This article is part of our FanDuel PGA DFS Picks series.
Texas Children's Houston Open
Course: Memorial Park Golf Course (7,435 yards, par 70)
Purse: $9,100,000
Winner: $1,638,000 and 500 FedExCup points
Tournament Preview
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler returns to action this week in his home state fresh off wins at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and THE PLAYERS Championship. In what is a decent field featuring six of the top 30 players in the OWGR, Scheffler is a near 3-to-1 favorite to win for the third consecutive time in what will be his final start before the Masters. The man that finished second to Scheffler at both Bay Hill and TPC Sawgrass was Wyndham Clark, who is hoping to swap spots in Houston. Sahith Theegala, Jason Day, Will Zalatoris and defending champion Tony Finau are the other top-30 ranked players teeing it up this week.
Valspar Championship winner Peter Malnati is in the field again this week, and he is the 86th player to qualify for the Masters. This is the final week prior to the OWGR top-50 cutoff to qualify for the Masters. Byeong Hun An is the only player currently inside the top 50 who is not exempt, but at No. 42 he should be safe. World No. 55 Christiaan Bezuidenhout has decided not to enter the Houston Open after a T9 at Valspar and will not make the Masters unless he wins the Valero Texas Open. Tom Hoge (No. 57), Mackenzie Hughes (No. 63) and Alex Noren (No. 66) are some players teeing it up this week who could potentially sneak into the top-50 without winning. The Masters field could reach as high as 90 if we get non-exempt winners at both the Houston Open and Valero Texas Open next week and Hoge, Hughes or Noren were to score a high finish this week. The Masters field has had under 90 players five of the last eight years.
The Houston Open dates back to 1946 when Byron Nelson defeated Ben Hogan by two strokes to win the inaugural edition. Memorial Park hosted the second edition of the Houston Open in 1947 and then every event from 1951 to 1963. The event continued to be moved around through the years and really came to prominence from 2006 through 2018 when it was held at the Golf Club of Houston primarily the week before the Masters. The course organizers tried to set the course up as close as possibly to Augusta National in an attempt to attract higher profile players to get competitive prep on something that would be similar to the following week at the Masters. Sadly the event was to come off the schedule for the 2018-19 season after long-time sponsor Shell left.
The future of PGA Tour golf in Houston was certainly up in the air before Houston Astros owner Jim Crane led a group of new sponsors and signed a five-year deal with the PGA Tour to keep the event in Houston. The Houston Open returned in the fall of 2019 for one last go around the Golf Club of Houston before it would be moved to the renovated Memorial Park Golf Course. The municipal golf course hosted the event in the fall of 2020 the week before the Masters was held in November. The Houston Open returned to Memorial Park in the fall of 2021 and 2022, but was not held in the fall of 2023 as the event was being moved back to its traditional spring date in 2024, taking the spot previously held by the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in Austin. There are now four events in the state of Texas on the PGA Tour, but unlike the Hawaii, West Coast and Florida Swings, those events are a little more split up. We get the Texas double with Houston this week and San Antonio next week. Then return to the state May 2-5 for the Byron Nelson just North of Dallas and then Fort Worth at Colonial May 23-26 the week after the PGA Championship.
Defending Houston Open champion Finau owns the tournament record aggregate score of 264 or 16-under-par on this par 70 layout. Vijay Singh owns the record score to par of 22-under-par back at TPC at The Woodlands in 2002. That was the first of three Houston Open wins in a four year stretch for Singh. Curtis Strange (1980, 1986, 1988) is the only other three-time winner of the Houston Open. After dodging some storms last week in Tampa, it looks like it should be smooth sailing in Houston this week. We should not see any precipitation and the temperatures should continue to climb as the week goes on getting into the mid-80s by Sunday. The real factor this week will be the wind. After a pretty calm day on Thursday, the final three rounds will all see steady breezes that should extend to 20 mph with gusts even higher than that. The wind will be without a doubt the main defense of the course this week and will be welcomed due to the change from wall-to-wall bermudagrass in the fall to the overseeded ryegrass to necessitate the move to the spring.
Recent Champions
2022 - Tony Finau (-16)
2021 - Jason Kokrak (-10)
2020 - Carlos Ortiz (-13)
2019 - Lanto Griffin (-14)
2018 - Ian Poulter (-19)
2017 - Russell Henley (-20)
2016 - Jim Herman (-15)
2015 - J.B. Holmes (-16)
2014 - Matt Jones (-15)
Key Stats to Victory
- SG: Off-the-Tee/Driving Distance
- SG: Approach/GIR Percentage
- SG: Around-the-Green/Scrambling
- Proximity 200-225 yards
Champion's Profile
Memorial Park is going to be a completely different challenge than the players faced over the course of the Florida Swing. It's a pretty wide open course with minimal hazards off the tee. The rough will also be down in the spring time compared to what we have seen the last three editions in the fall. With overseeded rough set to be no higher than 1.5 inches, this certainly favors the bombers on a course that features five par 4s in excess of 490 yards. Each of the three par 5s are also over 575 yards. That is going to make for a lot of long iron shots, which will allow players who are strong in that area to really separate, especially considering how much wind we are expecting to see.
