The PGA Tour returns to Texas as Memorial Park Golf Course hosts the Houston Open, a tournament known for its challenging layout and thrilling finishes.
Situated just minutes from downtown Houston, Memorial Park is a rare gem—one of the few municipal courses to hold a PGA Tour event. It's a demanding setup, featuring undulating greens, deep bunkers, and a risk-reward closing stretch, ensuring that only the best ball strikers and sharpest putters will contend for the trophy.
With past champions including elite names and rising stars, the Houston Open has become a pivotal stop on the schedule, offering players a chance to fine-tune their game ahead of the season’s biggest events. This year’s field is stacked with talent, and as the competition heats up, Memorial Park is sure to deliver another unforgettable week of world-class golf.
Memorial Park Golf Course is a 7,400-yard, par-70 layout that demands precision and a well-rounded short game. With wide but subtly challenging fairways, deep greenside bunkers, and fast, undulating greens, players must navigate tricky approach shots and execute clean recoveries. The course’s closely mown runoff areas and penal rough make scrambling a critical skill, while the firm, sloping greens place a premium on elite putting performance.
Historically, players who excel in strokes gained: putting and around-the-green play have found the most success, as the ability to save par and capitalize on scoring chances is essential to contending at Memorial Park. The top stats correlating most to success here are SG: Putting (#3 on tour), SG: ARG (#7), SG: Total (#8), while Birdie Scoring/Avg, and Accuracy off Tee are crucial as well.
Smalley was on our card last week as we turned in one of the worst cards in our PGA betting career. I am looking to have a nice bounce back this week. Smalley missing the cut last week should have him more locked in this week. He has finishes of T4 and T15 here while coming off a MC last year.
If going by strokes gained by tournament this season, he is ranked 4th-best player in the field. He is also the 2nd best player with course-adjusted fit this week, and over their L36 rounds, Smalley is ranked the 5th best golfer in this field in terms of strokes gained per round at 1.15. He has finished inside the Top 21 in 6 of his 8 events this year.
Along with those other two picks, Highsmith is one of the highest-rated players in this field and has been one of the best players on tour over the last month. Over his L36 rounds, he ranks 6th in this field in strokes gained by round. In 4 of his last 5 events, he has finished inside the Top 21, with one of those being a 1st place finish.
In those 4 events, he has gained multiple strokes with the putter, tee-to-green, approach, and total, absolutely locked in! Last season he finished here with a T21 and lost less than a 0.5 stroke putting and around the green. Now he comes into this tournament with a hot putter, in 5 straight events gaining over 1 stroke, and in 4 of those he gained over 2!
Bridgeman was on my short list last week and was the last one to drop off, which was a bummer as he finished 3rd! He’s another player who ranks highly along with Smalley. Bridgeman is the 6th highest rated player in this field by strokes gained by tournament. He also ranks 6th best course adjusted fit, and ranks 8th over L36 rounds in strokes gained in this field.
With a T21 here last year, he can eye a Top 20 this time around! On the PGA tour this season, Bridgeman ranks 14th overall in SG: Total, 6th in SG: Putting, 11th in Putts per Round, 17th in Scrambling, and 26th in Scoring Average. All a recipe for success here! He has 4 Top 40 finishes in his last 5 events, finishing 50th at a very tough TPC Sawgrass.
1% | Alex Smalley (-110)
1% | Joe Highsmith (-105)
1% | Jacob Bridgeman (-125)
*Other Top 40 Bet Options (if you want a couple more plays!)
Max Greyserman (-105)
Thomas Detry (-110)