2026 World Wide Technology Championship Golf Odds Preview: Everything To Know About El Cardonal At Diamante

The PGA Tour remains in Mexico for another week of Fall Series action. We remain on the Pacific coast, as the Tour travels from Puerto Vallarta to Cabo San Lucas, for continued FedEx Fall action. The 2026 World Wide Technology Championship is back for its fourth stint at El Cardonal at Diamante, settling in from its previous home at Mayakoba. Ahead, we’ll go through key course info and odds for the 2026 World Wide Technology Championship.

Designed by Tiger Woods in 2014, El Cardonal is anything but the test you might expect from the game’s greatest competitor. With oversized fairways and greens and negligible rough throughout the property, this resort course was designed to produce birdies in bunches. We’ve seen PGA Tour players feast on this layout in each of its first three years hosting the World Wide Technology Championship, producing winning scores of -29, -24, and -27 thus far. The course hasn’t gotten any more challenging over time either, with 16 players eclipsing 20-under-par when we were last here in 2025. With no changes made to this course since last year, and a relatively calm forecast in store, we should expect yet another pure birdie fest, offering separation for the hottest iron players and putters leading into this week.

Now, let’s get into the key facts and info about El Cardonal at Diamante before betting on World Wide Technology Championship odds. Be sure to lock in the best sportsbook promo codes from golf betting sites this week.

World Wide Technology Championship Golf Odds: The Favorites

Here are the favorites for World Wide Technology Championship golf odds. Scroll to the bottom of this post to compare odds for the entire field at betting apps in your state.

World Wide Technology Championship Odds: Field at a Glance

El Cardonal at Diamante’s amenities evidently are not as enticing as VidantaWorld’s, as the field quality has taken a slight step down since last week. While there are no OWGR top-20 players here in the field to headline, we will still see a solid representation of 21 OWGR top-100 players in Cabo. 

Ryan Gerard is your headliner and is likely to be the betting favorite when odds release on Monday. Gerard has gotten used to playing outside the United States lately, as this week will mark his fifth straight international start since the TOUR Championship, finishing T4 most recently at the Baycurrent Classic in Japan. 

In addition to Gerard, Ben Griffin, Jackson Koivun, Keith Mitchell, Ben James, and Blades Brown figure to open as the top favorites at El Cardonal. 

Ben Griffin is your defending champion, and he returns to Mexico this week for his title defense. Rust does not appear to affect Griffin, as he won in his first start since the TOUR Championship this time last year, and finished T4 at the Mexico Open at Vidanta last week, his first start since the BMW Championship. Griffin has thrived in easy scoring conditions throughout his career, and cited his comfortability playing aggressively as the key to setting the tournament scoring record at 29-under-par last year.

He’ll be joined by Erik van Rooyen and Austin Eckroat as past winners at El Cardonal in this week’s field. Matt Kuchar and Patton Kizzire are each past World Wide Technology champions in this field as well, back from its time at Mayakoba.

Introduction to El Cardonal at Diamante

Designed by Tiger Woods in 2014 with aid from Davis Love, El Cardonal is a resort course made for the casual golfer. While the championship tees stretch back to 7,452 yards, that is hardly a challenge for the modern PGA Tour pro. Look no further than Ben Griffin’s winning mark of -29 last year, where the scoring average was 13-under-par for the week, the easiest of any event in 2025.

Situated on the West Coast of Mexico in Cabo San Lucas, El Cardonal’s best defense is its exposure to coastal winds. Unfortunately, wind has really not played a part in this tournament’s first three years, rendering it virtually defenseless.

How It Breaks Down

If coastal winds do not intervene, El Cardonal sets up as the easiest venue on the PGA Tour schedule. Standing at 7,452 yards as a par-72, El Cardonal is not prohibitively long. In its first three years hosting, we’ve seen as many plodders (Matt Kuchar, Camilo Villegas, Andrew Putnam) as we did bombers (Erik van Rooyen, Ryan Palmer, Ludvig Aberg) atop the leaderboard. With gargantuan fairways and negligible rough on the property, skilled fairway finders get very little bonus, but it is a bona fide second-shot golf course that effectively neutralizes the importance of SG: OTT.

