Tour events. This week, many who’ve been champing at the bit have the opportunity to tee it up in Mexico and earn their way towards better status for next season. Seeing who takes advantage of the opportunity is probably the most compelling reason to watch the Mexico Open.

One Shot from Last Week

By Will Knights

We’re all very used to Jordan Spieth and Michael Greller having extended pre-shot conversations. They are two of the best in the game at talking through both the options and how to go about executing, even if Jordan can be a bit sassy at times.

Classic Spieth and Greller. pic.twitter.com/XaDFCuIdVw

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) February 17, 2024

On Friday, microphones captured the two talking through what looked like a relatively straightforward shot into the par-4 13th. The shot was in the neighborhood of 150 yards to a back-right pin with a helping wind. In setting up for the shot, they considered two main inputs: whether to hit a draw or a straight ball, and whether the wind was off the left or straight down.

Based on their conversation, my guess is that Spieth had a pitching wedge in his hand. They talked about the shot going 150 yards if he hit a draw, meaning he was trying to get a little extra distance out of the club. From there, Spieth was concerned that if the wind wasn’t off the left, a draw didn’t make any sense because he would be left of the hole anyway. To which Greller replied “You can’t accept 15 feet left?” Classic zinger. Ultimately, Spieth decided to aim slightly left of the pin and hit a straight ball. If the wind was helping off the left, it would help feed toward the pin.

The wind didn’t move it to the right, and the straight ball left him with an uphill 20-footer for birdie. A perfectly acceptable outcome, and one that reflected their entire conversation perfectly.

Memory Lane: The Pirate’s Life

By Jay Rigdon

Subbing for Brendan this week, I took a look at the history of the Mexico Open. Or the history as presented by Wikipedia, which is admittedly light on some data. In particular I was looking for interesting champions or runners-up so I could do some kind of research into whatever circumstances led to, say, Bob Tway finishing second twice in three years. (Which he did, from 1994-1996.) But then I saw that Frank Nobilo won in 1997. Admittedly I’m more familiar with Nobilo the broadcaster than Nobilo the player, and I also saw that the runner-up box was empty. A mystery to be solved!

Having done a bit of research, I can indeed confirm there’s a mystery, as I can’t find anything. Presumably someone with more skill and more interest than me in actually solving it can enlighten everyone, but in the midst of trying to find information I came across Nobilo’s entry in the 1998 PGA Tour media guide. It’s delightful from the headshot on, and contains absolutely no mention of the 1997 Mexican Open, as it was then known.

Via the 1998 PGA Tour media guide.

But it was the personal information section at the bottom that stood out, and immediately made me lose interest in figuring out who finished second in 1997. Because, verbatim, in the PGA Tour media guide, this is Nobilo’s entire “PERSONAL” section:

“Ancestors were Italian pirates who, after running out of things to pillage on the Adriatic, resettled in New Zealand in the early 1900s…born with right leg shorter than left, source of some back problems.”

This is poetry. What a journey. What a pair of facts to choose for this exercise. What perfectly crafted, perfectly juxtaposed sentences.

The pirate thing was mentioned on the 1996 U.S. Open broadcast,. Nobilo contended until Sunday at Oakland Hills, and was the subject of this piece from Virginian-Pilot golf writer Jim Ducibella, in which Nobilo himself repeats the story. It’s also an interesting look at the issues Nobilo was dealing with at a time when he felt the European Tour was aiming to prevent him from competing on the PGA Tour. The more things change, etc.

If you’re curious as to whether this was the dominant fun fact for Nobilo, the 1999 media guide features the exact same personal section. It also mentions that Nobilo won the 1997 Mexican Open. It does not say who finished second.