munneypicks

2015 Valero Texas Open

Tournament: Well the Florida swing is now over and I can’t say that I’ll miss it. I’ve never had a run like that where I was so close to the winners circle but never cashed a winner. We now move to Texas for 2 weeks before the Masters. This week will be the Valero Texas Open. The tournament dates back all the way to 1922 and is played in San Antonio Texas. In 2010, the tournament began play at TPC San Antonio, so all my research comes from the past 4 years of play.

Course: The Oaks Course at TPC San Antonio was designed by the Great White Shark, Greg Norman. As players design courses that fit the way they play the game, this course puts a premium on driving the ball.

The Oaks Course is a par 72 that stretches just over 7,400 yards. It is one of the toughest par 72’s on TOUR year in and year out and last year the winning score was -8 (Posted by Steven Bowditch). I went back and listened to some interviews from players here and almost all of them mention finding the fairways and driving the ball well.

Past Winners:

2014 – Steven Bowditch
2013 – Martin Laird
2012 – Ben Curtis
2011 – Brendan Steele
2010 – Adam Scott

Field: Players in the field this week include Phil Mickleson, Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson, and Martin Kaymer.

What to Look For: Driving the ball long and straight as we mentioned is a premium. We will add a bit of a greater premium to the long part of that equation as the leaderboards here have reflected that as being important. Another thing I want to look at is past scoring average. People who have played well here, seem to play well going forward. Even Bowditch, who seemingly came out of nowhere to win last year, started the 2013 tournament and was tied for 2nd after 36 holes. Out of the 5 winners here at the Oaks Course, none of them had a top 10 finish coming into that years tournament. That is a rare occurrence this late in the season on the PGA TOUR. That makes capping this tournament a bit harder. And with the average odds of the winners here being over 100/1, I am very comfortable taking some outsiders this week.

Free Pick:

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Brendan Steele e/w*: Steele is a past winner here and also has another top 5 finish to his name. This ticks all the boxes of having what it takes to win here. He ranks 11th this week in my Adjusted Total Driving stat, which gives a 65% weight to distance and a 35% weight to accuracy.