The paspalum greens at El Cardonal are also oversized but feature some tight tabletop runoffs similar to the greenside complexes at Kapalua, Corales, and PGA National. From a short-game perspective, these may serve as useful comps for the shot-making required at El Cardonal.

Still, with oversized fairways and greens and a winning score projected beyond 25 under par, players will not be asked to scramble too often on these grounds. Instead, the straightforward resort layout will reward in-form players with proven results in easy-scoring conditions who can spike with their irons and putt on paspalum greens.

El Cardonal at Diamante Course Specs 

• Yards: 7,452
• Par: 72 (4x 3s / 10x 4s / 4x 5s)
• Greens: Paspalum
• Architect: Tiger Woods
• Comp courses: TPC Craig Ranch, Vidanta Vallarta, Port Royal, Grand Reserve, Corales, Country Club of Jackson, Silverado Resort, PGA National, Black Desert Resort, Keene Trace
• Official Scorecard:

Course History and Course Comps 

While the World Wide Technology Championship has been a fixture on the PGA Tour schedule for decades, its previous host — El Camaleon at Mayakoba — does not serve as the best indicator for future success. Though both courses are Paspalum-based on resorts in Mexico, El Camaleon is an extremely claustrophobic course that emphasizes the importance of driving accuracy first and foremost. With El Cardonal offering much more forgiving fairways, I’ll look past event history when handicapping this week’s event.

Looking at performance in the first three years at El Cardonal, the top-10 in this field in terms of total strokes gained here are Matt Kuchar, Ben Griffin, Justin Lower, Garrick Higgo, Austin Eckroat, Beau Hossler, Patrick Rodgers, Sami Valimaki, Andrew Putnam, and Nick Dunlap. 

There are just three players in the field who have recorded multiple top-15 finishes at El Cardonal: David Lipsky, Joel Dahmen, and Garrick Higgo. 

And for my favorite stat, the “They play better here than anywhere else on the schedule” stat, six players have El Cardonal at Diamante ranked as a top-3 course by their own historical strokes gained baselines: Ben Griffin, Austin Eckroat, Sami Valimaki, Garrick Higgo, Nick Dunlap, and Justin Lower. 

Course Comps

In the absence of long-term course history to model, weeks like these require leaning on the right comp courses. With El Cardonal at Diamante, there are many styles of play that should translate well. However, easy scoring conditions, Paspalum greens, and forgiving landing areas off the tee are the most pertinent course characteristics I’m looking for.

Grand Reserve and Vidanta Vallarta stand out as the two most obvious starting points to reference for comp course history. Both are similar resort-style courses with generous fairways and greens. Both produce ample birdie opportunities when winds are down.

Looking beyond Pasapalum resorts, Keene Trace, Corales, Country Club of Jackson, and TPC Craig Ranch, and Black Desert Resort are also known to produce easy scoring conditions and have opened up low scoring for both plodders and bombers alike. Black Desert in particular shares in common similar firm and fast desert conditions at a similar yardage and scoring difficulty, so this will be a good week to reference results from the Bank of Utah Championship four weeks ago.

On the basis of profiling for pure birdie-makers, I also like Port Royal and Silverado Resort as a measure for players who can stockpile birdies in easy conditions.

Combine performance across this list, and the top 10 players in comp course history here are Ben James, Ben Griffin, Blades Brown, Matt Kuchar, Tony Finau, Steven Fisk, AJ Ewart, Garrick Higgo, Johnny Keefer, and Austin Eckroat.

KEY STATS TO CONSIDER for World Wide Technology Championship Golf Odds

• SG: APP / SG: Ball Striking
• Approach Fit
• Scrambling Gained
• Birdies or Better Gained / Go Low Percentage
• SG: TOT (Easy Scoring Conditions)
  SG: TOT (7,400+ & Easy)
• Par-5 Scoring
• SG: P (L36, Paspalum)
• Course & Comp Course History

El Cardonal is as easy as they come off the tee, serving as a second-shot golf course in its truest form. Accuracy skill is not rewarded here, as missing these oversized fairways has gone relatively unpunished. Distance has also not proven to give players a leg up here, so as long as you are not a bottom-20% player in SG: OTT, it’s the driver should not factor in to deciding this tournament.

