Seeking Status: Mexico Offers Chance to Join Masters, Signatures

Seven weeks into the 2025 PGA Tour schedule, seven weeks to the Masters. 

After two Signature Events in three weeks, the PGA Tour's other guys take center stage, which happens to be in Mexico this week. 

The Mexico Open and next week's Cognizant Classic offer five guys, not otherwise exempt, in the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the next Signature event on the PGA Tour schedule, via the Aon Swing 5. Most FedEx Cup points are in.

Five players already qualified for API: Akshay Bhatia, Stephan Jaeger, Aaron Rai (Top 50 in 2024 FedExCup); Patrick Rodgers, Sam Stevens (Aon Next 10). The Mexico Open winner will earn a spot in the five remaining Signature Events.

Man To Beat

Akshay Bhatia 

The 23-year-old lefty currently ranked #30 in the world who has two PGA Tour wins to his credit - 2024 Texas Valero and the 2023 Barracuda - reached the PGA Tour playoff finals for the first time in 2024, reaching #26 in the xxx by year's, and has followed that up with the a T32-T22-T32-T9 season so far in 2025. 

Top Contenders

Kevin Yu

The 26-year-old Arizona State product from Chinese Taipei has posted back-to-back Top-20 finishes off a year in which he won his first PGA Tour event (2024 Sanderson Farms) and added five Top-10 finishes. He finished the Genesis with a 4-under-par 68 that enabled him to climb up 11 spots on the leaderboard. Over his last 11 starts, Yu has posted five top-20s, including his Sanderson win.

Taylor Moore

The 31-year-old out of the University of Arkansas opened his third year full-time on the PGA with a pair of Top-10 finishes in five starts - a T7 at the Amex and a T9 at the WM Phoenix Open. Upon closer inspection Moore's final-round 80 at Farmers came with a 6-over, 5-hole stretch complete with a triple-bogey 8 at the par-5 13th. His back-nine 42 that dropped him from T25 to T56. He comes into this one off four straight rounds sub-70 at WM Phoenix.

Aaron Rai

This 29-year-old Englishman won the 2024 Wyndham for his first PGA Tour win, adding five other T7-or-better finishes, to go with five international wins. However, Rai has been just so-so so far in four 2025 events, and comes into this one off a T40 at Pebble Beach and T37 at the Genesis. This notoriously slow player finished 75-72 at Torrey Pines South last week thanks to eight bogeys and two doubles. He will have to be sharper this week to contend.  

Stephan Jaeger

The 35-year-old has made 4-of-5 cuts in 2025, and his best finish, thanks to a third-round, 8-under-par 62, was a T3 at Sony. Going back to last October, Jaeger has made 8 of last 10 cuts, including a second-place finish at Black Desert Championship in October. He posted his first PGA Tour victory at the 2024 Houston Open. 

Justin Lower

His T3 at AmEx capped a five-start stretch that saw Lower finish T5 or better three times. Lower boasts four top-10s in last 12 starts playing against this sort, and finished T3 at this event last year. 

Jake Knapp

Defending champ who has made 5-of-6 cuts in 2025, including four in a row finished off by his best finish of the year, a T17 at The Genesis. Three of his six 2025 events have been PGA Tour Signature events, which is a big step up from this group. 

Also Worth Mentioning

Sam Stevens

He has a second-place finish at Farmers to his credit, but that field is turning out to be the weakest PGA Tour field in quite some time as players have not played back to that event. Perhaps a better performance for Stevens came at Pebble when he strung together four sub-par rounds and finished T17. In his last nine non-Signature events, has a second, a T6 and two more top-25 finishes. 

Nicolai Hojgaard

What do you do with this 23-year-old from Denmark, twin brother of Rasmus Nojgaard, also in the field? A 3-time DP World Cup winner - he won the 2023 DP World Tour Championship event by two shots, with Viktor Hovland T2, John Rahm T5 - not to mention a Captain's pick and a contributor to Europe's 2023 Ryder Cup win in Italy, this guy has been pretty poor in the United States. His T36 at Phoenix, his last event, was his best finish in his last 11 PGA Tour tries. 

Vincent Norrman

The 27-year-old Swede better known as Ludvig Aberg's landlord is 4-for-4 making cuts in 2025, with his best finish T29 at Amex. A PGA Tour winner (2023 Barbasol) who won the 2023 Irish Open saw his game go seriously south last June, missing four cuts with a WD mixed in before missing the PGA Tour playoffs. He finished 203rd on the FedEx Cup points list in a less-than-scintilating rookie season.