Valero Texas Open Predictions: Conservative/Aggressive Plays for Every Type of Bettor

I never thought my life could be, anything but catastrophe

But suddenly I begin to see, a bit of good luck for me

‘Cause I’ve got a golden ticket!

Willy Wonka has nothing on the green-jacketed folks at Augusta National Golf Club, who have already completed their field for next week’s Masters Tournament – unless one final qualifier can claim that proverbial golden ticket.

The only way left to get an invitation into Augusta is to win the Valero Texas Open.

In the past decade, a half-dozen players – Jim Herman, Russell Henley, Ian Poulter, Corey Conners, J.J. Spaun and Akshay Bhatia – have done just that, previously in Houston and starting in 2021, in San Antonio.

It always makes for a great feel-good story on the eve of the year’s first major championship, but this week the dreamers will have to deal with the likes of Ludvig Aberg, Patrick Cantlay, Hideki Matsuyama and Jordan Spieth if they’d like to get invited to the chocolate factory.

For as much as last week in Houston was predictive in offering big-hitting drivers — winner Min Woo Lee and runners-up Scottie Scheffler and Gary Woodland all qualify for that statement — this week should once again be all about the ball-strikers.

Speaking of winners and runners-up, I have a feeling that two-time champion Conners and last year’s playoff hard-luck story Denny McCarthy will be popular selections. I like them, too, but they just didn’t squeeze their way into my picks for this week, which begin with a player I’ve had my eye on for a while now.

Valero Texas Open Outright Winner Picks

Conservative: Daniel Berger (+3300)

Since the beginning of the year, Berger’s probably been on my card more than he hasn’t, and he’s responded with a results table that shows six top-25s in eight starts. The floor is certainly high, but I’m a big believer in his ceiling, as he’s gained strokes in every major category in each of his last five starts, save for a small negative number off the tee at The Players. Don’t simply take my word for it, though: Ask people inside the ropes – players, caddies and those ubiquitous et ceteras – and you’ll hear Berger’s name brought up as a potential major championship contender and U.S. Ryder Cup team member.

After a few years of injuries kept him from playing, let alone playing his best golf, he looks like a man on a mission to make up for lost time. Perhaps the only downside for taking him at this specific event is that he’s played it twice and missed the cut each time, though not within the past five years, so I’m not going to place too much credence in that small sample size. At No. 44 in the OWGR, Berger is already in the Masters field, so he also doesn’t have to worry about the additional pressures of playing for next week. 

Aggressive: Matteo Manassero (+27500)
With some of this field’s top players perhaps more focused on next week’s Masters than the current task at hand, I don’t mind taking a chance on some longshot outright plays and Manassero is exactly the type of player I want to attack in this market. At 31, the former phenom who lost his game and re-found it on the DP World Tour in recent years was always going to endure a bit of a learning curve in his PGA Tour rookie campaign. The results have been moderate at best, with five made cuts in seven starts, but nothing better than a share of 25th place. So, why play him here?

Look, this is hardly some no-doubt-about-it type of wager. When making outright selections, we’re looking to hit on a player’s ceiling, because anything less than a win is a losing ticket. I do believe that Manassero has the talent to win on the PGA Tour when he puts it all together. The approach game has been decent enough, while he’s No. 1 around the greens and 24th in putting. It’s the driver which has really held him back, as he ranks 180th, but a focus on precision over power should suit his style more this week.

Sam Ryder (+12500), Adam Svensson (+22500) and Joel Dahmen (+12500) also make some sense as outright longshots, but Manassero could at least show us what’s available if the big boys are thinking ahead.

Valero Texas Open Top-5 Picks

Conservative: Tom Kim (+750)
Full disclosure: I was all set to spotlight Collin Morikawa in this spot, as he’d been committed to the VTO for a while now, yet his name didn’t show up in the field when it was released last week. Instead, this might be the perfect “get-right” spot for Kim, who’s gained strokes with his irons in all eight starts so far this season, yet only has one top-30 result to show for it. A few of those have been balanced out by truly awful putting performances, but otherwise the stats show he’s probably closer than the results suggest.

Aggressive: Tom Hoge (+1400)
The last time Hoge played a competitive event, he finished in the top-five. Depending on your personal worldview, that’s either a terrific reason or a terrible reason to take him to match that feat this week. It all depends whether you’re a bigger believer in momentum or the law of averages, though I’m trying not to let recency bias impact my bias toward his ball-striking numbers. Those were through the proverbial roof during his T-3 finish at The Players and while his oft-balky flatstick will ultimately determine his success on any given week, it’s actually been his driver and wedges which have hurt him more than the putter this season.

Even so, I’ll die on the hill of selecting ball-striking for a second-shot course such as this one. He was T-12 here a year ago and T-9 nine years ago, which are shiny enough toys to distract us from the T-53 and three MCs in his half-dozen career starts.

