Mayakoba Has Star Power And A Decent Field — For A Reason

The Mayakoba Classic hasn’t been much of a classic over the years, it’s basically been a tournament for “AYO” — as in “All You Others” — but this week there’s some star power with Justin Thomas and Brooks Koepka showing up along with all the guys grinding to finish 2020 in the world’s top 50.

This is the final PGA Tour event for calendar year 2020.  Finish in the top 50 in the world rankings and you’re in the 2021 Masters.  Motivation?  Of course.

Nice to see J.T. and Brooks wanting to tee it up before 2021.  That’s not the case with many of the big names — world No. 1 Dustin Johnson has called it a year after winning The Masters — no worries there, he’s entitled to some down time.  We won’t see Rory McIlroy until sometime next year.  Yes, it’s that time of the year, pretty much leftovers.

One guy playing this week who needs to get after it is Rickie Fowler.  Fowler used to be, and note we say “used to be” a staple in the world’s top 10 but it looks like he’s on that Jordan Spieth path to nowhere.  Rickie’s 48th in the world now and threatening to fall out of the top 50 for the first time since he was in his early 20s and still a newcomer to the PGA Tour.

Last season it was Brendon Todd who came out on top at El Camaleon on his way to an extraordinary comeback.

There typically isn’t anything exciting coming out of Mayakoba with the exception of “The Great Caddie-Mooch” caper when Matt Kuchar won back in 2018 with local caddie David “El Tucan” Ortiz on the bag.  Kooch went and stiffed the “Tucan” with a paltry sum of about $3,000 while Kooch pocketed north of $1.1 million, earning him the nickname “Kooch The Caddie Mooch.”

After taking months and months of flak from every corner of golf’s social networks, Kuchar finally relented and ended up stroking a big check to Ortiz — something he should have done when he won.

Which brings us back to this week down in Mexico.  With much of the U.S. in the “chilly temperature” mode, it’s good that they’re closer to the equator.  It’s also good to have a couple of studs like J.T. and Brooksie in the field.

Naturally J.T. is pretty much expected to win, he’s ranked third in the world and there’s not another guy in the top 10 to be seen as Koepka has tumbled to No. 12, something that probably doesn’t sit that well with him.  This is Koepka’s chance to show he’s on his way back with this less-than-stellar field.

Two players getting a lot of attention down there this week will be Abraham Ancer and Carlos Ortiz.  Both are Mexican although Ancer has dual citizenship, it’s totally in vogue these days for Mexico to claim him as their own.  If one of them were to win, well, the government just might declare a national holiday afterward.

Typically there’s not an official event this late.  But COVID-19 has messed with every sport and every nation creating its own form of chaos.  November and December used to be reserved for those big money “silly season” events although they snuck one in on us last week with that Mickelson-Barkley vs. Manning-Curry match in Arizona.

No, there’s nothing silly about this week’s field.

It has enough big names to at least make it interesting.