Power Rankings: Corales Puntacana Championship

There are opportunities, and then there are opportunities. The Corales Puntacana Championship is, well, both.

The second Additional Event of 2024 is one of three tournaments with a PGA TOUR-long three consecutive breakthrough winners. Four of its six champions since debuting in 2018 were first-timers. But while a coronation awaits all in the field of 132 in the Dominican Republic, there are many secondary goals in play as well.

For details of what they are, how Corales Golf Club will play and more, continue reading below.

OTHER TO CONSIDER

• Mark Hubbard … He’s cashed in all 10 starts in 2024 with a season-best T4 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am where he’s been teasing something special for a long time, notwithstanding his successful marriage proposal in 2015. Profiles best on shorter courses like those on that rota but he’s T5 in par-5 scoring and firing well enough on all cylinders in his prime to be a threat just about everywhere.
• Rafael Campos … The native of Puerto Rico has been a long-time visitor to the Dominican Republic, so it’s not surprising at all that he’s never missed an edition of this tournament despite limited action as a PGA TOUR member. His career-best finish occurred at Corales Puntacana in 2021 when he fell one short of pushing Joel Dahmen into a playoff. With a similar ethos with which he’s familiar at home, it’s like a sixth major even though he’s never made a start in a defined major and the Puerto Rico Open (on paspalum) is the non-major nearest and dearest. It’s also where he recorded a season-best T18 a little over a month ago.
• Chan Kim … After a few flashes of his potential sprinkled across six seasons, including nine starts in 2021-22 that eliminated his rookie eligibility as a first-time member in 2024, the 34-year-old has found a pocket that allows his ball-striking to shine. He’s cashed in seven straight upon arrival and eight overall with a T8 on paspalum at the Mexico Open at Vidanta and a pair of T14s, including his most recent start at the Valero Texas Open. A weapon has been his play with the cut line in view. Currently fifth on TOUR in second-round scoring average with nothing but scores of par and better contributing.
• Peter Kuest … We were on Kuest Watch after he achieved and accepted Special Temporary Membership last summer, but he finished the equivalent of 139th related to members in the FedExCup. But he’s back and in the field at Corales Puntacana via a top-10 exemption for a T10 at the Valero Texas Open. It’s his only positive result in seven starts in 2024, the first six of which on the Korn Ferry Tour, but he exhibited enough punch last year to warrant attention for months. Let’s again watch what he does with this latest springboard.

Additional Events, like this annual trip to the eastern edge of Hispaniola, pay forward into so many objectives.

For example, this week’s RBC Heritage is a Signature Event in South Carolina and it includes the winner and the playoff victim of the first opposite event of 2024, the Puerto Rico Open. Champion Brice Garnett and runner-up Erik Barnes finished a respective first and second in the Aon Swing 5 to qualify for the guaranteed payday with beefier FedExCup points at Harbour Town Golf Links. Corales Puntacana sets up similarly as a play-in game for the next Signature Event of the season, the Wells Fargo Championship on May 9-12.

That’s an important lane because winners of opposite events don’t automatically qualify for Signature Events, just as they don’t get into the next Masters with the same victory. However, berths into the 2024 PGA Championship and the 2025 editions of The Sentry and THE PLAYERS Championship are promised.

The Corales Puntacana champ also banks 300 FedExCup points and will be set with a PGA TOUR membership exemption in the winners category through 2026.

At 7,670 yards, Corales Golf Club is long by anyone’s standards, but it’s a stock par 72 that’s surrendered scoring averages from a half-shot to a full shot under par most of the time. That’s a proper target again this week as the weather will be seasonable, so it will be predictable. Passing clouds will cover daytime highs in the low 80s while prevailing breezes pushing in from easterly directions will be steady but not significant.

Corales Puntacana is the third track in the last nine weeks that’s blanketed with paspalum, specifically Supreme. The fourth and final course on TOUR equipped with paspalum is El Cardonal at Diamante, host of the World Wide Technology Championship in the FedExCup Fall. Paspalum has paid off handsomely for a subset of veterans, including Garnett who prevailed in the inaugural edition at Corales Puntacana in 2018. His victory in Puerto Rico a month ago also was on the surface.

As a resort course, fairways at Corales Puntacana are welcoming. The field can have at it off the tee as the only rough is just an inch or so deep, but average-sized greens prepped to run 12½ feet on the Stimpmeter help protect scoring.

While Quail Hollow Club, which will host the Wells Fargo in three weeks, never will be confused with Corales Golf Club, the duo shares a trio of challenging holes at the conclusion of their rounds. Before the field at Quail Hollow contends with The Green Mile that wraps that trek, this week’s entrants will be tackling The Devil’s Elbow, a par-4-3-4 test at the finish line. Each of the holes has averaged over par in all five editions of the tournament when it’s been held in the spring. So, there’s likely to be more surrendering of a lead than emerging to grab it late.

NOTE: ShotLink is not utilized for this tournament.

ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE

MONDAY: Power Rankings (RBC Heritage)
TUESDAY: Power Rankings (Corales Puntacana); Sleepers (Heritage)
WEDNESDAY: Golfbet Insider
SUNDAY: Points and Payouts (Heritage); Points and Payouts (Corales); Medical Extensions; Qualifiers; Reshuffle

* Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, which also publishes on Tuesday.