Expect some eye-popping long shots in Mexico City
“... when you hit those drivers up in the air, they go pretty far.” Justin Thomas PGA Tour pro
MEXICO CITY – Bypassing the practice range, Bubba Watson headed straight to the golf course at Club de Golf Chapultepec on Monday to begin preparation for the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship.
With his second swing of the day, the wind slightly coming into him from the left, Watson flew the ball 252 yards.
With a 6-iron.
That’s not only Bubba long, that’s insane long. Many more eye-popping numbers will be put up this week in the first WGC of the year as the treelined 7,330-yard, par-71 layout rests 7,800 feet above sea level.
“There will be a 15 percent difference when he gets going,” Watson’s caddie, Ted Scott, said of the difference in distance his boss’s ball will carry in the high altitude compared to playing at sea level.
That’s the equation players need to figure out this week. Thus, Trackman, a launch monitor that examines each shot’s characteristics including ball speed, spin rate and distance, is working overtime as players dial in their games.
“I think this is going to be the best week for (Trackman’s) branding, for sure, versus any other week,” said Justin Thomas, who won his seventh title in his past 30 PGA Tour starts last weekend in the Honda Classic. “It’s very, very dependent on the shot you’re hitting and the club you’re hitting, but when you hit those drivers up in the air, they go pretty far.”
Other clubs go far, too. Defending champion Dustin Johnson’s driving distance went up last year when he hit
2-irons. But how far will a wedge go? How far will the ball go downwind or into the wind?
When it’s cooler in the morning compared to hotter in the afternoon? Shots that draw or fade? A three-quarter shot vs. a full shot?
“There will be tons of mathematics used this week,” Brendan Steele said. “It scrambled my brain a little bit last year.”
Chez Reavie was in full mathematician mode Tuesday on the range in his first trip to the tournament. For 2 hours,
30 minutes, he and his caddie, Justin York, went to work with numbers spinning around in their heads.
“We jumped on the Trackman to get numbers,” Reavie said. “I hit 10 balls with every club to find a median number each ball was carrying. And we found about a 15-18% difference. We have all the clubs plotted now and from there we’ll rely on feel. But at least we have a ballpark figure now.”
Reavie has been hitting the ball solid all year, having lost in a playoff to Gary Woodland in the Waste Management Phoenix Open and finishing in a tie for second in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro- Am. He said hitting the ball solid this week will be a key in the high altitude.
“I noticed that shots you really flush seem to carry a little longer because the ball stays in the air longer,” he said. “The mishits go much shorter here than they do at home. It’s a big difference.”
Justin Rose said he thinks the course favors the high-ball hitter more than the long-ball hitter, because the ball will stay in the air longer and the course requires a lot of wedges to be hit. As well, the tight course favors accuracy, especially with the sloping, small greens.
But big-hitting Woodland thinks length is a huge advantage. He’s had success in high altitude; in the Barracuda Championship played at Montreux Golf and Country Club midway between Reno and Tahoe in Nevada, which rests about a mile above sea level, Woodland won in 2013 and finished second in 2016 in his only starts.
“Here, the big hitters are hitting irons over 300 yards on a golf course where hitting the fairway is a premium,” Woodland said. “Once you get the hang of it, it’s a huge advantage for the guys with a lot of length. I love playing at high elevation. And it’s nice to have a caddie who is good with numbers so I don’t have to do too much with it.”