The profit train keeps a’rolling down the track. Despite one of the favorites missing the cut (Sam Burns), our limited exposure player pool still ended up in the black at last week’s Valspar Championship. The PGA Tour bids farewell to the Sunshine State and is headed back westward for the Texas Swing. The first stop is at the Texas Children’s Houston Open, where the big Texan with the number one ranking in the world returns to impose his will upon professional golf.
Scottie Scheffler is the elephant in the room. He is the best and everyone else is seemingly jostling to fill out the podium. The Houston Open field is certainly top-heavy but is being held on a golf course that will inevitably invite the relatively unknown to duke it out with the players with more name recognition.
PGA DFS: Texas Children’s Houston Open (2024)
(Salary Prices Courtesy of DraftKings)
Memorial Park Municipal Golf Course plays host again this season. The course is a par-70 that comes in longer than Tour average at more than 7,400 yards. The fairways and greens are expansive swaths of Bermuda grass, with little defense from long rough or bunkering. The best shotmaker will prevail here, especially if he can scramble out of trouble around the greens. Distance is an advantage here, too. Finally, converting birdie chances where they present themselves is critically important.
Most of the heavy chalk lies at the very top of this field in DFS, which would normally deter me from heavy exposure. This week might still require one or more of the most expensive players to be optimal, so I’ll diversify with a wider net down in the lower tiers. Contest selection will depend on how many players find your pool. Mine is somewhat larger for Houston, so I’m inclined to take on more mass multi-entry (MME) contests to have more bullets aimed at the top prize. This strategy also helps with not over-extending myself on the bankroll risk. I tend to over-extend when trying to play more single-entry (SE) tournaments with FOMO. Let’s go boot scootin’.
High-Priced ($9,000 & Above)
- Chalk Plays: Scottie Scheffler, Wyndham Clark, Sahith Theegala
- Chalk Fades: Tony Finau, Alex Noren, Tom Hoge
- Leverage Plays: Will Zalatoris, Si Woo Kim, Jason Day
Mid-Priced ($7,600 to $8,900)
- Chalk Plays: Stephan Jaeger, Doug Ghim, Jake Knapp
- Chalk Fades: Aaron Rai, Billy Horschel, Taylor Moore
- Leverage Plays: Beau Hossler, Patrick Rodgers, Kurt Kitayama, Mackenzie Hughes, Ben Griffin
Value-Priced ($7,500 & Below)
- Chalk Plays: Joel Dahmen, Sam Ryder, Bud Cauley
- Chalk Fades: Andrew Novak, Joseph Bramlett, Ryan Moore
- Leverage Plays: Davis Thompson, Ryan Fox, Daniel Berger, Alex Smalley, Chandler Phillips, Taylor Pendrith, Cameron Champ, Carl Yuan, Matti Schmid, Bud Cauley, Gary Woodland, Chan Kim, Michael Kim, Hayden Springer, Erik Barnes, Nick Dunlap, Rico Hoey, Jhonattan Vegas, Norman Xiong, Alejandro Tosti
