Tres Marias Championship Preview

Ten days ago. the Tres Marias Championship was just a regular full-field event in Mexico with no U.S. television coverage and little media attention.  Now it looms as the virtual swan song of one of the Tour's greatest players and the home country's greatest golfing star.  Lorena Ochoa, who is also the two-time defending champion of this event, will be saying goodbye in what is sure to be an emotional week.  Did I mention that this suddenly momentous occasion will not be televised in the United States?  Oh yeah, twice already...

Ochoa out-dueled Suzann Pettersen to win last year's event (known as the Corona Championship) by one stroke and won the 2008 edition by eleven.  In fact, Lorena won three of the last four Corona titles and under normal, less emotional circumstances would be a prohibitive favorite to win here again.  We'll address that possibility in a moment.

Tres Marias is an oddity in that par is 73 - because of the hilly terrain, one of the back-nine par-4s is played as a par-5.  Thanks to good weather, last year's scoring average was below par for the first time in the event's history.  Again I'll lobby the powers-that-be to make Tres Marias match the Tour's standard of 72.  73 is just weird, and really - does it matter much whether the winner of this event shoots -25 or only -21?

Thanks to the sparse early-season schedule, the 2010 event has its strongest field ever.  Even though the Field Score of 66 is the highest I've ever measured at Tres Marias, it is by far the lowest of 2010.  Seven of my Top 10 players are here (missing only Shin, Kerr and Tseng - three biggies, I'll admit) and 28 of my Top 40.  Even more telling, the field's cutoff point comes after Player #149 - last year's was after #324.  The field is only 132 for some reason (same as last year but 2008's was only 100) and for all intents and purposes is smaller than that, with eight sponsor's exemptions being allocated. 

This isn't exactly the final tournament for Lorena Ochoa.  There is always the chance that she would decide to make a comeback someday, although I doubt it almost as much as I doubt the eventual return of Annika Sorenstam.  She said in her press conference that she will continue to play in the Ochoa Invitational each November.  Once-annual tournament appearances aren't conducive to keeping one's game in winning form.  Therefore, this is probably the last tournament ever which we should expect Lorena to contend for the win.  In light of her fourth-place finish at the Kraft Nabisco, I can't pass up this final opportunity to predict that she'll do it.