posted February 19, 2007 at 13:54 EST in Golf Articles

El Camaleon Golf Club, Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Mexico
February 21 - 25, 2007

This weekend's inaugural Mayakoba Golf Classic is the first officially-sponsored-PGA event to take place outside of the United States or Canada. Since this tournament has never been played before, there is no available history to study to predict this year's winner.

Charles Howell, III, served notice to the golf world that his early high FedEx Cup ranking was not a fluke. During last weekend's Nissan Open, Howell claimed victory in the third hole of a playoff against the ever-crafty Phil Mickelson.

 

Ernie Els, Robert Allenby, Jim Furyk, Sergio Garcia and Padraig Harrington rounded out the top-seven last weekend.

Unfortunately, not one of those players is currently registered as part of the field for the Mayakoba tournament. Still, several top-notch players have their name in the hat to challenge for the first win in Mexico.

Pat Perez finished eighth at Riviera last weekend. Anthony Kim finished one-shot behind Perez. Both Perez and Kim could be considered early favorites in Mexico. Similarly, Harrison Frazar and Steve Elkington finished near the top of the leader-board in California and could find themselves in contention this weekend.

Perez's top-10 finish last weekend was his second of the season. He finished in exactly the tenth spot in Hawaii to start the season.

With a twenty-sixth ranking, Ted Purdy is tied with Mark Calcavecchia as the highest-ranked FedEx Cup golfer in Mexico. Purdy teed it up at Riviera last weekend, finishing a 37th, but that was off of the momentum of a ninth-place finish the week before at Pebble Beach.

 

Calcavecchia got off to a great start for 2007 by stringing together two consecutive top-10 finishes this season at the end of January (8th-place at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic and 4th-place at the Buick Invitational). His last tournament was the FBR Open in Scottsdale two weeks ago, where he failed to make the cut after the tournament's second round. Clearly, he would like to rebound off of that effort and what better way to do so than with the clean slate he will experience at El Camaleon.

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