Valero Texas Open Top-10 Picks

Conservative: Tommy Fleetwood (+275)
Just last month, Fleetwood was my favorite outright at Bay Hill, because I felt like a windswept venue that relies on ball-striking should be right in his wheelhouse. And it was: He finished T-11. There’s a lesson in there about playing his floor and not his ceiling, which might be overlapping parallel lines at this point. Finishes of T-14 and T-16 in two starts since then suggest that we should play an even lower floor on Fleetwood, but I’ll take the top-10 bait, as I really don’t think there are many course/conditions combinations which suit his game as much as this one.

Aggressive: Patrick Rodgers (+1400)
There are few players as confounding as Rodgers, a can’t-miss prospect as a collegian who decidedly hasn’t missed, but hasn’t exactly hit, either. It’s almost easier to explain the phenom who doesn’t make it at the highest level of the game, affected by injuries or burn-out or lack of elite talent or some combination of all three. Rodgers, though, hasn’t outwardly dealt with any of this, turning into the type of veteran player who rarely has to fuss over such frivolities as losing his playing privileges, yet his once-every-so-often title contentions have fallen short every single time.

I still believe that he’s going to win on the PGA Tour in the not-too-distant future, just as I believe that constantly banging one’s head against a wall will eventually lead to a crack. One of those headbangers occurred for Rodgers at this event two years ago, when he was the lone player in the eventual top-25 on the leaderboard who posted an over-par total in the final round, finishing solo fifth. As a glutton for punishment, I might sprinkle a bit on him for an outright this week, but he clearly remains a floor play until proving otherwise.

Valero Texas Open Top-20 Picks

Conservative: Seamus Power (+300)
After trending in the right direction for most of the first two months of this season, Power missed the cut in two straight starts before bouncing back with a top-10 in his most recent one in Tampa. The 38-year-old MC’d at this event last year after a few years of avoiding it, but we could probably do a lot worse than indiscriminately scanning the field for Irish flags and playing those who know a thing or two about competing in a wee breeze. Even so, this is largely a play on talent, as he should be able to contend in a field such as this.

Aggressive: Charley Hoffman (+320)
Alright, y’all ready for one of the most outrageous player/tournament correlations that currently exists on the PGA Tour? I had a feeling you might be. In 18 career starts at the VTO, Hoffman has 17 made cuts, 13 top-25s, seven top-10s, three runners-up, a win and $4,668,681 in total earnings. I mean, the dude is so good at this singular event that there are t-shirts available touting his specific record here. That said, he’s now gone three straight without a top-20, which feels like a drought due for reversal. At 48 years old, he might not be able to contend on a weekly basis, but there are still events where Hoff will show up licking his lips and this one has to be at the top of that list.

Valero Texas Open Top-40 Picks

Conservative: Ryan Fox (+110)
We saw a different Fox in the final group at the Texas Children’s Houston Open last week. No, I mean literally. Forgive me, but I hadn’t caught sight of the Kiwi in a while and had to do a double-take when I did, because he looks like a different person now, slimmed down and more muscular. That doesn’t always equate to better golf, but top-20s in two of his last three might show us that he’s ready to play his best golf as a PGA Tour member after so much overseas success in previous years.

Aggressive: Henrik Norlander (+200)
Over the last two months, Norlander has gone back and forth trading MCs with top-40 finishes — two of them also being top-20s. Well, good news for us: He MC’d last week, which means this should be a top-40 week, if that pattern continues. I absolutely love the ball-striking numbers for the big Swede recently and like the names mentioned above, he’ll also be on my not-so-short list of Hail Mary longshot outright plays.

Valero Texas Open First-Round Leader Picks

Conservative: Jordan Spieth (+3500)
As I often write in my weekly previews, I love the idea of going after volatility in the FRL market — and nobody is more volatile than Spieth, even if the numbers don’t show it. One of my favorite pastimes is checking out players’ form shapes on their Data Golf profile. (Yeah, I need to get out more.) Spieth’s is a near-perfect five-sided pentagon, those corners representing driving distance, driving accuracy, approach play, around the greens and putting. That might surprise a lot of people, but it’s right there in his PGA Tour rankings, as he’s 62nd, 96th, 79th, 57th and 91st in those categories, respectively.

The volatility, of course, comes in the fact that he might stuff three consecutive iron shots for birdie, then blow a drive out of bounds and make triple-bogey directly afterwards. That said, the brilliance still outshines the bone-headedness and if there’s reason to believe he can keep it going for all four rounds next week, then we shouldn’t be scared to invest in him for a single round this week. And if there’s reason for optimism in Camp Spieth, consider this: Last week, I listed Min Woo Lee as my fave FRL play; he trailed by one after Thursday’s opener, but went on to win the tournament.

Aggressive: Sami Valimaki (+9000)
Professional golfers will often insist that their biggest goal is consistency, that they want to regularly continue improving by 1%. Do the math and those sorts of improvements would lead to some fairly massive leaps and bounds in quick measure. I don’t know if Valimaki is an improve-every-day kind of thinker, but I do know that rounds of 70-67-64-62 in Houston show that he was moving in the right direction, having made the cut on the number and finishing in sole possession of fourth place. His greatest past results don’t wholly suggest that he’s a momentum type of guy, but there are some pockets of sustained high-level play, so I don’t mind an early wager on him continuing to step on the gas pedal this Thursday.