While the big guns on the PGA Tour are at the RBC Heritage, the lesser lights get their chance to shine over in the Dominican Republic when the Corales Puntacana Championship takes place with valuable benefits up for grabs.
Matt Wallace enjoyed those last year when he won the tournament but he isn’t back to attempt to make a defence of the title. That means we are guaranteed a different winner from what has to be said is a better field than usual.
Recent Winners
2023 – Matt Wallace
2022 – Chad Ramey
2021 – Joel Dahmen
2020 – Hudson Swafford
2019 – Graeme McDowell
2018 – Brice Garnett
The Course
We remain at the Corales Golf Club in Punta Cana this week. To say this course is a monster would be an understatement. It is a par 72 which stretches to 7,670 yards. Wind is always a guaranteed on this coastal setup and although it isn’t expected to be too bad over the course of the four days there will always be a coastal breeze so it is still worth factoring into the equation. I definitely wouldn’t want to be on someone who hasn’t shown comfort in the wind.
There is little challenge off the tee than you might think here but the greens on the larger side so there is every reason to believe this is going to come down to a putting contest. The best putter in the field won both the first two runnings of this event as a PGA Tour tournament at this time of year and I don’t think that is a coincidence. We are basically looking for players who set up a gamut of birdie chances and who takes more than their fair share.
The Field
The field is devoid of big names this week given that this runs alongside the RBC Heritage but there is one player who is here when he would be expected to be competing at Harbour Town. That is Billy Horschel who is the standout name in the field, although the European pair of Alex Noren and Nicolai Hojgaard might have something to say about that. Those two are joined by fellow European players Aaron Rai and Victor Perez looking to follow in the footsteps of Matt Wallace to win the title.
There are some other household names in the field who have slipped down the rankings and will be looking to use this to climb their way up. Daniel Berger is one of those with Ryan Palmer, Francesco Molinari and Jimmy Walker some others. K-H Lee and Garrick Higgo have won a PGA Tour event in recent times and will look to add this to their collection. Chad Ramey is a former champion in the field looking to double his tally of Corales wins.
Market Leaders
We have joint favourites to win the tournament this week at 14/1. They are the European pair of Alex Noren and Nicolai Hojgaard. A year or two ago I would be all over Noren in a field like this but I just sense the top of his game is behind him. Hojgaard would be much more to my liking but I wonder what a strong tilt at The Masters will have taken out of him. If the answer is very little then he is entitled to go very well here.
Billy Horschel at his peak would be a must back at 20/1. He probably still shouldn’t be completely ignored in this field because he is undoubtedly one of the better players in it and he hasn’t been in terrible form in recent times. I suspect he would be a better thing on a tougher course rather than one where ball striking isn’t the optimum requirement. Nevertheless, if class is permanent there aren’t many classier than him in the field this week.
Two other players come in shorter than 30/1 in the betting and both are 28/1. They are Doug Ghim and Kevin Yu. I’ll expand on Ghim below but needless to say he is someone I like the look of here. The other one is Kevin Yu who isn’t easy to brush aside either. Yu has been remarkably accurate this season and has plenty of decent finishers in much bigger events than this. The question is over whether he will take to the conditions. If he does he could be a threat.
Main Bets
As I eluded to above, Doug Ghim is my first main bet. He has missed his last two cuts in Houston and in Texas but there was a run of five tournaments earlier in the season where he had five successive top 20 finishes at the Farmers Insurance Open, Phoenix Open, Mexico Open, Cognizant Classic and The Players Championship so all on much tougher tracks than this and in fields a great deal better than the one he is competing in here. Ghim ranks 16 on the PGA Tour for Strokes Gained in Total this season which tells us he has been one of the better players in 2024. That should convert into a big finish here.
Victor Perez has made an acceptable start to the PGA Tour season and I think an event like this is right up his street. We know the exposed nature of this track won’t cause him any difficulty because he has won the Dunhill Links Championship and the KLM Open on the DP World Tour and he is one of the best drivers of the ball in the game when he is on song so I expect him to set up a number of scoring opportunities here. It feels significant that his best finish this season was at the Puerto Rico Open, which is the first of what you would call the secondary events this term and in a field arguably weaker than that one the Frenchman should have every chance here.
Outsiders
Henrik Norlander doesn’t have full status on the PGA Tour so this is a bigger week for him than it might be for many in the field as he looks to hit the success needed to get back among the paid ranks for much longer. He has had just three starts on the PGA Tour this season but the two that caught my eye were the T13 in Mexico and the T15 in Puerto Rico where the same grasses as will be on show here were in use. Norlander was T22 here last year so we know that he can travel hot around here. He would have been much more in contention had he not made a slow start. If he can start better here then with plenty of motivation he could get into the mix and deliver a strong week.
Adrien Dumont de Chassart burst onto the Korn Ferry Tour scene last year when he won on his debut. He then finished second the following week and had further top 10 finishes in five of the next six tournaments he played in so in the space of about two months he raced through that level to get a PGA Tour card. That jump up to the PGA Tour hasn’t really gone to plan yet but his best finish was in Puerto Rico where conditions are very much the same as they are here. He was T6 that week but opened with a one over par 73 before going down by two shots having played the last three rounds 18 under par. Had he started like he finished he would have won that tournament. He has shown on the Korn Ferry Tour that in weaker fields on easier layouts he can do some serious damage so I’ll pay to see if he can take that up to the main level with him here.
Tips
Back D.Ghim to win Corales Puntacana Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 26.00 with Coral (1/5 1-7)
Back V.Perez to win Corales Puntacana Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 29.00 with Boylesports (1/5 1-8)
Back H.Norlander to win Corales Puntacana Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 101.00 with Boylesports (1/5 1-8)
Back A.Dumont de Chassart to win Corales Puntacana Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 101.00 with Boylesports (1/5 1-8)
Back them here:
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