It looked like Matthew Wolff was set to stretch his lead heading into the weekend in Mexico, but bogeys in two of his final three holes shrunk his lead in half to just two over Scottie Scheffler. They lead the rest of the field, but a bunch of names are just behind including the defending champion of this event, Viktor Hovland.
Wolff will go into moving day with a three-shot edge over Hovland and home-favorite Carlos Ortiz. They are being chased by a group of 10 others just one shot further back, led by the likes of Justin Thomas, Sergio Garcia and Billy Horschel. There are still 21 players within five shots of the leader going into the weekend on a course that has already given up some really low scores through the first two rounds.
I still see a lot of players in the hunt for the win at Mayakoba come Sunday afternoon and will look to continue to buy the value down the leaderboard with my best bets going into Round 3.
Best Bets
Sergio Garcia +2500 (DraftKings)
The best value I see in true shouting distance of the lead going into Saturday is with Sergio Garcia. He didn't score well on Friday with just a 2-under round, but it wasn't indicative of his play. Sergio actually hit it better on approach in his Friday 69 than he did during his opening-round 64. His biggest issue today was his blowup on the Par 4 16th where he took two drops en route to a double-bogey 6.
If Garcia can continue to rebound from that disaster and keep his game heading in the right direction this weekend, he will be just a hot putter from contention. We know he has the ability to close and capture a win, like he did during the fall swing last season, and at +2500 he has some nice value going into moving day.
Joaquin Niemann Top 10
We don't have placement odds from the books just yet, but I really like what I am seeing this week from Joaquin Niemann. He came in with some ball-striking struggles that we aren't used to for the Chilean, and it seems he has ironed those out through the first two rounds.
Niemann is hitting 75% of his fairways and has missed just eight greens through the first 36 holes this week in Mexico. He also started to roll it a little better on Friday and looks poised to position himself for a good finish this weekend. He's a couple shots too far back for me to consider him in the outright market, but I expect we can get some solid odds on him to finish in the top 10 before the players tee off on Saturday.
Round 3 Matchup Matthew Wolff +115 vs. Scottie Scheffler (DraftKings)
I know Matthew Wolff struggled a bit to get in the clubhouse on Friday, but it seems a little off to make him such a convincing underdog in the Saturday matchup with Scottie Scheffler. Wolff has been the best player in the field through two rounds, and actually he has the same number of fairways in greens during his 3-under round on Friday as he did in his 10-under 71 on Thursday.
Scheffler on the other hand has made the most of his play despite only hitting half of his fairways this week. He was able able to convert those tee shots into 16 greens in regulation, which made a huge impact on his ability to score. He will still need to find some better play off the tee to truly contend for the win, but my play in this matchup is more on the number in what I see as more of a toss-up than the books are posting.
