I love this place!

Entrants ranked on history in the event. The value reflects the player’s success and number of years competed within the last eight years, weighted in favor of more recent seasons. A value of 1.000 would mean the player appeared every year and won every time. A value of about .715 puts the player in the top 1 percent of all players who have played the event at least once in the last eight seasons, a value of .335 puts a player in the top 10 percent.

Player	History
Jon Rahm	0.686
Gary Woodland	0.531
Tony Finau	0.526
David Lipsky	0.409
Lanto Griffin	0.398
Aaron Rai	0.316
Erik Van Rooyen	0.309
Chez Reavie	0.297

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Top of the heap

The top eight players (per the Hawley Ratings) among this event’s entries.

Player	Rank	Rating
Jon Rahm	3	2040.0
Tony Finau	11	1398.4
Wyndham Clark	49	877.3
Davis Riley	56	822.7
Maverick McNealy	58	800.2
Gary Woodland	62	750.3
Alex Noren	63	749.7
Andrew Putnam	64	747.7

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Sorry, can’t make it

The top four players (per the Hawley Ratings) who are not playing this event.

Player	Rank	Rating
Patrick Cantlay	1	2272.2
Scottie Scheffler	2	2228.5
Xander Schauffele	4	1959.9
Rory McIlroy	5	1919.9

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Ooh, that’s hot

Players are ranked by performance in their last four appearances in comparison with their current Hawley Rating.

Player	Upward change
Wyndham Clark	895.7
Chez Reavie	723.7
Patrick Rodgers	668.0
Byeong Hun An	529.8
Aaron Rai	470.6
Sean O’Hair	461.5
Nick Hardy	439.3
MJ Daffue	421.6

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Brr, that’s cold

Players are ranked by performance in their last four appearances in comparison with their current Hawley Rating.

Player	Downward change
Maverick McNealy	-651.6
Alex Noren	-509.2
Erik van Rooyen	-488.0
Taylor Pendrith	-487.5
Ben Taylor	-470.5
Alex Smalley	-447.3
Brandon Wu	-443.6
Robby Shelton	-428.1

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Certain skills required

Among a set of 10 PGA Tour and DP World Tour statistics that reflect physical characteristics of the Vidanta Vallarta course, this table shows the four that have the highest unique correlation with player performance. This reflects last year’s event on this course, and the minimum is 80 player appearances. In mathematical terms, the number shown is the partial correlation coefficient.

Stat value	Statistic
0.31	Driving distance
0.19	Putts per GIR
0.15	Scrambling
0.08	Driving accuracy

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Location, location, location

Event entrants ranked by predicted score per 18 holes based solely on “course fit” — i.e. based on the player’s current percentile standing in each of the four statistics shown above.

Course fit	Player
Jon Rahm	66.91
Byeong Hun An	68.26
Tony Finau	68.56
Wyndham Clark	68.86
SH Kim	69.11
Maverick McNealy	69.14
Patrick Rodgers	69.28
Harry Higgs	69.37

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Anyplace but here

Event entrants ranked by worst predicted score per 18 holes based solely on “course fit” — i.e. the player’s current percentile standing in each of the four statistics shown above.

Course fit	Player
Kyle Stanley	78.0
Scott Brown	76.3
Francesco Molinari	75.1
Chez Reavie	74.6
Cameron Percy	74.3
Camilo Villegas	74.1
Doc Redman	74.0
Jonathan Byrd	74.0

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Staying close to home

Exempt entrants ranked by miles between their listed residence as of January 2023 and the Vallarta, Mexico, the event host city.

Player	Residence	Distance
Dylan Frittelli	Austin TX	800
Trevor Werbylo	Tucson AZ	875
Michael Kim	Houston TX	875
Mark Hubbard	The Woodlands TX	900
MJ Daffue	Kingwood TX	900
Brian Stuard	Fort Worth TX	925
Brent Grant	Chandler AZ	975
Scott Harrington	Scottsdale AZ	975
Jon Rahm	Scottsdale AZ	975
Nate Lashley	Scottsdale AZ	975
Dylan Wu	Scottsdale AZ	975
James Hahn	Scottsdale AZ	975
Kevin Streelman	Scottsdale AZ	975
Harrison Endycott	Scottsdale AZ	975
Chez Reavie	Scottsdale AZ	975

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Mathematically speaking

The following table shows the correlations between player ranking in the above tables and their actual finish positions. In other words, to what extent does the ordering of players in the table correspond to the order of finish.

Statistic	Correlation to results
Top of the heap	0.374
I love this place	0.176
Ooh, that’s hot	0.132
Location, location, location	0.107