It’s that open and nebulous feeling around this birdie-fest track that has be favoring the Approach Fit stat, which dynamically measures the percentage of approach ranges each player will have into these greens as a function of their driving distance. The 10 best players in terms of Approach Fit at El Cardonal include: Ben Kohles, Luke Clanton, Chris Kirk, Zac Blair, Billy Horschel, Ryan Gerard, Keith Mitchell, Austin Eckroat, Zach Bauchou, and Tom Hoge.

The ability to go low is a pre-requisite to contend at El Cardonal, as four rounds of 3-under par may not scratch the top-30 here. The top-10 players in Go-Low Percentage (Percent of rounds of 4-under-par or better) are: Ben Kohles, Seamus Power, Ben James, Kevin Yu, Blades Brown, Billy Horschel, Rico Hoey, Kristoffer Ventura, Steven Fisk, and Zach Bauchou.

In the spirit of going low, serious contenders will need to enter this week with confidence in their putter if they are going to push beyond 25-under-par this week. Seven players in this field rank top-30 in terms of both SG: APP and SG: P: Ben Kohles, Zac Blair, Ben James, Zach Bauchou, AJ Ewart, Kevin Yu, and Austin Eckroat.

To summarize it all, the ideal player for this week should rank above average in Comp Course History, SG: APP, SG: Putting, and Go Low Percentage. Ten players fit that criteria: Ben James, Blades Brown, Billy Horschel, Zach Bauchou, AJ Ewart, Luke Clanton, David Ford, Jordan Smith, Kevin Yu, and Christiaan Bezuidenhout.

PLAYER SPOTLIGHT: TRACE CROWE

The 30-year-old from North Carolina has been a bit of a late bloomer on the PGA Tour scene. This 2026 season is his second stint on the highest stage, and the ceiling potential has certainly been there, with two top-5 finishes on the year between the Zurich Classic and Bank of Utah Championship. 

His T3 showing at Black Desert Resort marked the best finish of his PGA Tour career, an encouraging sign for this week, considering the overlapping characteristics of both courses featuring firm and fast desert conditions, relatively calm weather, and similar yardages and scoring difficulty. Crowe led the field in SG: APP that week in Utah, and would have been poised to win if not for some miscues with the driver.

El Cardonal at Diamante is statistically one of the most forgiving courses off the tee on Tour, which should be music to the ears of Crowe, who enters amongst the hottest players in this field from fairway to green. Crowe ended on a high note at Vidanta last week, shooting the co-round-of-the-day at 8-under-par to finish T11 for the tournament. 

He ranked 2nd in both SG: APP and SG: P at Vidanta, the two most important stats for the birdie-fest ahead at El Cardonal. So if he can continue to ride that hot form in Mexico for one more week, he represents one of the most appealing values on the board at the World Wide Technology Championship. 

2026 World Wide Technology Championship: Player Pool and Model Results

With all the course-fit profiles in mind, I’m leaning early toward the player pool below. Naturally, I’m also looking their way in the PGA Tour odds. I’ve broken the list down by projected pricing/odds tier for DraftKings.

Model Breakdown

In my model, I’m emphasizing SG: APP, Comp Course History, Go Low Percentage, and SG: Putting, followed by a more balanced mix of Scrambling Gained, SG: TOT (L16), and Par-5 Scoring.

Model Favorites

Ben James continues to be a model darling throughout the Fall Swing, and he remains in the No. 1 spot in mine after yet another solid T16 showing at the Mexico Open last week. James has dominated on the easiest scoring venues thus far in his career, and should be licking his chops as he heads to Cabo for this birdie fest of all birdie fests. He’s No. 1 in Comp Course History, Recent Form, and Birdie or Better Percentage, and is a name I expect to be in contention over the weekend. 

After James, the rest of my model’s top 10 features Ben Kohles, Blades Brown, Jackson Koivun, Billy Horschel, Rico Hoey, Chris Kirk, Zach Bauchou, Seamus Power, and Johnny Keefer.

When PGA Tour odds open for the World Wide Technology Championship, I’ll look to hedge my exposure across a fairly long card, understanding the randomness that comes with a putting contest like this. Depending on where the World Wide Technology Championship odds ultimately fall, I’ll have my eye on players like Johnny Keefer, Ben James, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, and Trace Crowe. Check back in later this week for more updates, and best of luck navigating the World Wide Technology Championship odds!

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