2023 World Wide Technology Championship: Top 10 power rankings at El Cardonal
The World Wide Technology Championship has been on the PGA Tour schedule since 2007.
Through 2022, it was held at El Camaleon at the Mayakoba Resort in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. It’s a Greg Norman golf course that now hosts a LIV Golf event.
As a result, the PGA Tour has moved the World Wide Technology Championship to El Cardonal, a Tiger Woods-designed course at the Diamante Cabo San Lucas resort.
It’s a par-72 measuring 7,363 yards. Per TGR Design, “El Cardonal was inspired by the classic Golden Age courses of the west coast that Tiger played growing up. Tiger created a golf course that brings back strategy—there are typically several options for navigating each hole, and proper strategic decision-making is rewarded.”
The course opened in 2014.
Greens are paspalum, an increasingly popular surface that we’ve seen at Punta Cana, the Puerto Rico Open, and Kiawah Island for the PGA Championship.
It’s forecasted to be a pleasant weather week with temperatures in the 70s-80s with no rain and single-digit mile-per-hour winds.
The field lacks a top-15 player from the Official World Golf Ranking. There are five from the top 50.
Let’s get down to business with this week’s top 10 power rankings:
Ben Griffin was oh so close to claiming his first PGA Tour win this fall at the Sanderson Farms Championship. He led much of the day on Sunday and had a makeable putt on the 72nd hole to win in regulation.
Instead, he was relegated to a five-way playoff where par wasn’t enough to get it done.
"“Yeah, a lot of positives,” Griffin was transcribed by ASAP Sports after the Sanderson. “My game is in a good spot. It’s rewarding to know that this off-season wasn’t as bad as I thought it might have been getting ready for a tournament per se. I felt like last week I grinded pretty hard. But I’ve got the game, I’ve got the talent. I’ve just got to just be really strong down the stretch moving forward.”"
Griffin can at least be heartened by the fact that the high finish has him in great shape to finish between Nos. 51-60 in the FedEx Cup Fall standings, which would get him into the first couple signature events on the 2024 PGA Tour schedule.
It was good to see him in contention after recording a lot of solid finishes in the 2022-23 PGA Tour season. Griffin took T-3rd at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship as part of eight top-25s.
The 27-year-old from the University of North Carolina has been a short game wizard. He ranks 14th in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green per round (.317). Griffin is also good on the greens at 47th in SG: Putting (.268).
He’s 14th in sand saves (58.93%) and 10th in total birdies (420).