Aberg on course for first US strike

Just as the DP World Tour has had to ditch wonderful Valderrama when the Saudi-backed LIV circuit hijacked the course for its own $25m tournament in Spain, so a similar situation on the US scene means that the long-standing deal with El Camaleon for one of two annual PGA Tour visits to Mexico is toast after a 16-year run.

When LIV nicked Mayakoba for its opening tournament of the year, the PGA Tour had to look elsewhere for a new host course for what is now the World Wide Technology Championship.

They have come up with El Cardonal at Diamanté Cabo San Lucas, Tiger Woods’s first venture into course design in 2014. It’s a 7452-yard par 72 and with exceptionally wide fairways, long greens, risk-and-reward holes, danger in the dunes and water hazards, could turn out to be a bombers’ paradise.

As it’s a new venue to the PGA Tour, punters are advised to tread carefully but it’s not hard to envisage massive hitters like the two Camerons, Young and Champ, doing well alongside Luke List, already a winner in the Fall Series at the Sanderson Farms.

Six-time runner-up Young, and often in the best of company, must close the deal soon but for that to happen his putting and reaction to pressure need to start measuring up. He hasn’t played on tour since August and was more than a little miffed not to get a wild-card pick for the Ryder Cup. Could this huge hitter be the next LIV signing?

List is wildly inconsistent but does know to finish the job off. He proved that at Torrey Pines last year and produced the 45ft extra-time birdie to edge home in a five-way Sanderson Farms shootout in early October.

New Swedish star Ludvig Aberg gets it out there long and straight, had immediate success in Europe with that victory in Crans, and everything he’s done in the States in his embryonic seven-month career shouts WINNER. This modest affair looks perfect for this special new kid on the block to go one better than he did at the Sandersons and crack the US scene.

Russell Henley is the defending champion and can’t have been too pleased at the change of venue – I don’t think this one will suit him as well – Beau Hossler has hit a rich vein of form but has been too tentative on Sundays to expect more than a top-five from him, and Sahith Theegala finally nailed one down at the Fortinet, surely the first of many for this colourful character.

Belgium’s Thomas Detry wouldn’t be winning out of turn, Sweden’s Henrik Norlander showed what he’s made of when reaching the Sandersons playoff, and Germany’s Matti Schmid really should have won the Andalusia Masters two weekends ago but dithered down the home stretch permitting a grateful Adrian Meronk to take advantage.

Young Matti may need time to get over that. He’s got a great swing but the jury’s out as to whether he has a matching temperament. That’s built into his price but I daren’t pass when a tasty 100/1 is on the table. True, he’s missed 19 cuts in trying to.play both main tours but last week’s big effort at Sotogrande could be a turning point.

I’ll toss one more in, an even bigger outsider at 200/1 – that’s the quote for Ryo Ishikawa, once the golden boy of Japanese golf who beat the cream of the Japan Tour crop as a 15-year-old amateur. After dazzling early success which featured a round of 58, he was never the same after the tsunami that hit his country and his family hard in 2011. Suddenly we are seeing him again. Last November he won one of the Japan Tour’s marquee tournaments, the Taiheiyo Masters, and further signs ‘the Bashful Prince’ – that was what his huge fan club call him – has more to offer came with his T4 behind Collin Morikawa at the ZOZO.

No weather concerns down Mexico way. Four sunshine rounds under flawless skies and temperatures around 85. It’s a tough job but someone has to do it.