The most complicated part of the course is really the green complexes. Players will face a lot of pitches off short grass to elevated greens, which typically give the short-game wizards an advantage compared to a lot of the long rough close to the greens at most of the Florida courses. Also with the length of the holes and the wind factor, players are going to have to scramble a decent amount this week. I believe we are looking for players this week who can combine power and touch.
FanDuel Value Picks
The Chalk
Wyndham Clark ($12,100)
Clark is tired of finishing second to Scheffler and is heading to a place that really suits his skill set. Clark is third on Tour in driving distance, 17th in SG: Approach and 11th in GIR percentage. The U.S. Open champ has also gained shots around the greens in five of seven starts this season. Clark has played in each edition of the Houston Open held at Memorial Park and scored a T16. back in 2023.
Tony Finau ($11,800)
I'm hoping this price scares some people off, but the fit it just so good. Finau can obviously bomb it, but he also leads the PGA Tour by a pretty wide margin in proximity from 200-225 yards, which will be a distance that players are faced with a lot this week. Finau posted a T6 at Torrey Pines and a T13 at the Mexico Open earlier this season, two venues that call for a lot of the same skills as Memorial Park. Putting is obviously the one thing to watch with Finau, but he has gained strokes on the greens in his last three starts.
Sahith Theegala ($11,300)
When I did some research on how the course would play this week, the first player that came to mind was Theegala. The Pepperdine product bombs it off-the-tee but his biggest weakness is that he sprays it all over the place. That will play just fine at Memorial Park and he was putting up top-10s in Florida where driving accuracy was really important. Theegala has also always had great touch around the greens and has been putting the lights out this season.
The Middle Tier
Alex Noren ($10,300)
Noren does not fall into the bomber category, but he is perhaps one of the most surefire plays on the whole board. He has made his last 11 cuts with seven top-30 finishes in that span. Noren also ranks second in bogey avoidance and top-25 on Tour in par 3, par 4 and par 5 scoring. For being on the shorter end, the fact he is also fourth in GIR percentage speaks to how consistent his irons are and on top of that leads the Tour in scrambling. Noren was T4 at Memorial Park in 2023.
Jake Knapp ($10,000)
Someone who is not short is Knapp. He already has a win this year and a T3 at Mexico and Torrey Pines, two similar courses to Memorial Park. Knapp isn't just a bomber though, as he is also 21st in SG: Approach, 53rd in scrambling and 31st in SG: Putting. I expect Knapp to be decently popular this week, but given his upside and course fit, if he was $11K I honestly would have no problem paying up for that. Getting him at this price feels like a steal.
Patrick Rodgers ($9,800)
Rodgers might have missed the last two cuts, but now he goes back to a course where he can let it fly off-the-tee. The last two times he really got a chance to do that was Torrey Pines and Mexico where he finished T9 and T6. Those are two of his five top-25s on the season. Rodgers also finished T16 last time at Memorial Park. The Stanford product is always solid with the irons at ninth in GIR percentage this season and he is also 49th in SG: Around-the-Green.
The Long Shots
Andrew Novak ($8,500)
Novak is now up to 11th this season in SG: Total behind his fourth top-20 in his last five starts. The fact that he is still this cheap baffles me. His iron play has been so impressive this year, as he ranks 11th in SG: Approach, 18th in GIR percentage and fourth in proximity 200-225 yards. Combine that with elite short-game play -- he is 14th in SG: Around-the-Green -- and you can see how he should be lined up for yet another strong finish.
Chandler Phillips ($8,400)
Phillips is coming off his best PGA Tour finish last week at Valspar in which he tied for third. He has been impressive all season on approach ranking 18th in SG: Approach and 15th in proximity 200-225 yards. It's no surprise he is also inside the top-15 in par 3 scoring, which will come in handy at Memorial park which has five of them, much like Innisbrook last week. Phillips has gained around-the-green in four of six measured starts this season and was seventh in SG: Putting last week.
Matti Schmid ($7,600)
Schmid is one of the longest players on Tour and he has actually played quite well recently on courses that are more about precision. Schmid missed six cuts in a row and then has gone T10-T26-T17 the last three weeks. The 26-year-old is ninth in proximity 175-200 yards and 13th in proximity 225-250 yards. Putting has been the biggest issue for Schmid, but he has moved to the broomstick putter and gained a fair amount of strokes on the greens in each of his last two starts.
Strategy Tips This Week
Based on a Standard $60K Salary Cap
The field is slightly more top heavy this week than last week with your Scheffler's and Clark's, but top to bottom I do think it is also just a bit weaker. The $10K down to upper $9K range feels pretty strong, but then there is a bit of a weak point from about $9,500 to $8,600. You can find a lot of solid pieces under $8,500, however, as I pointed out above. A few others to throw in there would be Parker Coody ($8,000), Henrik Norlander ($7,700), Dylan Wu ($7,700) and Kevin Dougherty ($7,500).
One other thing to keep in mind when crafting lineups this week is to not place too much stock in course history and too much stock on if a player struggled in Florida. Again, the turf that they will be playing on will be drastically different than what it was the last three years in the fall and most of the Florida courses placed a ton of emphasis on driving accuracy. It will be bombs away this week so looking at some of the leaderboards from places like Mexico and Torrey Pines might given you a better indication on what to expect this week at Memorial Park.
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