Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, & Predictions – Valero Texas Open

Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for the 2015 Valero Texas Open

This Week’s Tournament Preview

Only two more events until the TOUR shifts to Augusta National as players make their final push to get in shape over on the mini-Texas swing.  Texas born Jordan Spieth will grab quite a bit of attention in San Antonio this week along with other headliners like Furyk, Mickelson, Kuchar, and Dustin Johnson.

From a fantasy perspective, this season has proven that you cannot simply rely on the big names—and this has been proven over the last few weeks by names like Every, Hoffman, Kokrak, and Berger taking the top prize.  This week will present another challenge for fantasy players with the abundance of all-star names mixed in with the hot hitting “no-namers” that are in the field.  But don’t worry, we have you covered.  We’ll dive into the course stats, as well as current streaks and player rankings to see who has the best chances of coming out on top this week in San Antonio.

As mentioned, the biggest story this week will be the return of Jordan Spieth after winning the Valspar Championship two weeks ago.  Jordan recently became just the fourth player since 1940 to win twice on TOUR before his 22nd birthday.  You can certainly bank on the Texas young gun to have plenty of family and fan support throughout the week.

Another big story this week will be Phil Mickelson’s return to action.  Phil will make his final push before heading to Augusta for a shot at another green jacket.  We don’t see much fire power in Lefty right now, but you can never rule him out…especially on a course like TPC San Antonio.

Last Week’s Fantasy Results

It was another solid week for our fantasy predictions segment as we notched yet another 7-figure week in fantasy dollars despite a late (and unexpected) WD from Bubba Watson Wednesday evening.  Watson bowed out late due to the death of a family friend, but our horse pick Stenson carried the load as he came in just one putt short of going into a playoff on the 72nd hole.  Henrik ended up finishing 2nd which marks our 6th runner up in only 17 events this season.

With the 2nd place finish and Kokrak’s T7, our fantasy picks for last week came in with $1,012,000 in total earnings to bring up our weekly average to $919K over 17 weeks this season.

With the Masters looming in just two and half weeks, we’ve already got our eyes set on who is in the best position to tackle Augusta this year and help you win some serious money in this year’s record-breaking DraftKings $2.2 Million Masters Contest.

The Field

Texas native Jordan Speith, who is currently sitting at No. 6 in the OWGR, will join recent winner Dustin Johnson and a handful of top rated studs in the field this week which includes 13 of the top 30 players in the world rankings.  With them, FedExCup leader Jimmy Walker (another Texas native) will take on a tough field at a historically challenging course.

DJ has never played an event at TPC San Antonio, but that statistic doesn’t always have to factor heavily into your fantasy picks.  Case in point, Stenson never played Innisbrook but he recently came in with a T4 there just two weeks ago.

With a field this deep, we’re looking for players with the right game to fit the course and weather conditions, as well as who has the hottest hand and best chance to finish in the Top 10, and perhaps take home the trophy.  Remember, you normally won’t win a salary-cap league if you do not have the winner on your roster so you have to be confident in your horse pick.

The Course

TPC San Antonio measures in at 7,435 yards and plays as a par 72.  This Greg Norman/ Sergio Garcia design opened back in 2010 and plays across a mostly flat terrain.  The track’s tougher challenge lies within the super narrow fairways and deep bunkers (some as deep as 10ft).  If you recall in 2011, Kevin Na carded a 16 at the par-4 ninth hole after being unable to escape the nasty vegetation and rocks.

This course could eat players up and proof lies in the 2014 leaderboard where Bowditch’s -8 was enough to win the crown even after his 76 on Sunday.

Photo by TPC.com

Weather Forecast for San Antonio, Texas

There’s a moderate chance of rain on Thursday but early forecasts are predicting that the rest of the week will be dry.  Temperatures should be steady in the low 70’s which is unseasonably cool for Texas but not cool enough to make a serious impact.  Wind will most likely not be a factor this week either, especially in rounds 2, 3 and 4 which are set to see mostly clear skies.

Aside from some expected drizzle on Thursday morning the course should be mostly dry heading into the week and is expected to play fast and true.

2014 Valero Texas Open Results

Last year Australian Steven Bowditch almost gave away his victory after carding a 76 in the final round but the difficult TPC track was enough to keep the rest of the field at bay.  Even with the 76, Bowditch was still able to beat out Will MacKenzie and Daniel Summerhays by one stroke.

