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The Devil's Mouth cenote on El Camaleon's first hole.
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Yesterday, the PGA Tour concluded its first south-of-the-border tournament ever, and it was held at a course that you can play on a Mexico golf vacation.
It was no surprise to us that Fred Funk walked away with the hardware based on what we found when we visited the Greg Norman-designed El Camaleon course at the Fairmont Mayakoba resort, which hosted the event.
As we tipped off readers in the February 2007 issue of Golf Odyssey, our premium, monthly newsletter:
Golfers who can keep the ball in play and produce with their short game will see El Camaleon is a friendly host. Its fairways are reasonably wide and there’s no rough to speak of. For players who spray the ball beyond the groomed turf, however, it becomes a gnarly monster as its thick jungle vegetation, swampy mangroves and series of sparklingly clear canals offer no reprieve. The other threats to scoring come from Norman’s bold bunkering and fiendishly contoured greens.
Funk is known as one of the most accurate players on the PGA Tour, currently ranking fourth in driving accuracy this year. He also ranks first in sand save percentage, getting up-and-down an impressive 76 percent of the time when he’s in a greenside bunker.
Speaking of stats, if the PGA Tour continues its relationship with El Camaleon, or if you play it on a Mexico golf vacation, a new measure may need to be created, cenote saves. A cenote (se-NO-tay) is a limestone, cave-like structure similar to an underground lava tube. This exotic course is crisscrossed by them and players get a glimpse of one on the first hole, where an opening, called the Devil’s Mouth, sits smack dab in the middle of the fairway.
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