Golf fans were treated to a true feel-good win last week with Gary Woodland winning the Texas Houston Open in convincing fashion by five strokes. Just 30 months ago he was on an operating table having a brain lesion removed through a baseball-sized hole in his skull, and he recently opened up in an interview with the Golf Channel about battling crippling PTSD and panic attacks post-op while fighting to keep his tour card.
More than golf. Good on ya Gary.
Now onto the last stop before Augusta.
Twenty-two Masters invitees are in this 132-player field, turning the 104th edition of the Texas Open into a high-stakes dress rehearsal. Tommy Fleetwood (world No. 4), Collin Morikawa (No. 8), Robert MacIntyre (No. 9), Russell Henley (No. 10), Sepp Straka (No. 12), J.J. Spaun (No. 13), Hideki Matsuyama (No. 14), Ludvig Åberg (No. 18), and Alex Noren (No. 19) are among nine top-20 players in a field that is comfortably the strongest Valero lineup in years.
The subplot is the players who need this week. Morikawa makes his first start since withdrawing from THE PLAYERS after just one hole with a back injury. Jordan Spieth is chasing his first win since 2022 at a course where he won in 2021. And for a handful of players without Masters invitations, a win here is the only way in. That includes fan favorites Rickie Fowler and Tony Finau. Brian Harman defends the title he won last April in 30-mph gusts and 42-degree wind chills. Ten waggles in that kind of weather? No thanks.
Updated Mar 31: Collin Morikawa (back) has withdrawn from the field. His analysis remains for context but he will not compete this week.
Greg Norman's design at TPC San Antonio is a tee-to-green test disguised as a straightforward par 72. The fairways are tree-lined but similar to Memorial Park last week, the rough penalty is among the lowest on Tour — it's the big miss, into the rocks and native scrub, that destroys scores. The real test begins with the second shot. Elevated greens, sharp fall-offs on every side, and aggressive pin positions create an approach-play filter that has defined this event since the Oaks Course took over in 2010.
SG: Tee-to-Green is the best overall barometer. Every recent winner has been elite in that composite stat. Putting matters less than you'd expect — the overseeded bermuda greens play at average speed, and lag putting from distance is the only putting subcategory that ranks above average in difficulty. The par 5s are the scoring engine: three of the four measure over 590 yards, birdie rates are below 30% on most of them, and the top-10 finishers consistently separate from the field on these holes. Five par 4s measure over 445 yards, and they account for five of the six hardest holes on the course. The closing par-5 18th, with its creek-guarded green, is one of the most underrated finishing holes on Tour.
Wind is almost always a factor here. San Antonio in early April regularly delivers 15–25 mph sustained winds that can push scoring averages past 74. Last year's final round played to 74.8 — only nine players broke par. The tee time draw matters. Mornings are generally calmer. The last nine winners were inside the top 20 after round one. Fast starts here tend to translate down the stretch.
| Year | Winner | Score | SG: APP Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Brian Harman | -9 (279) | T4 |
| 2024 | Akshay Bhatia | -20 (268) | 1st |
| 2023 | Corey Conners | -15 (273) | 1st |
| 2022 | J.J. Spaun | -13 (275) | 4th |
| 2021 | Jordan Spieth | -18 (270) | 1st |
| 2019 | Corey Conners | -20 (268) | 1st |
| Player | DG Win% | Mkt Win% | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ludvig Åberg | 4.5% | 5.9% | -1.4% |
| Tommy Fleetwood | 4.1% | 6.7% | -2.6% |
| Robert MacIntyre | 3.9% | 5.3% | -1.4% |
| Jordan Spieth | 3.8% | 5.3% | -1.5% |
| Si Woo Kim | 3.7% | 4.8% | -1.1% |
| Russell Henley | 3.6% | 5.3% | -1.7% |
| Hideki Matsuyama | 3.4% | 4.3% | -0.9% |
| Maverick McNealy | 3.1% | 3.8% | -0.7% |
| Collin Morikawa | 2.9% | 5.3% | -2.4% |
| Rickie Fowler | 2.7% | 3.4% | -0.7% |
| Alex Noren | 1.8% | 2.8% | -1.0% |
| Denny McCarthy | 1.4% | 2.0% | -0.6% |
DG Win% = DataGolf course-history adjusted model. Mkt Win% derived from FanDuel opening odds (3/30). Edge = DG model minus market implied probability. A negative edge means the market is pricing the player more aggressively than the model.
The headline: the DataGolf model sees this as a wide-open field where the market is overpricing almost every favorite. Åberg tops the model at 4.5% win probability — but the market has him at nearly 6%, making him the second-most overpriced player in the top tier. Fleetwood, the clear market favorite at +1400, shows the largest gap: the model puts him at 4.1% against the market's implied 6.7%. The model respects his overall talent but hasn't seen enough at TPC San Antonio to back the shortest price in the field. Without Scheffler skewing the odds, it's about as level of a playing field as you'll see from a model standpoint.
