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

Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for the 2017 Valero Texas Open

The Valero Texas Open Fantasy Preview

Well, that’s one way to get over the post-Masters blues.  The RBC Heritage event served up a classic climax on Sunday, with six or seven players boasting genuine hopes heading into the final round.

The scripts were written: would Jason Dufner secure his first PGA TOUR title since the 2016 CareerBuilder Challenge?  Could Kevin Kisner overcome his final round demons that prevented him winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational?  Might Wesley Bryan or Ollie Schniederjans bag a maiden Tour title, or could one of our picks – William McGirt or Graeme DeLaet – convert an excellent opening 54 holes?

 

As it turns out, the winning narrative was the hometown boy done good.  Bryan, so close to a breakthrough win already this season, finally got home in front of an impassioned group of supporters to clinch a one-shot victory over perennial Harbour Town specialist Luke Donald.

Now we head to the Lone Star State for the Valero Texas Open, a tournament in which the local boys tend to enjoy their week.  Former winners here include Jimmy Walker and Aussie-turned-Texan Steven Bowditch, while 12 months ago Patrick Reed finished in second behind Charley Hoffman.  Given Wes Bryan’s win on home turf last week, perhaps this local boy’ narrative is worth following in once again.

Last Week’s Fantasy Results from the RBC Heritage

We didn’t run with the long-shot hometown kid Wes Bryan last week, but we’re certainly wishing we did.  But even with out the victory six of our seven picks made it through the weekend and three finished Top 11.  Our Top Dog Kuch who ended up shooting a 64 Sunday but still fell short of expectations as he only managed 75 fantasy points with his T11 finish.

We saw promising things from our Top-Tier Pick Martin Kaymer on Sunday, but like Kuch he too ended up disappointing us in the end.  In case you missed it, Marty went 6-under on the front nine with an eagle before loosing his momentum and coming in 4-over on the back.  Despite the wind coming out of the sails, Kaymer still put up a respectable 78.50 fantasy points.

 

As for our two mid-tier picks, Graham DeLaet looked promising and was off to the races before fading to T6 with his 73 on Sunday.  Despite that, Graham’s strong early rounds meant that he still ended up with 95 fantasy points on the week.

Meanwhile, Willie McGirt was our shining star a just $7,900 last week against his 95.50 fantasy points and a T3 finish.

The 2017 Valero Texas Open Field

This is one of those rare PGA TOUR events where it feels wide open, and that any one of a number of potential champions can rear their head.

There’s Patrick Reed, woefully out of form but capable of turning it on back in Texas.  There are former winners of this event such as Jimmy Walker, Charley Hoffman, and Brendan Steele, all of whom have an obvious chance this week.

Branden Grace, Billy Horschel, and Kevin Chappell all recorded top-10s here last year – can they improve on those showings this time around?  Perhaps a talented youngster – Brooks Koepka, Ryan Moore, or Adam Hadwin – can add to their trophy collection.

 

And can we write off wily old campaigners like Matt Kuchar, Kevin Na and Zach Johnson?

Hopefully, the names listed above offer a flavor of the opportunity available to anyone willing and able to shine this week.

This Week’s Course Preview

The Greg Norman design, TPC San Antonio, only opened its doors in 2010, and it has hosted this event at the AT&T Oaks course ever since.

This track measures 7,435 yards for its Par 72 and is typically one of the hardest courses on tour; in 2015, it returned the highest scoring average of any tour-level course outside of the majors.  Three of the Par 5s rank among the 20 hardest holes on the PGA TOUR, measuring a minimum of 591 yards!

TPC San Antonio is considered hugely unique for is layout, which determines that the downhill holes play into the wind while those on an up gradient have the downwind at the players’ backs.  Fairways are narrow and bunkers as deep as 12ft.

This is also a ‘split surface’ course, with Bermudagrass lining the fairways and a Bentgrass/Poa Annua mix providing the foundations for the greens, which run at around 11 on the stimp.

Weather Forecast for San Antonio, Texas

It’s getting pretty hot and sultry in Texas at the moment, and that will manifest itself in the usual sunny spells and occasionally heavy downpour of rain.

There will be a lot of humidity around on Thursday and Friday, while gusts of wind are expected to reach up to 15 mph.  This is an event which has been battered in the past by heavy winds, with high scoring often a factor.

Saturday could be different, with a chance of rain up to 50% in the morning before conditions clear for another hot, fine afternoon.

And what a setting for the final round.  There is a 0% chance of rain on Sunday, with warm sunshine and winds at around 12 mph.

Last Year’s Results from the Valero Texas Open

Charley Hoffman needed to sink a 10-foot clutch putt on the eighteenth 12 months ago to see off a late charge from Patrick Reed, and that’s exactly what he did to clinch the fourth PGA TOUR of his career.

If anybody summed up the horses for courses tag then it’s Hoffman in Texas.  Incredibly, this victory came after nine top-15 finishes in ten starts in this event at both TPC San Antonio and the former host La Cantera.

