Valero Texas Open
Purse: $9.8M
Winner's Share: $1.764M
FedEx Cup Points: 500 to the Winner
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Course: TPC San Antonio - The Oaks Course
Yardage: 7,438
Par: 72
Previous Winners
2025 - Brian Harman
2024 - Akshay Bhatia
2023 - Corey Conners
2022 - J.J. Spaun
2021 - Jordan Spieth
2020 - No Tournament
2019 - Corey Conners
2018 - Andrew Landry
2017 - Kevin Chappell
2016 - Charley Hoffman
2015 - Jimmy Walker
Recap: Texas Children's Houston Open
It was a busy news week leading up to the first tournament of the Texas swing, from Scottie Scheffler withdrawing from the Texas Children's Houston Open to attend the birth of his second child to Tiger Woods being in the news cycle for, uh, less than desirable reasons. No better news came out of the week than Gary Woodland's triumph at Memorial Park on Sunday.
Woodland struggled to open the 2026 season, missing the cut in four of his first five PGA Tour events before a T14 finish at the Valspar Championship the week before. He enjoyed previous success at the TCHO, including a T2 finish in 2025 in which he and Scottie Scheffler surged in the final round only to fall just short of Min Woo Lee. Lee had a good title defense (T3), but all of the attention during the final round was on his playing partners, Woodland and Nicolai Hojgaard, who were separated by just one stroke at the top of the leaderboard.
Hojgaard's inability to score on the front nine gave Woodland the opportunity to build some breathing room, and the latter did just that with a four-under score that included three consecutive birdies from holes seven to nine. That was enough for Woodland to maintain his lead on the back nine, culminating in his triumph on the 18th green for his first tournament victory since the 2019 U.S. Open Championship (and fifth PGA Tour win of his career). What's more, Woodland's victory guaranteed his spot at The Masters in two weeks time.
Tournament Preview: Valero Texas Open
Woodland wasn't the only player to punch their ticket to Augusta National in two weeks. Hojgaard's runner-up finish cemented his spot at The Masters thanks to his spot in the top-50 in the OWGR, and he'll be joined by Daniel Berger (38th), Jake Knapp (42nd) and Matt McCarty (46th). Michael Thorbjornsen was ranked 56th heading into the TCHO and looked like he was going to move into the top-50, but his final-round collapse dropped to 14th on the leaderboard to settle him at 54th in the OWGR. One spot remains at The Masters, and the way to get that is to win this week at the Valero. This week is also the final opportunity for players to earn points that will go toward the Aon Swing 5 and Next 10 to earn a spot at the RBC Heritage, the next Signature Event on the schedule that takes place a week after The Masters.
What worked for Woodland, Thorbjornsen (up until Sunday) and others at Memorial Park won't transfer to this week's Oaks Course at TPC San Antonio. Large bunkers and trees are strategically placed along the narrower fairways, and the rough is noticeably longer than it was at Memorial Park (though not as thick as they were pre-2019). The greens on the Oaks Course are also some of the toughest to hit in regulation, which puts scrambling and play around the green at a premium, along with mid-iron proximity and accuracy off the tee.
Underdog Contest Overview
Underdog hosts drafts every week at three buy-in amounts; The Par 3 at $3, the featured draft at $10, and "The Sandbagger" at $100. Each entrant will be paired up with five other participants and participate in a six-man snake draft of teams made up of six players (36 total selections), with each selection on a 30-second timer. For example, the person with the first overall pick and lucky enough to get Scheffler (unless you like to live dangerously) will have to wait until 2.6 and 3.1 to make their next selections. Points are allocated to golfers based on their performance on every hole, with bonus points available for golfers who make consecutive birdies or finish a round bogey free.
First Two Rounds
Tommy Fleetwood (2.0 ADP)
Ludvig Aberg (1.3 ADP) has been the favorite first-overall pick of drafters early on, but Fleetwood has played quite well this season despite appearing in just four PGA Tour events so far. He's finished in the top-10 in three of those outings, most recently at THE PLAYERS Championship (T8) thanks to his four-under 68 score in the final round. Fleetwood finished in the top-10 in SG: Off-the-Tee, SG: Approach, SG: Around-the-Green, driving accuracy and GIR at TPC Sawgrass, but it was his game on the green that ultimately let him down (65th in SG: Putting). He's made the cut in each of his two appearances at Valero, including a T7 finish in 2024.
Jordan Spieth (7.7 ADP)
Spieth won this event back in 2021 after firing a six-under 66 in the final round to beat Charley Hoffman (2016 winner) by two strokes. Speith, a Texas native, has been one of the most successful golfers at TPC San Antonio, where he's made the cut in eight of nine previous appearances and has finished in the top-12 in five of his last seven outings, which includes his win five years ago and a solo second in 2015. Spieth has finished T12 or better in three of his last four PGA Tour events. Even with dreadful accuracy off the tee (55 percent - 122nd this season), Spieth has the pedigree to successfully maneuver the Oaks Course.
