Last year, Mickelson forced a playoff after firing a final-round, 5-under, 66 to match Justin Thomas (already in the clubhouse). Mickelson won the sudden-death on the first hole with a two-putt par when Thomas failed to get up-and-down from behind the green at the par-3, 17th hole. Lefty's 43rd victory came in his 578th career start at the age of 47 years, 5 months, and 12 days, making him the oldest winner of a World Golf Championships event. Here are five things you need to know about this year's WGC-Mexico Championship.
Ancer's Ascension
As Mexico's top-ranked player, Abraham Ancer will compete at the WGC-Mexico Championship for the second consecutive year. When Ancer arrived in Mexico last year Ancer was ranked 260th in the Official World Golf Rankings. This week he comes in ranked 61st in the World.
Ancer finished 60th in the FedExCup standings last year, and became the first player from Mexico to climb into the top-100 in the OWGR following a T-4 finish at the 2018 Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. The Presidents Cup hopeful then put an exclamation point on 2018 with a victory at the Emirates Australian Open last December, and is currently No. 6 in the International Team standing.
Number 4
Monster Field
This week's field includes 28 of the 30 players that qualified for the 2018 TOUR Championship, and 46 of the top 50 in the current Official World Golf Ranking. That's what you'd call a big boy field, and not surprisingly the competition here has always been fierce. Seventeen of the last 19 WGC-Mexico Championships have been decided by two strokes or fewer, including the last eight.
Past winners of the WGC-Mexico Championship in the field include Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Tiger Woods, and Patrick Reed (2014). Brooks Koepka is searching for this first WGC title after finishing T-48 in his only start at Club de Golf Chapultepec in 2017, while Justin Thomas has two top-5s in three previous starts here. Fourteen players will be making their WGC-Mexico Championship debut this week, including DeChambeau and Eddie Pepperell.
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PGA Tour in Mexico
The WGC-Mexico Championship is one of two current PGA Tour events in Mexico along with the Mayakoba Golf Classic (which dates back to 2007) Part of the secret to winning at Club de Golf Chapultepec is properly determining the altitude's role when choosing clubs.
The lowest elevation of the Club de Golf Chapultepec is 7,603 feet above sea level, and the highest part is at 7,835 feet. By comparison, Montreux Golf & Country Club (host of the PGA TOUR’s Reno-Tahoe Tournament) is 5,476 to 5,952 feet above sea level. The par-4, 563-yard, 3rd hole is is the second longest par-4 on Tour, while the par-3, 17th hole (dubbed "The Peak") features the most severe elevation change on the course.
Number 4
Mickelson's 600th Career Start
Defending champion Phil Mickelson returns to Club de Golf Chapultepec in what will be his 600th official career PGA Tour start. Mickelson is in top form after collecting his 44th career Tour victory two weeks ago at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
Last year Mickelson defeated Justin Thomas in a sudden-death playoff in Mexico City to end a 96-event PGA TOUR winless drought. Phil has won three World Golf Championships (2009 Mexico Championship, 2009 HSBC Champions, and 2018 Mexico Championship), and looks to join Dustin Johnson (five) and Tiger Woods (18) as the only players with four or more WGC titles.
Number 1
Woods First Start in Mexico
Tiger Woods has won a record 18 World Golf Championships in nine different locations, but will be making his first-ever start in Mexico this week. Woods is a seven-time winner of this event with victories in Spain, England, Ireland and the United States (San Francisco, suburban Atlanta and Miami), and is just two wins shy of Sam Snead’s all-time Tour win record of 82.
Since 1999, no player has more rounds leading or co-leading in World Golf Championships stroke-play events than Tiger, who has led or co-led in 39 rounds. By comparison that's 29 rounds more than the next best of 10 rounds led or co-led by Dustin Johnson. In this same time frame Woods is a combined 256-under par in official World Golf Championships stroke-play events, marking the best score to par of any player in these events. Again the next best is Dustin Johnson, 127 strokes behind at 129-under par. And by any standard, this time of dominance is absolutely mind-boggling.
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