The shift of the World Golf Championships event scheduled for this week from Mexico City had little impact on the strength of field assembled for the event. Everyone in the world top 10 is entered, and 27 of the Hawley Ratings top 30 have tee times for the WGC-Workday Championship at The Concession.

Moving it to Concession Club to the Bradenton-Sarasota FL area adds another factor to this difficult equation, since the 15-year-old course has never hosted an event of this magnitude, and how the players will handle the course’s quirks is anybody’s guess.

Going mostly on the ratings numbers, with some emphasis on recent play and history in this first WGC event of the year, Dustin Johnson emerges as the top pick. There are no shocks as you move down the list, either – the top seven picks are the top seven guys in the ratings.

Here’s a little bit on the top two guys :

• Dustin Johnson – World no. 4 (Hawley Ratings) has been very consistent, and dominant when at top form. In his last nine appearances, going back to last August, he has finished 11th or better every time and won the Tour Championship, the Masters, and the Saudi event. He’s in the top 1 percent of PGA Tour/ Euro Tour players in greens in regulation.
• Jon Rahm – Was a little slow out of the gate last summer when professional golf re-opened, but now he hasn’t had a bad outing in many months. In his 12 most recent appearances, Rahm’s only time out of the top 20 was a 23rd at last year’s U.S. Open. In that span he won the Memorial and BMW and has six other top-10 finishes.

Dropping down a bit, here are three big-name players who have been playing great lately:

• Tony Finau – Give the guy a break. There is nothing wrong with a second-place finish. That’s where he’s ended the last three times out (Genesis, Saudi, Farmers). Overall, he’s been in the top 10 six out of the last seven appearances going back to December. In the top 5 percent in putts per GIR.
• Viktor Hovland – Going back to December, the 23-year-old Norwegian has been in the top 10 in five of the last six times out, including the win at Mayakoba and a runner-up finish at the Farmers. He’s in the top 5 percent in greens in regulation.
• Xander Schauffele — Another rock-steady player who hasn’t finished out of the top 20 in the last nine appearances going back to September. Has been second four times (Phoenix, Farmers, CJ Cup, Tour Championship).

The Concession Golf Club is a Jack Nicklaus/ Tony Jacklin design that opened in 2006. The name derives from Nicklaus’ action as a 29-year-old in 1969 to concede Jacklin’s missable three-foot putt on the last hole of the last group on the last day, thus halving the match. It was a great moment for sportsmanship. As far as naming a golf course after the action, not exactly unassuming.

Among the many course ratings lists out there, the Concession frequently is included among the 200 best tracks in the U.S. The Concession hosted the 2015 NCAA Division I Men’s Championship, won by Bryson DeChambeau with an 8-under-par 280 that beat C.T. Pan by a stroke. The event produced three other pros who are back this weekend — Rahm, Schauffele, and Scottie Scheffler.

Per golfdigest.com, the course flows across a variety of landscapes—meadows, wetlands, oak hammocks, and pine forests. The Concession has a reputation for wild, undulating greens. As you might expect in Florida, water comes into play on several holes, and bunkers are plentiful. One on-line comment says, “The greens have a lot of internal slopes, and mounds around the greens allow for multiple ways to play shots—including the option to use the ground into the greens, a great aid to playability.”

Although Florida claims dozens of Tour players as residents, no one in the event lists a residence within an hour of the tournament venue. Emiliano Grillo resides in Bradenton, but he’s playing the Puerto Rico event this weekend.

Here are two Euro players in the field who are flying well under the radar and whose seasons are on the up-tick:

• Laurie Canter – 32-year-old Englishman is in the top 1 percent of players in greens in regulation and is just off a successful swing thru the Middle East, where he was in the top five in both Dubai events and 21st at Saudi Arabia.
• Rasmus Hojgaard – The first player ever mentioned in these narratives who was born in the current century turns 20 in about two weeks. The young Dane had top-10 finishes in the last two of the three Dubai/ Saudi events. Top 10 percent in GIR.