Best Bets Today – Feb. 19, 2025
FTN Staff
Moving on from the West Coast, the PGA Tour heads to Mexico this week for the Mexico Open at VidantaWorld. It sounds like an amusement park but in this case it’s a golf resort.
This event has been hosted by Vidanta for three years now so let’s dive in to see what it takes to contend here.
Course Fit
When looking for a course fit, one way I prefer to search is through past performance on similar course styles.
This week’s host course is Vidanta Vallarta, a par 71 that play over 7,400 yards from the tips. Four of the par 4s play over 475 yards while just one is under 415 yards and that one is under 300 yards so an easier approach if you have distance. Combine all of that and we are looking at a long course that plays into the hands of the bigger hitters.
Off the tee, this is as straightforward of a test as you find on the PGA Tour. It’s open and exposed with some trees sprinkled here and there but nothing that is going to reroute you in terms of club selection. As Harry Higgs put it in 2023, “There’s no hybrids off any tees here, it’s just driver, hit it as far and as straight as you can.”
For grass type it’s wall-to-wall paspalum and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a course with paspalum be able to test Tour golfers from the rough. So, it’s a course you can pound driver and there isn’t much of a penalty for missing the fairways.
So for our split stat specialist search, let’s look at past performance on long courses that are exposed (not heavily treelined), with a small penalty for missing the fairway, while also focusing on past performance on other paspalum courses. Now taking those four split stat angles, here are the names who show the biggest increase in performance when playing courses with similar splits relative to their baseline.
- Jesper Svensson
- Justin Lower
- Akshay Bhatia
- Aldrich Potgieter
- Ben Kohles
- Jake Knapp
- Taylor Moore
- Rikuya Hoshino
- Victor Perez
- Carson Young
Depending on how deep you are in the world of golf, this is either a really ugly list or a really juicy looking list.
There are mashers like Svensson, Potgieter, and Knapp and plodders like Lower, Kohles, and Carson.
Head over to the Split Stats page to see who the top performers are in these split stat categories.
Outright Odds
Here’s what the top of the board looks like on DraftKings Sportsbook:
We finally get a break from Scheffler, McIlroy, and JT at the top. I would say the top of the board this week is a bit stronger than previous Mexico Opens but without any superstars at the top, this does open the door for some longer shots as well. You can check the FTN PGA Betting Model to see what our model projects their chances to win this week.
Mexico Open Free Golf Bets
Jesper Svensson Top-10 Finish (+650)
When I made my season-long rankings for 2025 I had Rasmus Hojgaard, Tom McKibbin (before he went to LIV) and Svensson as my three standouts. Svensson has mixed results to start the year with a T10 at the Sony before missing back-to-back cuts and grabbing a ho-hum T63 last time out.
The top 10 at Sony was notable because that’s not a course I would have guessed suited his game as a pure bomber. The Swede has a moving average of 10 yards longer than Tour average, which puts him inside of the top 15 in terms of length this week.
Based on performances on similar courses, I have his top-10 chances at 18% and 16% based on one-year baseline data, so there is value when the marketing is offering +650 (13% implied top-10 odds).
Taylor Moore to Win (25-1, one-fourth each-way for 5 places)
He was sporadic with his results in 2024 but even just glancing at his results you can quickly see that most of his spike weeks came on courses that allow him to grip it and rip tip. Moore is top 20th percentile on Tour in distance and his best iron-play bucket is 200+ yards. That was a recipe for a top 10 in Phoenix and should work well this week on another course that lets his driver shine.
Hayden Springer Top-20 Finish to Win (+400)
If you saw the course fit model this week, posted by Alex in the Discord, then you see just how much distance popped. So, when Springer popped as a potential value this week in the top-20 market, I had to hop on considering his primary (only) strength is power. He’s been at least 8 yards longer than Tour average in 15 of his last 22 starts. Perhaps the biggest hint was a sixth-place finish just two starts ago at Torrey Pines. The FTN Betting Model gives him a 27% chance at grabbing a top-20 finish, so there is plenty of value in this +400 number which implies a 20-percent chance.
Keep an eye on the PGA bet tracker for more plays.
