Johnson odds on for fifth win

Mexico City – Reigning champion Dustin Johnson (above) is favourite to win a fifth World Golf Championship (WGC) title this week where the world No 1 will stare down a strong field featuring six of the world’s top 10 golfers.

Johnson’s victory last year came during a red-hot stretch in which he won three consecutive tournaments, including the WGC-Match Play event, before his run was halted by a freak back injury on the eve of the US Masters.

The long-hitting American already has three top-10 finishes in four PGA Tour starts this season, including a January victory at Kapalua, and will tee off at Club de Golf Chapultepec with an eye on gaining some momentum ahead of the April 5-8 Masters.

Johnson, 33, has enjoyed plenty of success at WGC events and first won this tournament in 2015, when it was held at Trump National Doral in Miami. His victory here last year earned him the world’s number one ranking.

But for him to defend his title, he will have to fight off every top 50 player except for Jason Day, Hideki Matsuyama, Rory McIlroy, Henrik Stenson, and Brooks Koepka, making it as deep a field as one will find ahead of the Masters.

Among the other top players in the field this week are world number two Jon Rahm, who finished third here a year ago, and reigning Player of the Year Justin Thomas, fresh from his Sunday triumph at the Honda Open and showing no signs of slowing down.

Johnson, Rahm and Thomas, who have been grouped together for the opening two rounds, teed off from the 10th tee.

Phil Mickelson, who won the event in 2009, teed off with plenty of confidence as he has earned top-10 finishes in each of his last three starts, including a share of second place at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

World No 5 and former champion Justin Rose, who won the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai last October, returns to action after a four-week break.

The Englishman, who came within a whisker of winning the US Masters last April where he fell in a play-off to Spaniard Sergio Garcia, edged Johnson in Shanghai and is vying to become only the third man in history to claim back-to-back WGC titles.

Last year’s runner-up, Briton Tommy Fleetwood, is coming off a fourth-place finish at the Honda Classic and will be eager to return and seek his first PGA Tour win.

Fleetwood is grouped with Masters champion Sergio Garcia and Swede Alex Noren. –