The Valero Texas Open finishes up the PGA TOUR’s quick two-week stop in the Lone Star State before the Masters. This week’s tournament gives players who haven’t qualified for next week’s stop at Augusta National one last chance to punch their ticket to the first major of the season. Those who have already qualified use the event as a final tune-up. It’s also a great event in its own right and comes loaded with plenty of history and drama.
The Texas Open dates all the way back to 1922, making it the third-oldest tournament on the PGA Tour and the longest held in the same city. It found its current home at The Oaks Course at TPC San Antonio in 2010. The course has typically rewarded players who excel in Strokes Gained: Approach with a focus on top-tier iron players with good tee-to-green form coming into the event.
This week’s tournament draws a strong field, including 11 of the top 30 in the OWGR. Rory McIlroy, Brian Harman, Ludvig Åberg, and Max Homa are the top five favorites, while recognizable names Collin Morikawa, Tommy Fleetwood, and Matt Fitzpatrick will be making their first appearance at this event. Defending champion Corey Connors is also back to defend his title, which was his second career win at TPC San Antonio. Other previous champions in the field include Jordan Spieth, JJ Spaun, Charley Hoffman, Andrew Landry, Jimmy Walker, and Martin Laird.
In this post each week, we’ll focus on players who are strong GPP options. That means they have lower ownership projections than their potential performance. Finding this kind of high-leverage play is critical for GPP success. The picks here go against the grain to take advantage of players who may be overlooked and under-owned.
In this post, all Strokes Gained metrics referenced are from the Rabbit Hole.
Usually, I rely on the Stroked Gained Model in FantasyLabs, which is very predictive of results. I also tend to lean into players that gain shots on approach since week-to-week putting performance can be highly volatile, even for the best players on the PGA TOUR.
Since these are GPP picks, we can accept more risk if it raises the lineup’s ceiling. High-risk, high-reward options with low ownership create the “boom-or-bust” style lineups that can lead to large-field success.
GPP contests are contests that have large numbers of entries and pay out huge prizes to the top few percent. This week, the largest GPP on DraftKings is the $700K Pitch + Putt, which awards a $200K top prize to first place.
The players highlighted below will be good options in all formats if they deliver, but they come with risk factors that usually keep them from being safe plays. Consistency and reliability should be the focus of lineups in cash and double-up contests, where finishing in the top spot isn’t quite as important as in GPP tournaments. To find specific guidance for all contest types, check out our full Daily Fantasy Golf coverage each week.
No matter what type of format you prefer, be sure to use the FantasyLabs PGA Models to help you make the best choices. These models use stats and simulations to highlight different players’ strengths and weaknesses. A few critical new stats for GPP play are Perfect% and SimLeverage, which are further explained here.
As you dig into the numbers, you can enjoy the many tools FantasyLabs offers, including the Lineup Optimizer, which effortlessly creates up to 300 lineups. Alternatively, you can use the Lineup Builder if you prefer a more hands-on approach.
Check out my top picks in each price range listed below.
Editors note: SimLeverage and Perfect% numbers may change after this piece is published. Be sure to check the PGA Models for any updates to the sims.
High-Priced PGA DFS Picks
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Collin Morikawa $10,100
There are four players with salaries over $10,000 this week, with Rory McIlroy way out in front at $12,300. Rory isn’t drawing quite as much ownership projection as Scottie Scheffler did last week in Houston, but he’s still expected to be the most-owned golfer in the field. The lowest ownership projection of those five-figure salaries belongs to Collin Morikawa, but he has the highest SimLeverage of the group and the third-highest in the entire field.
Morikawa will be playing this event for the first time and is coming off a rough stretch in Florida when he missed the cut at Ba Hill and finished T45 at THE PLAYERS. That’s why many are out on him this week, but the public sentiment against him creates a great leverage opportunity. He shows well in our projections with the sixth-highest ceiling, median and floor projections and ranking fourth in the field in Perfect%.
While he hasn’t played this track before, his game is almost a perfect fit. He drives the ball straight and accurately and is an exceptional mid and long-iron player. He ranks in the top 10 in the field in Total Strokes Gained over the last 24 and the last 30 rounds, and if he can just get his putter to cooperate, the rest of his game seems to be in good enough form for him to contend.
Remember, Morikawa did get a win last fall at the ZOZO Championship and followed that with a top five at the Sentry in January. His upside if he flips the putter is high enough to pay up on him as a leverage option in his Valero debut.
Matt Fitzpatrick $9,700
Fitzpatrick is another former major champion looking to tune up his game before heading to Augusta National. Like Morikawa, he’s also making his first appearance at this track but seems to have the style of play and strengths in his game to be a good match.
He brings the fifth-highest Perfect% in the field, and his ownership projection under 13% gives him the second-highest SimLeverage in the field, behind only Rory. His ownership projection is the lowest of any player with a salary of over $8,500, so he should be a fantastic differentiator. One of the reasons why everyone is out on Fitzpatrick this week is his inconsistent recent results. His boom-or-bust production works in GPP, though, since his ceiling is so high.
He missed the cut in three of his last seven events, but he finished high when he played the weekend. He posted top 25s at the WM Phoenix Open and the Cognizant Classic before improving to a fifth-place finish at THE PLAYERS Championship in his most recent event.
After gaining strokes in every category at the Cognizant Classic, he lost strokes in every category while missing the cut at Bay Hill. At Sawgrass, he was back in form, gaining everywhere but around the green. When you combine his hot and his cold, he ranks in the top 15 in the field in Total Strokes Gained over the last 15 rounds and is second in the field in that stretch in Strokes Gained: Putting.
