Paulie’s Picks: 2024 World Wide Technology Championship

Yes, there still are events left on the 2024 PGA Tour calendar. After a week off, the PGA Tour resumes in Mexico at the 2024 World Wide Technology Championship. This is the second year the event is being held at El Cardonal at Diamante, a Tiger Woods design. The course features massively wide fairways and places a large emphasis on approach play. Let’s take a look at three players to cash some bets with this week:

Doug Ghim Top 20 +110

With a recent runner-up finish, Ghim has been solid but not spectacular this fall. His form stems from elite iron play, and he is the No. 1-ranked iron player in this field and hasn’t lost strokes on approach in an event since March. He finished 15th at this event last year, and against a weak field this week, his iron play should give him a strong chance at cashing a top-20 bet.

Patton Kizzire Top 40 -125

Kizzire is grossly mispriced this week. He is the 11th-best iron player in this field and has gained strokes on approach in each of his last four starts this fall, including a win at Procore Championship and 11th place finish at the Sanderson Farms Championship. Kizzire’s weakness has always been keeping the ball in play off the tee. However, driving accuracy is less important here because the fairways are so wide. He finished 15th a year ago after not recording a finish better than 30th in the prior seven months, and we now get Kizzire in much better form on a course that clearly suits his game.

Nick Hardy Top 40 -120

Hardy is the sixth-best iron player in the field but is being priced as an average player. He finished 23rd at this event last year and I expect a similar result this year. Similar to Ghim, he hasn’t lost strokes on approach in an event since March. We are getting a bit of a reduced price on him here because of a missed cut in his last event at the Shriners Children’s Open, which was due to his worst 36-hole putting performance of the year. Prior to that, he finished eighth at the Black Desert Championship and 28th at the Sanderson Farms. Hardy isn’t likely to win this week but his iron game should put him in position to finish inside the top 40.