Valero Preview
Course: TPC San Antonio
Purse: $9.2 million
We have the most important event of the schedule next week, The Masters (a tradition unlike any other, by the way). With that, we are seeing a ton of guys looking to get into their best form ahead of Augusta. A whole bunch of these guys will not be qualifying for The Masters field, which makes winning this extra important - a win gets you an automatic ticket to Augusta.
This will be the strongest Valero field in my memory. Rory, Spieth, Homa, Aberg, Fitzpatrick, Morikawa, Hideki, and Fleetwood are all here. This is way stronger than last week in Houston even if that one did have Scottie.
It might surprise you to hear this will be the 101st iteration of this event - the vast majority of those being called The Texas Open. TPC San Antonio is not even close to that old, but the event has been played in the San Antonio area for all 100 years. In the past, it held greater prestige than it does today (it would be hard to be less prestigious to be honest).
In looking at the list of recent winners, we see a very clear reflection of how this field usually is: on the weak side, with a lot of Texas natives:
2023: Corey Conners
2022: JJ Spaun
2021: Jordan Spieth
2019: Corey Conners
2018: Andrew Landry
I don’t have any real trends around the winners of The Valero this week. The most meaningful one I have is that three of those five above were winning their first ever PGA event when they won here; it was career win #12 for Spieth. I’ll likely be betting on a handful of first-time winners-to-be this week, encouraged by the history.
TPC San Antonio Preview
TPC San Antonio is actually two separate courses: the “Canyon” by Pete Dye and the “Oaks” by Greg Norman. All of this event will be played on the Oaks course. The pair opened in 2010. Dye worked alone, but Norman was joined in part by Sergio Garcia. It’s kind of ironic now that the PGA Tour is playing an event on a course by two of the more public faces of LIV.
My first Google searches describe TPC San Antonio as a private course, but it’s really not. You can join as a member, but if you stay at the hotel on site there are packages. It looked like $830 got you two nights and a round on both courses. That’s cheaper than most of the tour stops we can play, but these courses are nothing that special. I’d say it’s low on the list of dream rounds among the schedule stops.
According to Datagolf, course history correlation is about average here. I always try to pull comparable course stats, but don’t feel like there are enough defining characteristics of TPC San Antonio to really put much stock in them. I think Innisbrook from a couple weeks ago is good, as well as Corales. I didn’t preview the Corales Puntacana last week, but there was an alternate event in the Dominican Republic. With similar wind possible in Texas, I’d give an early edge to guys who played well there last week.
The course measures out at 7450 yards, making it just a bit above average. I’d normally expect distance to matter when we have a length like this, but past history shows it’s barely made a difference. The rough is kept pretty short, just like Houston last week. I expect to use Good Drives Gained as my OTT angle this week. We can miss the fairway and be fine.
The craziest stat I found this week is about GIR%…from the rough, the GIR% is the exact same as from the fairway. So really we just need our guys to avoid massive misses into the oak trees that line many holes. It’s wide enough, but a severe miss will be punished, sometimes excessively…
Way back in 2011, Kevin Na recorded a 16 on the 9th hole! Multiple shots hit trees, one of them coming back at Na and hitting him in the leg, incurring more penalties. A 16 on a par 4 still stands as the worst par 4 score in tour history.
In a piece of trivia, the worst ever score recorded was an 18 on a par 5, a record proudly owned by John Daly.
I know it can sound like a broken record, but approach play is the most important trait this week. Driving distance and accuracy both are on the less challenging side, which is how the “second shot” golf course happens. Unfortunately, no proximity range stands out against average, so nothing to weigh there for me. I’ll include GIR’s Gained to compliment SG Approach.
Players miss more greens in San Antonio than average, partially due to the wind. Greens are often elevated too, so the runoff can lead to a bit more chipping length than a course with longer rough. I’ll give Around The Green stats a bit more respect anytime the GIR% dips below average. I’m also going to be looking at Sand Save stats this week - there are less bunkers than average, but sand save % is way below average too.
Greens are 6400 square foot Bermuda. However, I’m not going to use Bermuda splits as my putting stat. Instead, I’ll be looking at how guys have performed on slower putting greens. It’s odd to me that a Texas course would have slow rolling greens, but years of data say they are slower than most of the schedule. This is an available filter on most data sites (Fantasy National for me). Something interesting: putting stats inside 20 feet are better than average, but outside 20 feet worse than average.
As always, let’s summarize what we know about the course and event history to think about who we want to target this week.
We want this player to be in good form, particularly in approach play. It doesn’t matter if they’ve won before or how long they’ve been on tour really. I’d prefer them to have top-third stats putting on slow greens and above average around the green stats. I’m certainly not opposed to backing anyone with ties to Texas, but won’t use that as anything more than a tiebreaker if I’m trying to narrow down the options.
The Finishing Hole
I’ve likely made clear by now that this is not the coolest course we’ll see. There are, however, a few gems in this somewhat vanilla track, most notably the par 5 18th hole. Measuring at almost 600 yards, the distance alone prohibits most of the field from getting on in two.
As you can see in the image above, there is a winding creek that runs up the left side of the hole before jutting across in front of the green. For a closing hole, this presents an outstanding risk/reward proposition. Statistically, only 12 balls per event will land this green in two, descriptive of both the challenge presented as well as the rare advantage someone can have from being one of those 12. Should the event need to go to a playoff, this is a perfect hole to settle things.
Early Leans
I’m hoping that all the stars give us some better odds on guys down the board. First name I am looking for is Billy Horschel. He played fine in Houston through three rounds, then got hot on Sunday and finished in 7th. He’s one of the guys who has not qualified for The Masters, so this is his last chance. I’ll be interested at any price but do hope for 50/1.
I’m also going to look at Beau Hossler’s odds in hopes they are more fair than Houston. His form has been spotty but Texas has just felt like a good place for him. It’s a gut play, so I want this at 60/1 or longer if I’m going to humor it.
Of the shorter odds options, I’m leaning Hideki as my favorite. Data and prices will steer me after Billy.
How to Watch
We have a lot of streaming opportunities now, but I still want to know the TV schedule (all times EST).
Thursday: 2:00-6:00pm, Golf Channel
Friday: 2:00-6:00pm, Golf Channel
Saturday: TBD at time of writing
Sunday: TBD at time of writing
Closing Thoughts
Scheffler came close to making it three in a row yesterday, just was a makeable putt away from playoff holes. Obviously he would have liked to win, but you can’t ask for better form going into Augusta. He’s priced so short there already, I don’t think anything happening this week will change that. Whoever ends up playing well this week will likely see some of their Masters odds get cut as well.
Stephan Jaeger had been knocking on the door of a win for some time, happy for him to get over the line. Of course wish we had been on him outright, we certainly have over some events this past year. Based on his skillset and history from Korn Ferry, I could definitely see him winning again on Tour, be it later this year or in the future.
I’m going to stay pretty open-minded to who I back this week, likely Horschel no matter what. He’s sure to be popular though, so if you do see yourself backing him, I would get that bet in as soon as you can on Monday. Billy is going to be chalky, so there’s that, chalk has not been performing well most weeks.
We’ll be back on Wednesday with our usual post of data and my favorite bets of the week. Until then, best of luck with all your bets.
Matt / Ziggy