Three Things to Know for the PGA Tour's World Wide Technology Championship

With time winding down for players to secure their Tour cards for 2025, the PGA Tour heads to Tiger Woods-designed El Cardonal at the Diamante Cabo San Lucas resort in Mexico.

Erik van Rooyen returns to El Cardonal to defend his title. / Dan Hamilton-Imagn Images

Time to head south of the border.

For the third-to-last event of 2024, the PGA Tour will host The World Wide Technology Championship at El Cardonal on the Diamante Cabo San Lucas resort at the tip of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula.

Since its inception in 2007, the tournament has produced a variety of champions—from surprises to stars to first-timers.

With time winding down for players to secure their Tour cards for 2025, what might we see this year?

Here's what you need to know.

1. Time's running out

With three events left in the FedExCup Fall, players are fighting to secure their cards for 2025. Players inside the top 125 in points will do so.

Matt Wallace is the bubble boy, sitting at No. 125. However, he's safe for next year by virtue of his 2023 win at the Corales Puntacana Championship. 

Vince Whaley, Henrik Norlander, S.H. Kim, Hayden Springer and Joel Dahmen sit at Nos. 120-124 on the points list, and are all in the 120-player field this week.

Plus, the first five out (Joe Highsmith, Kevin Tway, Alejandro Tosti, Daniel Berger and Pierceson Coody) are also in the field.

View the full field here—and the points list here.

2. Tiger's course makes its mark

The first 16 iterations of the WWT Championship took place in Riviera Maya at Mayakoba. However, when the course accepted an offer to host a LIV Golf event, the PGA Tour moved the event to the Tiger Woods-designed El Cardonal.

And like his golf, Woods’s layout made an impression on the players.

“Tiger was talking about how he just likes to make people think on the golf course and the back nine out here is just all strategy,” Sahith Theegala said ahead of last year's tournament. “There's very few drivers, a lot of placement. You need to have good angles or else these little cacti come into play and the way the arroyos and the desert is around the greens. It's a nice blend of kind of tactical, strategic golf.”

El Cardonal is a par-72, 7,452-yard layout. The average fairway widths are 60 yards with zero acres of rough. There are 48 bunkers with one water hazard. The average green size is 8,300 sq. ft.

In 2023, Erik Van Rooyen won at 27 under par. In addition to setting the tournament record in relation to par, that mark was tied for the second-lowest total on Tour all year.

3. An emotional title defense

Van Rooyen's path to victory last year was as impressive as it gets.

The South African went birdie-birdie-eagle in his final three holes for a back-nine 8-under 28 to claim the victory, having come into the week ranked 125th in the FedExCup Fall standings, the last spot to keep his card for the following season.

But the victory was bigger than golf.

Jon Trasamar, his best friend and former teammate at the University of Minnesota was battling Stage 4 melanoma.

“He’s not gonna make it,” van Rooyen told NBC Sports on the 18th green after the win. “Every shot out there today was for him. And when you’re playing for something bigger than winning some silly trophy, it puts things in perspective.

“At the end of the day, whether I won here or I lost here, it really did not matter. When something motivates you like that, whether you make a putt or miss a putt, who cares?”

Van Rooyen won on Nov. 5 and boarded a flight to Minnesota the next morning to say goodbye. Trasamar died on Nov. 11.

How to watch

All four rounds of the World Wide Technology Championship will be on Golf Channel from 2–5 p.m. ET Thursday through Sunday. PGA Tour radio will also broadcast all four rounds from 1–6 p.m. ET.