WGC Mexico: Report cards for ten of the top PGA TOUR stars
By Bill Felber
The WGC Mexico event told tales for Patrick Reed, Justin Thomas, Tiger Woods..and most certainly for the winner, Dustin Johnson. Here are my report cards for ten of the game’s top stars coming out of Mexico.
With its star-laden field, the WGC Mexico was an ideal setting for the game’s best to test themselves against the best. The event featured 46 of the world’s top 50 players, the only obvious absences being World No. 1 Justin Rose and Jason Day.
Against such strong fields, those examinations aren’t always pretty. Club de Golf Chapultepec, in the heart of Mexico City, is a layout providing its own challenges. It features 7,500 yards worth of narrow, tree-lined fairways leading to slippery greens which on Sunday often found pins tucked into nooks and crannies.
But such stern tests are necessary, especially as a lead-in to the juiced-up spring menu the PGA Tour is offering this season. That additional juice includes the Players Championship, moved up from May to March, and the PGA Championship, moved ahead from August to May.
They join such standards of the season as the Florida swing, the Match Play and — obviously — the Masters all being played by mid-May.
Given such a stacked field and stacked schedule, the question is which players demonstrated a game sufficiently loaded to persevere? Conversely, which demonstrated only that they have more work do to?
To answer the question, I’ve selected 10 players from the WGC Mexico Field for a more in-depth status report on their games. Some of the 10 occupied front-row seats for the finish, but others were bit players. Also included are a couple whose uneven play might have left fans wondering virtually from moment to moment whether they were ready to star in a major championship win or poised to disappear.