The leader heading into the final round was Ricky Barnes, who forfeited a one-shot lead to another fading finished in Brendan Steele.  They fired 74 and 75 respectively to finish T3 and T13.

Texans Ryan Palmer and Martin Piller both recorded top-five finishes on home soil.

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Where to Play Fantasy Golf for the Valero Texas Open this Week

Some decent prizes are up for grabs this week courtesy of DraftKings in particular, with an opportunity to win up to $50,000 for drafting a winning team of six!

• PGA $500K Dogleg: A staggering $50k is handed to the winner of this contest, with even a top 30 finish trousering a cool $1k!

• PGA $325K Fore: DraftKings are dishing out the big prizes this week as mentioned, and this contest – which is restricted to a multi-entry of 20 – offers a top prize of $30k and ‘double your money’ for the top 12,500 home of the 95,000 entrants.

This Week’s Fantasy Notes for the Valero Texas Open

Hit the ball miles off the tee and putt well….if only it was that easy to win the Valero Texas Open!

It was a formula that paid dividends for Charley Hoffman 12 months ago anyway.  He ranked T4 for Driving Distance and second for Putting Average, which is a handy recipe for success.  In truth, he played well in all areas of his game, ranking T17 for Greens in Regulation and T34 for Driving Accuracy.

All in all, eight of the first ten home gained at least one shot on the field from tee-to-green, so unfortunately there is no obvious metric to call upon this week. But DONT FORGET to utilize our Key Fantasy Stats Tool which allows you to sort through the current field to find players you need to fill an exact salary void.  For example, if you’re looking for long ball hitters in the $6,500 to $7,500 range, you can find the best available options to give you an edge.

Current form could be of interest.  Hoffman had made the cut in eight of his previous strokeplay tournaments, with a very nice T14 at the RBC Heritage the week before offering notice of what was to come.  In 2015 Jimmy Walker was also in good form, delivering a trio of top-10s – winning the Sony Open – just prior to his Texas Open triumph.

What else do we need to know this week?  Playing in windy conditions is key, so any form shown at Augusta and the RBC last week is of interest.  We also have an interesting correlating course to consider: El Camaleon, the home of the OHL Classic.  This is another wind affected track designed by Greg Norman.

And as mentioned, anybody with a Texan connection is also worthy of consideration.

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

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Top 5 Picks/Odds to Win the Valero Texas Open

Please Note: Due to the limited events played in 2017, some players have not yet accrued enough stats to qualify for an accurate GPFP.

Top Tier Pick #1: 

Charley Hoffman (Odds: 25/1, FPPG: 66.4, GPFP: 58.40 Salary: $10,700)

You’ll do well to find a better player on Texan soil than Charley Hoffman.  The defending champion here of course, Hoffman hasn’t finished any lower than T13 in his last seven starts in this event, with four top-10s and two T11 finishes in among them.  Really, it’s amazing that DraftKings have decided that Matt Kuchar and Brooks Koepka should be higher priced!

He’s been in excellent touch of late with top-fives in the Genesis Open and the Arnold Palmer, plus top-25s in the Houston Open and The Masters, which of course he led after 18 holes.  He missed the cut last time out at the RBC Heritage, but two rounds of 74 are hardly disastrous.

Hoffman loves TPC San Antonio, and as well as lifting the trophy here 12 months ago he performed an incredible feat in 2015: weather conditions were so horrific on the Thursday that only two players fired rounds in the 60s; Hoffman was one of them, and his round of 67 was truly staggering in its brilliance.  It was akin to his first 18 heroics at Augusta a few weeks ago.

Backing Hoff – whether in daily fantasy or the sportsbooks – can be fraught with risk, but that is mitigated here in an event – and state – that he simply loves playing his golf in.

Key Stats:

• Scrambling – 9th
• SG: Around-the-Green – 19th
• Putting Average – 43rd

Top-Tier Pick #2:

Jimmy Walker (Odds: 28/1, FPPG: 64.2, GPFP: 68.69 Salary: $10,500)

If you were to accuse us of playing the percentages this week you’d be right: Hoffman and Jimmy Walker are two of the best Texan golf exponents on the planet.

What we like particularly about the PGA Championship, erm, champion is that he played very nicely at Augusta last time out: he delivered rounds of 76-71-70-72, which was an excellent performance.

The 2015 winner is hugely inconsistent in this event (MC-1-16-31-MC-MC-7), but as mentioned he is coming into an event he has intermittently enjoyed in the past in good spirits.

Walker ranks first on tour for Overall Putting Average, and we could do with some of that flat-stick magic this week.

Key Stats:

• Overall Putting Average – 1st
• SG: Approach-the-Green – 23rd
• Driving Distance – 59th

Mid-Tier Pick #1:

Ryan Palmer (Odds: 45/1, FPPG: 48.3, GPFP: 54.11 Salary: $8,600)

There is only week of the year we’d be happy to splurge $8,600 on Ryan Palmer, and that time is now.  Back to back top-10 finishes (T4 in 2016, T6 in ’15) follow a trio of visits of 56-15-32, so clearly being back home on Texan soil suits Palmer well.