It was a surprising victory being that he came into San Antonio with only two top-10 finishes in eight seasons, but as we all know, anything can happen out here on the PGA TOUR.  Funny enough, his 76 was the highest final-round score by a winner since Vijay Singh’s 2004 PGA Championship victory with a final round 77.

In case you missed it, here is a recap of what happened in the final round of the 2014 Valero Texas Open:

Steven Bowditch captures his first PGA TOUR win at Valero | Highlights

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This Week’s Broadcast Schedule

• Television Broadcasts 
  • Thursday – Friday 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm EST (Golf Channel)
  • Saturday – Sunday 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm EST (Golf Channel)
  • Saturday – Sunday 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm EST (CBS)
• Radio Broadcasts (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.COM)
  • Thursday – Friday 12:00 pm – 6:00 pm EST
  • Saturday – Sunday 1:00 pm – 6:00 pm EST
• Mobile Broadcasts
  • Simultaneous coverage on the Golf Live Extra app for iPhone and iPad.

Where to Play this Week

Once again DraftKings comes out on top for anyone looking to play a one-week fantasy golf league with cash prizes (for more on where to play see the list of our favorite fantasy golf sites here).  Besides getting your early entry in for the $2.2 Million Dollar Masters Event, we suggest another low priced option for the week: The PGA $2.2 Millionaire Maker SUPERS at [50x] is paying out 100 players a free entry into the big Masters event and the cost for entry this week is only $0.25.  Our suggestion: why not throw $5 dollars at 20 chances to win a free seat into the big event for an even bigger chance at the $1M score?

If you want to go even cheaper, we suggest the free roll with a shot at winning $1k or you can try the $5 PGA Eagle at VICTIV for a shot at $300 for first place.

This Week’s Fantasy Notes

A lot of people will be jumping on the Spieth bandwagon this week due to the hometown advantage and his recent win, but will Jordan really be your best option for your horse pick?  Keep in mind that he’s sitting at the most expensive spot at $14,000 in DraftKings salary cap leagues.  While he seems like the logical choice, we’ll breakdown in our picks section whether or not we’re going with him this week and if we think the young star is worth the big fantasy price tag.

TPC San Antonio is a very aggressive and challenging track.  The tight fairways and deep bunkers will test every golfer in the field and there is easily no clear-cut winning pick this week.  But that doesn’t mean you have to throw darts at your picks this week either.  We will take all of the nastiness that TPC SA has to offer and tie together all of our favorite stats (GIR, All-Around, Tee-to-Green, Driving Distance, and Accuracy) to come up with this week’s list of the top five picks to win plus two bonus sleeper picks.

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Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win the 2015 Valero Texas Open

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Top 5 Picks/Odds to Win the Valero Texas Open

• Jordan Spieth (Golficity Odds 8/1 FPPG 88.1 Salary: $14,00): We debated for hours about this one.  The question was whether to go with Jordan or DJ in this spot, but quite a few factors swayed us this way.  First, hometown heroes usually fair well, and although its not a necessity, being in the crowd’s favor certainly helps.  Spieth is a Texas native and even in his relatively young career he’s had his fair share of attempts on this track (finished 10th here in 2014).   Second, he’s coming off a monster playoff win two weeks ago at the Valspar and is riding high on a huge wave of momentum which is another plus.  Lastly, he ranks 3rd in Total Strokes Gained which tells us that he can find GIRs and get home without a problem.  For the extra $700 bucks, we’ll take his 88.1 FPPG and 7/8 made cuts over DJ’s  72.8 FPPG and 3/5.  Also keep in mind that DJ has never TPC San Antonio and the long ball doesn’t help here if its not accurate.
• Jimmy Walker (Golficity Odds 12/1 FPPG 88.0 Salary: $10,800): Walker is another Texas born player with plenty of course experience.  The current FedExCup points leader has gone three starts without a top 20 but that doesn’t sway us this week.  Walker has plenty of wins in the last 15 months and you can bet that Butch is getting him primed for a major win.  We love Walker on this course, especially with his third place rank in Birdie average and 7th in the All-Around ranking.  This guy can find greens and his shot shape is ideal for the long course.  If Walker gets off to a hot start Thursday, he may be unbeatable.  It’s worth noting that he finished T16 here in 2014 and he comes with a great price tag for the week.
• Ryan Palmer (Golficity Odds 22/1 FPPG 79.1 Salary: $10,000): Ok don’t worry, we’re not only picking Texas residents this week.  It’s simply ironic that our top three are all natives of the state this week.  Palmer is a clear favorite in a lot of leagues this week simply because of his ability to win on tough tracks like this.  In his seven PGA TOUR starts this season he has finished in the top 25 six times.  Palmer is a textbook draw ball hitter with a clear-cut accuracy that excites us on such a narrow track.  Keep in mind also that he currently ranks 7th in Driving Distance and 4th in scoring average.
• Martin Laird  (Golficity Odds 28/1 FPPG 74.9 Salary: $9,100): Laird is a past winner here and has been playing well as of late.  He also finds greens consistently and has proven that with a 71% GIR percentage, which ranks him a formidable 8th on TOUR.  Along with his 2013 win here he also has a T9 at TPC SA in 2011 and shares the course record (63).  With three top 15s to start 2015 and a recent hot hand, we’re loving Laird at this price, this week, on this course.
• Brendan Steele (Golficity Odds 35/1 FPPG 76.8 Salary: $8,800): We find ourselves coming back to Steele lately because he’s been so consistent (something all fantasy players love to see).  Despite his late fade to T35 last week, Steele was stellar almost all week.  He’s played TPC San Antonio well, winning here in 2011, and then finishing T4 in his title defense.  Right now he has a “Kuchar-like” active streak of 14 cuts made which includes five top 25s.  Steel has a solid game for this course and at just $8,800 he should find a way onto some of your rosters this week.

