Ben Griffin birdied two of his last three holes to win Los Cabos last year. Despite opening with rounds of 65, 65 and 66, he started Sunday two shots behind. It took a close 63 to walk away with the trophy.
That’s a useful place to start this week’s World Wide Technology Championship preview. At El Cardonal in Diamante, a player can spend three days doing terrible right and still have work left to do.
Griffin returns Nov. 5-8 to defend his title in the sixth of eight FedExCup Fall events. The PGA Tour remains in Mexico following last week’s VidantaWorld Mexico Open, with 92 players from that field traveling to Los Cabos. For some, the dedication is to maintain good golf. For others, the remaining opportunities to earn a spot on next season’s schedule are becoming uncomfortably slim.
Kris Ventura offered the most immediate example last week. His tie for second moved him from 108th to 76th in the fall standings. Over the course of a tournament, his position relative to the top-100 exemption cutoff changed significantly.
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Griffin Learns How Low El Cardonal Can Go
Griffin’s winning total of 259 last year set the tournament’s 72-hole scoring record. It was his third victory in 2025, a season in which he finished 10th in the FedExCup standings.
His return comes with evidence that his game has traveled well after the break. He tied for fourth at the Mexico Open in his first Tour start since August’s BMW Championship. Through 26 starts this season, he has made 20 cuts and collected five top-10 finishes, with third in the Cadillac Championship being his best result.
A course record is more persuasive than a simple defending-champion label. Griffin has shot 66 or better in six of his last seven rounds at El Cardonal. Across 12 career rounds there, his average score is 67.08. That’s sustained production, reaching more than a Sunday low.
For a player trying to keep up with that kind of scoring, persistence can be more difficult in practice than it seems. A par starts to get expensive when birdies keep popping up elsewhere on the leaderboard. Risk allows the other person’s score to choose the next shot. Griffin’s past results give him a large body of evidence about what he can do here over four rounds.
The scorecard lists El Cardonal at 7,452 yards and a par 72. Last year, Sami Valimaki, Nick Dunlap and Garrick Higgo each shot 61. There is room for a player to make significant strides in a round, including when the tournament appears to be winding down.
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Ryan Gerard Comes With More Than Near-Misses
Ryan Gerard is the highest ranked player in the field at No. 23 in the world, two spots ahead of Griffin. His season included runner-up finishes at the Sony Open in Hawaii, The American Express and Memorial Tournament.
Those results invite an easy conversation about success getting away. His wider record deserves more attention. Gerard has eight top-10s in 27 starts this season and finished third in his first Tour Championship appearance. Six of his last seven Tour starts have produced top-25 finishes, most recently a tie for fourth at the Baycurrent Classic.
Evaluating a player by whether he finishes first can obscure how often he puts himself in position. Gerard already owns one Tour title, the 2025 Barracuda Championship. His current results make him stronger this week without the need to attach a psychological diagnosis to the three second place finishes.
He tied for 14th in this event in 2024 after missing the cut in 2023. Griffin has a stronger recent history at the venue; Gerard brings higher world rankings and consistently good finishes.
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Koivun and Stout Give Player Development a Place in the Story
Jackson Koivun has already compressed an impressive amount into his introduction to professional golf. The 21-year-old won the 3M Open in his third Tour start as a professional after receiving membership through PGA Tour University Accelerated. He has three top-10s in eight starts this season.
His appearance at the Presidents Cup added another setting in which to test him. Koivun went 2-0-1 for the winning US team, its only undefeated player. A Tour victory and an unbeaten team appearance are big results to carry at this stage of a career.
Preston Stout came from the earlier point on that move. The Oklahoma State senior leads the World Amateur Golf Ranking and the 2027 PGA Tour University Ranking. This year, he won his third straight Big 12 individual championship and the NCAA individual title.
Stout is making his seventh career start on Tour. He has made two cuts in his past six appearances, including a tie for 15th at this year’s John Deere Classic. That finish provides a useful reference for this week: He’s already played well past Friday and finished well against a Tour field. Reproducing that level is a more grounded measure of his progress than asking for an immediate Koivun-style breakthrough.
There are also quieter career milestones in the field. Exemption sponsor Austin Hitt will be making only his second Tour start, but he already has a 2027 membership earned after finishing sixth on the Korn Ferry Tour points list. He was a college classmate of Griffin and Gerard in North Carolina. Three players from the same college program arrive with unique professional resumes and a shared week ahead.
Top-100 Line Moves Fast
Ventura’s jump last week illustrates how much can change before the fall ends at the RSM Classic, Nov. 19-22. Max Greyserman also moved into the top 100, climbing from 103rd to 96th with a tie for 11th. Taylor Pendrith and Brandt Snedeker moved outside that line.
The final top 100 will be fully exempt for all full-field events and The Players Championship in 2027. Players outside that group face varying degrees of conditional status. For someone approaching that cutoff, certain positions on Sunday could affect how easily he gets into next year’s tournaments.
Further down the standings, Nos. 51-60 will earn spots in the 2027 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and Genesis Invitational. Andrew Novak’s victory at the Mexico Open moved him from 89th to 53rd, while Steven Fisk’s runner-up moved him from 70th to 54th. Fisk is in the field this week, one of six players to return after tying for sixth or better at the Mexico Open.
Griffin’s pursuit of another trophy is easy to follow. Also keep an eye on the players at the bottom of the leaderboard. At El Cardonal, a late birdie could move a player several places in this tournament and put a different set of starts into 2027.
PGA of America Golf Professional Brendon Elliott is aaward-winning coachand golf writerwho serves as Athlon Sports Senior Golf Writer. Read his recent “The Starter” at RG.org,where he is their Lead Golf Writer. To stay updated with all his latest work, sign up for himnewsletteror visit his MuckRack Profile.
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