You may well look at his statistical make-up and think we’ve lost our minds in drafting Palmer, but his game is so well suited to San Antonio that all other stats are rendered meaningless.  The fact that he has performed well in the Sony Open in the past – windy, narrow fairways – is a bonus.

His form has been improving of late, and while he missed the cut at the Houston Open he did so with a score of +1, so not the end of the world.  At Harbour Town last week he finished T11….just how high could he have gone but for a second round of 73?

Key Stats:

• SG: Tee-to-Green – 16th
• Driving Distance – 32nd
• Greens in Regulation – 60th

Mid-Tier Pick #2:

Ollie Schniederjans (Odds: 50/1, FPPG: 66.4, GPFP: 84.99 Salary: $8,200)

Time for another Texan now, and one who recorded his best finish of the season last time out: T3 at the RBC Heritage.  Why? That’s simple:

“I had a week off during the Masters and just took some time out to work on my putting,” Schniederjans told the PGA TOUR website.  Now, he only finished T40 for SG: Putting at Harbour Town, but clearly that improvement made a huge difference.

The 23-year-old is yet to sample San Antonio competitively, but presumably he has played here before as a Texan born and bred.

He will have watched on as Wes Bryan, another fine young talent, land his maiden PGA TOUR title on home soil last week, and Schniederjans might just fancy his chances of repeating the dose here.

Key Stats:

• Par 5 Scoring Average – 30th
• SG: Tee-to-Green – 37th
• Driving Distance – 38th

Low-Tier Pick:

Ben Crane (Odds: 250/1, FPPG: 56.6, GPFP: 36.52 Salary: $6,900)

One more Texan to add to the roster and, surprisingly, Crane has only played in this event twice in the past eight years: the peak of which was T29 last year.

Crane has reached the weekend in six of his last seven starts – a happy occurrence from any low-tier pick, and season-best performances of T15 at the OHL Classic (remember the course correlation narrative) and T23 at the Sanderson Farms are representative of what we would like to see from him this week.

Not the longest off the tee, but Crane does rank 25th for Driving Accuracy so should find plenty of these tricky fairways.  That at least should provide a useful platform for scoring.

Key Stats:

• Par 3 Scoring Average – 21st
• Driving Accuracy – 25th
• Putts per Round – 83rd

Sleeper Pick for the Valero Texas Open

Jamie Lovemark (Odds: 100/1, FPPG: 57.3, GPFP: 68.23 Salary: $7,200)

One player who has been greatly underpriced this week is Jamie Lovemark—a guy who loves these long and windy tests: T20 at the Safeway Open, T35 at Mayakoba, T6 at the RSM Classic, and T4 at the Sony Open.

His last visit to San Antonio yielded a T36 in 2014, and since then his game has improved, so we expect that finish to improve exponentially.

Huge off the tee and comfortable in the wind, Lovemark is a fantastic power play at a cheap price this week.

Key Stats:

• Par 4 Scoring Average: 11th
• Driving Distance: 25th
• Total Putting: 49th

Alternative Sleeper Pick for the Valero Texas Open

Nick Taylor (Odds: 150/1, FPPG: 55.4, GPFP: 53.74 Salary: $6,500)

Talk about a sleeper.  Cast your mind back 12 months and you may or may not remember Nick Taylor’s fantastic showing at San Antonio.

He may only have finished T21, but on the Friday-Saturday he played unrivalled golf: his round of 68 on the Friday was only bettered by Sung Kang, while on the Saturday his 66 was the best of the day.

The Canadian has made seven cuts from his last nine starts, with a pair of those being top-25s including a T22 at the RBC Heritage last time out.  More than half of his last 25 rounds have ended under par.

Key Stats:

• Par 5 Scoring Average – 18th
• Total Birdies – 32nd
• Driving Distance – 87th

This Week’s Sample DraftKings Lineups

Note: Sample lineups provided as examples only.  Be sure to mix-and-match players to best fit individual contests.

Sample Lineup

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Fantasy Golf Predictions This Season (2016-2017)

[skill_bar heading=”Total Top 3s” percent=”8.84%” bar_text=”13 out of 147 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Top 10s” percent=”21.77%” bar_text=”32 out of 147 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Top 25s” percent=”39.46%” bar_text=”58 out of 147 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Winners Picked” percent=”23.80%” bar_text=”5 out of 21 events” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Runners-Up Picked” percent=”9.52%” bar_text=”2 out of 21 events” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Made Cuts (Includes Sleepers)” percent=”73.47″ bar_text=”108 out of 147 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″]

Remember to visit our private Facebook group to discuss this week’s picks for the 2017 Valero Texas Open with other Premium Members.

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Cover Photo via Instagram