I’m ready to back these two first-timers at TPC San Antonio since they have the kind of game that fits the profile and are very under-owned for their overall abilities.
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Mid-Priced PGA DFS Picks
Adam Scott $8,500
Scott has the lowest ownership projection of all the players priced at $8,200 or higher this week at barely over 10%. Scott does have a win on this course, but it was all the way back in 2010. He hasn’t played this event in the last five years.
While the veteran Aussie missed the cut at Bay Hill, he bounced back with a decent T45 at THE PLAYERS. Before that on the West Coast Swing, he made the cut and finished in the top 20 in all three of his appearances, highlighted by a T8 at the Phoenix Open.
If you include the numbers from the early part of the season, he ranks highly in the field, especially in iron play. He ranks in the top 20 in the field in Total Strokes Gained over the last 20 rounds. His irons were very good out West before getting wobbly in Florida. If he can get them back on track, he could contend down the stretch on Sunday.
Russell Henley $8,200
If the course rewards accuracy and iron play, Henley is always a key player to target. His ownership projection for this week is just barely more than Scott’s but still under 12%. He has the fourth-highest Perfect% of players with salaries under $9,000, which helps him have the second-highest SimLeverage of players with salaries between $8,000 and $9,500.
Henley hasn’t made an appearance at TPC San Antonio in the last four years since a T52 in 2019. Before a missed cut at THE PLAYERS, he made six cuts to start the year. Those made cuts included a T4 at the Sony Open in Hawaii and another T4 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational just under a month ago.
Over the last 20 rounds, Henley ranks in the top 25 in the field in Total Strokes Gained and Strokes Gained: Putting. He’s known for being accurate off the tee and excellent tee to green, but he has been very solid with the flat stick lately, gaining over 13 strokes putting over his last three starts.
While he doesn’t have a ton of success to his name at this course, he has played well at other Texas tracks, and I think he brings way more upside this week than his ownership projection is giving him credit for.
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Value PGA DFS Picks
Erik Van Rooyen $7,400
Van Rooyen is an amazing play at this price and ownership projection. EVR brings so much upside in multiple categories but has an ownership projection still under 10%.
Of all the players with salaries under $8,000, Van Rooyen has the highest Perfect% and the second-highest SimLeverage. He also has the third-highest ceiling, median, and floor projections of players with salaries under $7,500 with a lower ownership than those players whose projections are higher than his.
The 34-year-old South African finished in the top 15 in his first appearance at this event in 2021 before missing the cut last year. It was later last year that he found his groove and took his game to the next level. Since last September, he has exceeded salary-based expectations in 13 of 15 events on the PGA TOUR and DP World Tour with 11 top-25 finishes. During that impressive run, he won the World Wide Technology Championship last fall and finished runner-up at the Cognizant Classic last month in Florida.
EVR ranks second in the field in Total Strokes Gained over his last 50 rounds, 11th in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, and ninth in Strokes Gained: Approach over that span. Getting him at this salary with this ownership projection is an amazing way to get both value and upside.
Mark Hubbard $7,000
Hubbard has the second-highest ceiling, floor and median projections of all the players with salaries under $7,500 and is very affordable at just $7,000. His ownership projection is almost dead, even with his Perfect% at around 6.5%.
While he hasn’t popped for a breakthrough yet, Hubbard has been remarkably consistent this season. He has made the cut in all nine of his events this season, with two top-20 finishes. He finished T4 at the rain-shortened AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am for his best finish of the year and posted identical T31 finishes at THE PLAYERS and the Houston Open in his last two starts.
Over the last 36 rounds, Hubbard ranks in the top 20 in the field in Strokes Gained: Total and in the top 15 in Strokes Gained: Approach. If he can continue his strong iron play, he should be able to add another made cut and good finish this week at TPC San Antonio. While he missed the cut at this event last year, he has vastly improved his par-5 scoring this season, which should make him a better fit for this venue.
Sleeper PGA DFS Picks
Kyoung-Hoon Lee $6,800
Lee is a great sleeper this week and always seems to enjoy the PGA TOUR trips to Texas. His two PGA TOUR wins came at the AT&T Byron Nelson in back-to-back seasons, and on this track, he has two top 25s in three trips.
Last week in Houston, Lee shot three rounds of 68 and surged to a T31 with a strong weekend. He also had two good results in Florida, sandwiching top 10 finishes at the Valspar and Cognizant around his missed cut at THE PLAYERS.
Over his last 12 rounds, Lee ranks sixth in the field in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and in the top 20 in Total Strokes Gained. He has the short game to succeed around the greens and should be able to post another strong finish while also providing excellent value and salary relief under $7,000.
Andrew Novak $6,500
Novak is another great sleeper option that brings a high ceiling and plenty of salary relief. His ownership projection is under 3% despite strong recent form and good course history.
He made the cut last week and finished T53 in Houston and bounced back from a 73 on Saturday with a closing 67 on Sunday. Before missing the cut at THE PLAYERS, Novak had strung together three top 10s at the Phoenix Open, Mexico Open, and Cognizant Classic.
He ranks fourth in the field in Strokes Gained: Total over his last 20 rounds and third in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green. All season, he has excelled from tee to green but has sometimes struggled with his putter. Last year at this venue, Novak led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting with his most Strokes Gained: Putting at any event in his career. He finished in the top 10 after missing the cut the previous year. If his putting this week is anywhere close to that level and the rest of his game stays in form, he will be an excellent sleeper play at only $6,500.
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