Corales Puntacana Championship Best Bets and Golf Odds:
While most of the PGA Tour’s top players are either in South Carolina for the RBC Heritage or taking this week off, the rest of the PGA Tour is in the Dominican Republic for the Corales Puntacana Championship.
Keith Mitchell (16-1) was this event’s runner-up in 2018 and comes in with back-to-back top-20 finishes.
Alex Smalley (18-1) is also a past runner-up (2022) and finished sixth here last year.
At 20-1 are Ben Griffin, with two fourth-place finishes this year, and Harry Hall, who won an alternate PGA Tour event at the ISCO Championship last summer.
Speaking of former ISCO Championship winners, Seamus Power (28-1) won that event as well in 2021.
Several European players are in this field as well, including Thorbjørn Olesen (28-1) and 2023 Corales Puntacana winner Matt Wallace (33-1).
Rico Hoey (33-1), Chan Kim (35-1), who was sixth here last year, Ryan Fox (35-1), along with Charley Hoffman, Joel Dahmen, Hayden Springer, Pierceson Coody and Ricky Castillo (all at 40-1) make up the next rung on the odds board.
Defending event champion Billy Horschel is in the RBC Heritage field this week and will not defend his title.
The Event
The Corales Puntacana Championship began as a Web.com (now Korn Ferry) Tour event in 2016. The event was promoted and transitioned to the PGA Tour as an alternate event in 2018. It is back to alternate event status, so no Masters invite is going to the winner, but 300 FedEx Cup points and a two-year PGA Tour exemption are on the line this week.
The Field
132 players are in this week’s Corales Puntacana Championship field.
The Course
The Corales Golf Club in Punta Cana is in the La Altagracia province on the southeastern tip of the Dominican Republic. The course was designed in 2010 by Tom Fazio and plays as a par-72 of 7,670 yards and is the second-longest course on the PGA Tour. It is an easy, flat (a rarity amongst Fazio designs) track with inland and coastal sections.
The wind can blow here and keep the scoring somewhat under control, but Corales is plenty scoreable, and there should be plenty of birdies. The portion of the course that is away from the shore has six holes with water hazards. Six holes play along the coast, including 16-18, known as “The Devil’s Elbow.” Supreme Paspalum, which is a turf that is becoming more widely used throughout courses, especially in the south due to its low maintenance and irrigation requirements, is used throughout the course. The fairways are wide and forgiving (75-yard average) and the sticky and smooth greens (6,000 square feet average) roll relatively slow at 11 on the stimpmeter.
There are also 94 bunkers on this layout, which is the second most of any course on the PGA Tour.
This course really doesn’t favor any player. It is gettable for both bombers and superior ball strikers, but it will largely be decided by who gets hot at the right time with the putter.
The outbound set of nine holes is where some serious scoring is essential. With the longest par-4 measuring 465 yards and two par-5s which measure only 565 yards (4th) and 515 yards (7th), the front side of the golf course is there for the taking. The inward nine is more stringent with both par-5s playing over 600 yards and the closing Devil’s Elbow putting up far sterner resistance.
Correlated courses include El Camaleon, Grand Reserve, Plantation at Kapalua, Kiawah Island and Vidanta Vallarta.
Corales Puntacana Championship Recent History/Winners
2024: Billy Horschel (-23/265); 20-1
2023: Matt Wallace (-19/269); 28-1
2022: Chad Ramey (-17/271); 50-1
2021: Joel Dahmen (-12/276); 50-1
2020: Hudson Swafford (-18/270); 200-1
2019: Graeme McDowell (-18/270); 40-1
2018: Brice Garnett (-18/270); 66-1
2017: Nate Lashley (-20/268); 28-1*
2016: Dominic Bozzelli (-24/264); 90-1*
* Web.com Events
Selections
Chan Kim (35-1, FanDuel)
Kim finished sixth here last year and was fifth two weeks ago at the Valero Texas Open.
He ranks third in this week’s field for Total Birdies and fourth in the field for Strokes Gained: Approach.
Alejandro Tosti (40-1, FanDuel)
The firebrand Argentine ranks ninth in the field for Strokes Gained: Off The Tee and sixth for Strokes Gained: Tee To Green.
He is a big hitter off the tee who should relish these wide fairways where he can hit it all over the place with reckless abandon.
Tosti is also off finishes of fifth in Houston and 12th in San Antonio.
Hayden Springer (50-1, Bet Rivers)
Springer missed the cut here last year, but he should fit the profile of this course as a big hitter off the tee.
He finished sixth at Torrey Pines and 15th at Houston on long tracks like this one.
Michael Thorbjornsen (60-1, Bet Rivers)
Thorbjornsen, the 2018 U.S. Junior Amateur winner, earned his spot on the PGA Tour this season, ranking No. 1 in the PGA Tour University rankings, which is what got Ludvig Åberg on the tour last year.
He ranks fourth on the PGA Tour for Driving Distance.
While he has only made three of nine cuts, Thorbjornsen is widely viewed as a big-time future talent, and this field is certainly a drop in class where he could potentially do well.
Danny Willett (125-1, Caesars Sportsbook)
Willett made the cut at Augusta, finishing T-42 and second in the field for Strokes Gained: Putting.
The former Masters champion finished eighth here in 2021 and finished ninth at Torrey Pines earlier this year, so he has shown flashes of getting back to form.
Placement markets, props, and/or matchups will be available Wednesday at VSiN.com/picks