Sleeper Pick/Odds to Win the Valero Texas Open

• Daniel Summerhays (Golficity Odds 50/1 FPPG 66.0 Salary $7,900): We’re not picking him solely on the fact that he finished runner-up last year…there’s more to it.  Along with his T2 last year, Summerhays has a T7 here in 2013 which tells us he’s got a knack for TPC SA.  The 31-year-old can find GIRs and could sneak up a leaderboard from time to time.  For the price, he’s worth adding to one of your rosters this week.

Salary Cap League Sleeper Pick/Odds to Win the Valero Texas Open

• Russell Knox (Golficity Odds 75/1 FPPG 65.7 Salary $7,600): Like Summerhays, Knox is a solid GIR player and we’re putting some heavy weight on that stat this week.  Knox is a pure sleeper pick this week with a small chance of emerging on top in a such a star-studded field, but we certainly see him hanging around until Sunday and he has the potential to earn you some solid DraftKings points for your roster.  His FPPG is impressive and he’s got a decent game for this style course so run with Knox if you have a little room left on your roster.

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Last Week’s Results:  Top 5 Picks/Odds to Win the Arnold Palmer Invitational

• Henrik Stenson (Golficity Odds 6/1) 2nd ($680,400)
• Bubba Watson (Golficity Odds 8/1): WD – Personal Reasons
• Jason Day (Golficity Odds 12/1): T17 ($91,350)
• J.B. Holmes (Golficity Odds 18/1): MC
• Jason Kokrak (Golficity Odds 26/1): T7 ($211,250)

Last Week’s Results: Sleeper Picks/Odds to Win the Arnold Palmer Invitational

• Brendan Steele (Golficity Odds 40/1): T35 ($29,098)

Last Week’s Results Salary Cap Sleeper Pick/Odds to Win the Arnold Palmer Invitational

• Robert Streb (Golficity Odds 75/1): MC

Fantasy Golf Predictions YTD Stats: 2014-2015 Season

• Tournaments Played 2014-2015: 17 (119 picks – 7 per event).
• Total Fantasy Dollars for the Season: $15,626,259 ($919,191 weekly average).
• Total Top 10s: 32 out of 119 picks (26.89%).
• Total Top 3s: 16 out of 119 picks (13.45%).
• Runner-Up Finishes: 6 in 17 events (35.29%).
• Total Winners Picked: 3 in 17 events (17.65%).
• Total Missed Cuts: 18 out of 119 players picked (84.87% made the cut).

Remember to visit the The Clubhouse and our private Facebook group to discuss this week’s picks for 2015 Valero Texas Open with other Premium Members.

Also be sure to check out this week’s Tuesday Sleeper Report for even more fantasy golf picks and predictions for the Valero Texas Open at TPC San Antonio.

Cover Photo by @tpcsanantonio on iconosquare