Morikawa stands out as the biggest market-model disconnect. The sportsbooks have him at +1800 (5.3% implied), but DataGolf slots him at just 2.9% — barely inside the top 10. His one prior start here was a T75 in 2024, and he's returning from a back injury. The market seems to be pricing his name and his Pebble Beach win, while the model is pricing his actual fit for this specific course.
The more interesting conversation is the cluster of Spieth (3.8%), Si Woo Kim (3.7%), and Henley (3.6%) — all players with legitimate course history and ball-striking profiles that match what TPC San Antonio demands. The model sees all three as genuine contenders, not just narrative picks. Spieth in particular has the deepest course history in the field: a win, a T2, a T10, and 34 rounds of data that the model uses to identify a real edge at this venue.
DataGolf's top pick at 4.5% win probability. The 26-year-old Swede has the length, the iron play, and the ball-striking floor that this course rewards. His VTO history is mixed — a missed cut in 2023, a T14 in 2024, and another missed cut last year — but the model's course-history adjustment sees enough skill-to-course alignment to put him at the top regardless. He was in contention at THE PLAYERS two weeks ago before collapsing on the back nine Sunday. If the wind stays down, his power game could overpower the Oaks Course. If it blows, his inconsistency here becomes a factor. The model says the upside outweighs the risk. The market agrees — maybe too aggressively at 5.9% implied.
The 2021 champion and native Texan. Spieth's relationship with TPC San Antonio runs deep: a win, a T2 (2015), a T10 last year, and 34 rounds of data that show the model a genuine structural fit between his game and this course. He's notably the one champion in recent memory who won here with a poor greens-in-regulation week (T57th), leaning on scrambling and short-game wizardry — proof this course can reward creativity when the wind makes ball-striking unreliable. His recent form has been quietly solid: three top-12 finishes in his last four starts. The model puts him at 3.8% — the fourth-highest win probability in the field. The risk is real (no wins since 2022), but when the data and the track record agree this strongly, pay attention.
The 2025 FedExCup champion and the field's highest-ranked player at world No. 4. Fleetwood's tee-to-green game has been consistently elite this season, and his wind experience from years of European links golf is a genuine advantage at a venue where 20+ mph gusts regularly define the weekend. His two starts at TPC San Antonio — T7 in 2024, T62 in 2025 — are a mixed bag, but the 2025 result came in brutal conditions where a bad draw can ruin a week. The model puts him at 4.1% — second in the field — but the market has him at a much richer 6.7% implied. He's the best player here, and that still matters, but this is the largest model-to-market gap in the top tier.
The 43-year-old Swede is quietly having an excellent run of form and sits at world No. 19 — the highest ranking of his PGA Tour career. Noren won back-to-back on the European Tour last summer (British Masters, BMW PGA Championship) and has translated that form stateside with a T12 at the Genesis Invitational. He has two top-15 finishes in two starts at TPC San Antonio, ranks 9th on Tour in SG: Around the Green this season, and multiple course-fit models flag him as a top-five fit in this field. His wind experience from years on European Tour coastal courses is a genuine asset here. DataGolf's model puts him at 1.8% — right around where the market has him. But the combination of course history, form, and skill profile makes him worth watching closely.
The dark horse with the best TPC San Antonio track record in the entire field. McCarthy has gained more strokes at this course than any other player over the past five years. His resume here is remarkable: a playoff loss to Bhatia in 2024 (finishing at 20-under, tying the course record), four top-20 finishes in six starts, and a made-cut streak that spans every appearance. He birdied his final seven holes in 2024 to force that playoff — a reminder that his ceiling is higher than his world ranking suggests. His 2026 form has been trending up: T26 at the Valspar, T12 at Houston last week. The profile is unconventional — he's a putter-first player on a ball-striking course — but his history here says the course brings out something extra in his game. DataGolf has him at 1.4%, and the market at 2.0% implied, so this is a narrative pick more than a model pick — but course history this strong deserves respect.
The conventional read on TPC San Antonio is that approach play matters most, and that's true. But the more useful framing is that the Oaks Course is unusually steady in how it distributes its punishment across every other skill. Off-the-tee difficulty ranks roughly average on Tour. Putting difficulty ranks roughly average. Short game difficulty ranks roughly average. None of them is particularly extreme. What that creates is a course where approach play becomes the only reliable separator, because nothing else consistently discriminates between players.
That's why the winner profile here looks so different from week to week. Harman won in near-freezing gusts with grit and scrambling. Bhatia won in calm conditions by firing a 63 and never looking back. Conners won with surgical iron play. Spieth won with short-game magic despite hitting barely half his greens. The common thread isn't a single skill — it's that each winner found a way to be elite tee-to-green during their specific week, regardless of how conditions shaped which subset of tee-to-green skills mattered most.
That's also why course history matters more here than at most Tour stops. Players who are one-dimensional — elite putters without iron games, or big hitters with modest short games — tend to flirt with the cut line more. The Oaks Course asks for completeness, and the players who keep showing up on the leaderboard (Spieth, McCarthy, Keith Mitchell, Conners) are the ones whose overall games hold up when TPC San Antonio applies pressure across the board. When the model and the history point at the same names, that's the strongest signal the data can give you.