Robert MacIntyre (9.5)
MacIntyre is coming off a two-week break following his T4 finish at THE PLAYERS, his second top-5 finish of the season (and fourth top-25 in six Tour events). He's been elite off the tee and on the green this season, ranking sixth in SG: Putting and 11th in SG: Off-the-Tee. This week will be MacIntryre's second appearance at TPC San Antonio (he finished T35 in his debut in 2022).
Michael Thorbjornsen (10.6 ADP)
Thorbjornsen has finished T33-T22-T14 over his last three tournaments, but those finishes would have been much better had it not been for his performance in the final round of each event. He was paired with Aberg two weeks ago at THE PLAYERS in the feature group, but the former's quadruple bogey on the fourth hole knocked him out of contention. It was a similar story for Thorbjornsen last week at Memorial Park, when he dropped from third to 14th after a two-over 72 score Sunday. Last week was especially heartbreaking for him, as a top-10 finish would have likely been enough for him to qualify for The Masters, but now he has to win at Valero in order to play at Augusta National. TPC San Antonio is the perfect place for Thorbjornsen to turn things around; he leads the PGA Tour in Total Driving (including 25th in driving accuracy) while ranking 16th in scrambling, 19th in SG: Around-the-Green and in the top-50 in SG: Tee-to-Green and GIR.
Middle-Round Value
Keith Mitchell (12.1 ADP)
Mitchell is coming off a T14 performance at the TCHO, saving his best round for last with a bogey-free, five-under 65 score Sunday. He had the right combination of power and accuracy off the tee at Memorial Park, ranking second in the field in SG: Off-the-Tee, T3 in driving accuracy and 13th in driving distance while finishing top-15 in SG: Approach and GIR. Mitchell has made the cut in all nine of his PGA Tour appearances this season with three top-15 finishes. He's finished T14-T12 at TPC San Antonio since his debut in 2024.
Sudarshan Yellamaraju (14.2 ADP)
The 24-year-old Canadian put his name on the map three weeks ago at TPC Sawgrass with a T6 finish, and he followed that up with a T5 performance this past week at Memorial Park. Yellamaraju finished strong in both events, and he's made the cut in seven of eight tournaments this season (including four top-20 finishes). He ranks in the top-30 this season in GIR and SG: Putting, Off-the-Tee and Approach, as well as second in total driving (16th in distance, 34th in accuracy) and fifth in proximity.
Thorbjorn Olesen (18.2 ADP)
Olesen missed the cut in four of the first five tournaments of the season, but he is coming off a T14 at the TCHO, when he scored six-under par over the final two days of the tournament. He's also enjoyed recent success at Valero, where he finished T5 in 2025 and T14 in 2024. Olesen rank 17th on the Tour in SG: Approach, and while he hasn't been the most accurate player off the tee this season, his most recent play at Memorial Park is an encouraging sign heading into TPC San Antonio.
Johnny Keefer (22.5 ADP)
Keefer entered last week having missed the cut in three straight events, but he broke out of that rut in style at Memorial Park, finishing T3 after a six-under 64 final round in what was the best performance of his young PGA Tour career. He has the kind of tools that should work well at the Oaks Course this week; he ranks seventh in SG: Off-the-Tee (17th in total driving), leads the Tour in GIR and ranks 38th in SG: Approach.
Late-Round Targets
Marco Penge (27.0 ADP)
It's been a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde kind of season for Penge. He's made the cut in just three of seven Tour events this season and didn't make it to the weekend last week at the TCHO. However, he finished T4 the week prior at the Valspar, and before that he was in contention through the first two rounds of The Genesis before fading to T16. Penge leads the Tour this season in SG: Off-the-Tee but near the bottom across other categories, so this is a feast or famine selection.
Austin Smotherman (34.6 ADP)
Smotherman is having a similar season to Penge, with the former finishing T8 at The American Express, T2 at the Cognizant and T13 at THE PLAYERS but missing the cut in four other tournaments (he also withdrew from the Arnold Palmer Invitational in order to attend the birth of his third child). He's been one of the best iron players on the Tour this season, ranking second in SG: Approach, 11th in proximity and 15th in GIR, and he's also had success off the tee (21st in total driving, 22nd in driving accuracy, 34th in SG: Off-the-Tee).
William Mouw (35.6 ADP)
Mouw missed the cut in three consecutive outings after finishing T71 at the Sony Open in January. Since then, he's finished T6 at the Cognizant Classic, T24 at THE PLAYERS and T44 at the TCHO. Mouw ranks fourth in total driving, 16th in driving accuracy and in the top-50 in GIR. He finished T33 at the Valero last year in what was his debut at the event.
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