The final tournament before The Masters tees it up this week as a handful of top-20 players in the world are using the Valero Texas Open as their final tune-up before Augusta. Defending Champion Jordan Spieth leads that charge alongside Rory McIlroy, who will be seeking to close out the career grand slam next week. They will be joined by Bryson DeChambeau, who is making just his second appearance on TOUR since injuries slowed his season back in January.
DraftKings is keeping things rolling right along this week as the now staple GPP is the $20 Pitch + Putt with an $800,000 prize pool and $200,000 of that heading to first place. We’ll keep our focus on that tournament as we look for the top plays of the week.
As always, you can rely on a wide array of good information from the team here at FantasyLabs to start your lineups. Matt Vincenzi has his stats and course fit article highlighting plays from each price range. Landon Silinsky put out his cash game article, giving us a good core of plays for the week ahead.
If you missed it, we added two new metrics in our PGA Player Models — Perfect% and SimLeverage. You can find an explainer on those metrics here.
The cliff notes version is that you can use SimLeverage to quickly find leverage plays in tournaments, while Perfect% is great for finding the best price-considered plays for cash games.
And for large-field tournaments, you can utilize our Lineup Optimizer to effortlessly create up to 150 lineups, or use our Lineup Builder if you like to hand-build your lineups.
Top Tier
Jordan Spieth ($10,600)
The ownership projections as of first thing on Wednesday morning have Rory McIlroy around 26%, which is frankly a bit crazy. Sure, he’s a good fit for the course, and he’s got a runner-up finish in his one appearance here back in 2013. I just won’t eat that level of chalk in an event where there are some intangible aspects for players looking to next week. Instead, I’ll drop down to the defending champion, Jordan Spieth, with about half of the ownership and the same ceiling.
Spieth really showed some improvement at the Dell Match Play. It was pretty clear his game, especially on approach, was really starting to come together. He actually left most of his shots out there on the greens, which we can always count on bouncing back.
Spieth is a Texas specialist and someone that will always be on my shortlist when playing in his home state. All of that lines up well for the three-time major winner to be a starting point at the top of my lineups.
Tony Finau ($9,100)
I’m going back to the well here with Finau as he also started to show some signs of life last week at Austin Country Club. He carded eight birdies in his final match on Friday and should be carrying some of that confidence into the new week. We have reached the point where Finau is priced below players like Chris Kirk and Keegan Bradley in DFS this week.
At his best, Tony is a clear tier or two above those guys. I’ll be willing to take a chance on some talent this week, even when the form is a bit off, and Finau fits that profile with mid-teens projected ownership.
Mid Tier
Kevin Streelman ($8,700)
I love everything about the way that Kevin Streelman is trending into the week. He’s my best bet of the week, and he will be a core play for me in DFS as well. Many people are discussing the importance of Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee this week, and while I think that is a tad overblown, Streelman has gained strokes in that area in every tournament he has played this year.
The issue for him has been his irons, but he found that form starting at the Players. He gained 3.7 shots on that elite field on approach and carried it into another solid week at the Valspar. He’s got everything heading in the right direction and now goes to a course where he has found success in his career with consecutive top-8 finishes in his last two appearances.
Streelman lines up as a great play this week, and the ownership is palatable in the mid-teens.
Russell Knox ($8,300)
The Valspar marked the first week since the end of January, where Russell Knox finished a tournament losing strokes to the field on approach. He quickly bounced back at that time and gained better than four shots with his irons in his next event, and I will look for a similar return to form this week in Texas.
Knox has been great to start the year with his ball-striking, and it is playing out in some solid results. He peaked with a T6 finish at The Players before a bit of a down week, as noted at the Valspar. I think a week off last week will do some great things to refresh him, and with his ownership hovering just around double digits, he makes a lot of sense on a course where I am looking first for elite ball-striking.
Value Picks
Matt Kuchar ($7,800)
There are several players you could go within this range this week, and really the ownership is projected to be pretty flat. I’ll take my first shot on Matt Kuchar, who is a bit of a Texas specialist himself, and he seems to be finding some form. Kuch finished 16th at the Valspar, and it was really the first sign of life in his game since the Sony at the start of the year.
He has six top-10 finishes to his name in the Lone Star State since the 2016-2017 season and a seventh and a 12th in his last two appearances at this event. He’s a solid play in single-digit ownership this week, but I won’t fall too in love with anyone player here as the best plan is likely to spread things out a bit in this range.
Matthew NeSmith ($7,100)
I don’t really have any chalk in this list, so I can eat some down low with Matthew NeSmith. He was right in position for his first win on TOUR just a couple of weeks ago at the Valspar and fell just short. I am hopeful he can keep that form coming into the week at the Valero.
NeSmith played this event in 2021 and had a top-35 finish but really struck the ball well and struggled on the greens. If he can keep the ball striking in line and find a better game on and around the greens this week, we saw the kind of upside he can provide just two weeks ago.
Sleeper Picks
Austin Smotherman ($6,800)
This may not end up being much of a sleeper as it has been floated around about how Smotherman finished fourth in a Korn Ferry Tour event on this course in 2020. He clearly knows and seems to have a liking for this track, which certainly provides a leg up to this price range.
Digging deeper, though, it’s not just that result that makes him a play and a longshot bet candidate, as he has been one of the best players in this field with his ball-striking across the last 24 rounds. He’s still a lesser-known player but has a lot of talent, and this could be the type of event where he can make a name for himself on the big TOUR.
Kevin Tway ($6,300)
Kevin Tway probably falls in the category of players I am playing that maybe you shouldn’t, but I am going to try to sell him to you here. The main crux of my play is a combination of price and the fact that he is a certified Lone Star State Specialist.
Following his runner-up finish at the Houston Open in the fall, he now has four top-10 finishes in the state across the last five seasons. He came into that event lacking form in a similar way to this week as he had missed two of the three cuts prior and posted a 56th place finish in the other.
There isn’t anything that’s going to make him jump out to you this week — but in Tway I trust, in Texas — is the motto I’m taking to free up some high-end plays for the Valero.
