The PGA Tour heads to San Antonio, Texas for the Valero Texas Open, and our experts have their Picks & Best Bets ready.
Golf betting experts Spencer Aguiar, Matt Gannon and Tony Sartori have picks for TPC San Antonio (Oaks Course) as the PGA Tour has one more tournament before the Masters.
Here's everything you need to know about Valero Texas Open Picks & Best Bets as the PGA Tour makes one final stop before the Masters.
Valero Texas Open Picks, Best Bets
Spencer Aguiar: Patrick Rodgers -110 Over Lee Hodges (Caesars)
Rodgers versus Hodges has all the makings of every volatile concept we have discussed over the last few years of trying to find a profile to fade and doing it with any golfer that grades over a three percent value in projected implied win probability.
None of that suggests that my model doesn’t find intrigue behind Rodgers’ high-end returns for length and short-game prowess, but this has more to do with a bottom-tier profile from Hodges that exhibited massive red flags.
Hodges ranked 120th for Weighted Scoring, 134th when faced with a longer course, which could be the ultimate downside factor here, 133rd for Expected Strokes Gained Total and 101st for Scrambling, another area that created this downside answer of heightened missed-cut potential.
The floor here goes missed-cut versus missed-cut, but that is a risk I am willing to take because of how inferior my projected returns were for Hodges compared to the consensus inside the market.
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Matt Gannon: Alexander Bjork Top 20 +650 (DraftKings)
Alexander Bjork is a European journeyman who would not strike you as a professional golfer if you saw him hit a driver in person. This man drives the ball no further than your best buddy who is a four handicap as he is 182nd on Tour in average Driving Distance at 275.1 yards.
The good thing about TPC San Antonio is that he does not need to drive the ball a mile to find success. Bjork will lean on his elite Driving Accuracy, which ranks third on Tour at 70.59%, and iron game. He is generally a great putter as well as he ranks eighth on Tour in Strokes Gained: Putting this season. He has done this consistently by gaining strokes putting in seven of eight starts this year.
He missed the cut by a lot on Houston, which is totally fine as that course with its prodigious length was a poor fit. This is a much better spot to run out Bjork, and he surely has top-20 upside and value at +650.
Tony Sartori: Lucas Glover Top 10 +700 (FanDuel)
Last July, Lucas Glover put together a fourth-place finish at the Rocket Mortgage Classic that seemingly revamped his career. Including that event, he has made the weekend in 16 of his past 19 tournaments with five top-10 finishes over that stretch, including his back-to-back wins at the Wyndham Championship and FedEx St. Jude Championship.
Glover’s approach game has been the main catalyst for this success as he has gained True Strokes on Approach in 16 of his past 17 tournaments with ShotLink data available. He is also coming off an 11th at the Valspar Championship, so he has recently proven that he can still knock on the door of a top-10 finish, which proves valuable when playing this prop at 7-1.
Finally, Glover finished fourth here in 2021, and another top-10 finish could be in store this week.
Valero Texas Open Expert Picks, Fades
Favorites We’re Backing
- Aguiar: Matt Fitzpatrick +3000
- Gannon: Collin Morikawa +3200
- Sartori: Corey Conners +2700
Best Long Shot
- Aguiar: Nate Lashley 165-1
- Gannon: Ryo Hisatsune 110-1
- Sartori: Aaron Rai +7000
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Biggest Bust
- Aguiar: Ryan Moore 120-1
- Gannon: Corey Conners +2700
- Sartori: Rory McIlroy +1050
Contrarian Player To Target
- Aguiar: Tommy Fleetwood +3700
- Gannon: Keith Mitchell +8500
- Sartori: Christiaan Bezuidenhout +5500
Your Betting Strategy for the Valero Texas Open
Aguiar: You can tune into any show or article this week and hear the basic concepts of how hitting greens in regulation and gaining around the green is essential, but my model believed that aggression was the ultimate decider in locating high-end success.
I ran three separate categories in my sheet that looked into Aggression Rate, Aggression Birdie or Better % and Par-5 Aggression. I then took those totals and found who the best overall aggressors were projected to be since these par-5 holes are long and demand risk to get the most out of a player's round.
Gannon: The Oaks Course at TPC San Antonio is as much as a second-shot golf course as we see on The PGA Tour. There are multiple paths off the tee as bombers can send it if they choose. Short and accurate hitters can also plot along and lean into strong middle-iron play.
At the end of the day, I am looking for the golfers who are coming in with strong iron play and have the ability to spike on the greens. These are extremely tough greens to hit in comparison to the rest of the courses on Tour, so a strong around the green display is another important box to check.
Sartori: As Gannon said above, the AT&T Oaks Course at TPC San Antonio is a second-shot golf course that rewards strong approach play. Looking at last year’s leaderboard, each of the top-four finishers also finished as the top four players among the field in Strokes Gained: Approach.
While it’s relatively easy to score here, hitting greens and knocking down birdie putts are what separate the top of the field from the rest. Golfers need a strong approach game to succeed at this tournament, and it is especially beneficial if golfers excel at hitting greens from 175-200 yards, which is where the largest distribution of approach shots come from at TPC San Antonio.
