PGA Betting Guide for the Valero Texas Open
Picking winners of a golf tournament is hard. Doing it consistently is downright impossible. But finding value is something all bettors must practice in order to give themselves the best chance to make hay when the day finally comes that they ping a champion.
Below, we will cover the best bets for the Valero Texas Open based on current form, course fit, and -- of course -- the value of their odds over at Golf odds.
A look at past winners at this event shows us that you don't have to be a big name to find the winner's circle here. The last time this event was held, Corey Conners was the last man standing despite not being in the field until winning a Monday qualifier. Even the "top" names in this field have not exactly closed strong, with the five golfers under 20/1 with exactly zero PGA wins since 2017.
Next up is Conners at 21/1, and while we love the smooth-swinging Canadian, he's overpriced and his odds to repeat are way too thin to warrant investment. So we'll start our card with some strong Texas form and work our way into some deep cuts way down the board. The unifying theory is that this will be the catch-all strokes gained: approach. Golfers will need their full arsenal of irons and wedges this week to set up birdie chances.
For more info on TPC San Antonio - AT&T Oaks along with this week's key stats and comparable courses, check out the course primer.
At the Top
Abraham Ancer (+1900) - It would be just our luck to finally ping Ancer at such an unsavory number, but we'll take the results where we can get them and Ancer is the only really intriguing name at the top of the market. We like the consistency with six straight measured rounds gaining with approaches, with T12 and T13 finishes at the unmeasured El Camaleon and Augusta National before that all but assuring an eight-event streak of good vibes with the irons. Specifically, a 4.2 strokes gained approach number at THE PLAYERS catches the eye, his best-measured event since last June. Coming out of the pandemic layoff, Ancer was basically the top iron player for the first few weeks before fading down the stretch. There won't be many more fields in which he's one of the top dogs, and this could be his best chance at a win this year.
Value Spots
Ryan Palmer (+2800) - If you go by Official World Golf Ranking, Palmer is actually the fourth-ranked player in this field. He gave World No. 3 Jon Rahm all he could handle in the group play finale, and the form overall for the past year has been excellent. He has just 1 missed cut in his last 17 events, with 5 top 10s in that span. He's missed the cut the last two trips to TPC San Antonio, but in the three years before that, he was 6th, 4th, and 6th. He has four other top-fives at Colonial Country Club, another Texas track that requires pinpoint ironplay. Everything sets up well for Palmer this week.
Sam Burns (+4700) - While many of the numbers at the top of the board are hard to justify value, Burns gets a discount coming off two missed cuts that we will gladly take. There's been more good than bad over the past year for Burns, and we can forgive the stumbles in top-tier fields. With the drop in class this week, Burns is right at home at an event comparable to the Houston Open and the Safeway Open, where he produced dual seventh-place finishes. Bermuda Burns hasn't exactly lived up to his rep, but he put up one of the best putting weeks of his career on overseeded bermuda in Phoenix earlier this year. He's had hot and cold weeks with both the irons and putter, but we know if he connects the dots he'll contend.
Long Shots
Adam Long (+9500) - Long is good for a few spike finishes every year, and despite five missed cuts in his last six he has enough quality finishes in weak fields to catch our eye at this number. He was 2nd at the 3M Open, 5th at the fall edition of the Corales Championship, 11th at the Houston Open, and 3rd at the Mayakoba Golf Classic. That type of upside at this price, at an event that has produced some high variance results, makes Long an intriguing pick.
Cameron Champ (+14000) - He's been a mess of late, but Champ has shown winning upside in his short career even when he's out of form. When he won at the Sanderson Farms in 2018, he'd missed the cut in five of his prior seven events. When he won the Safeway Open in 2019, he had closed the prior season in a slump filled with missed cuts and hadn't had a top 20 finish in almost 10 months. We are ramping up the variance this week, and almost anyone in triple digit odds have dead last place in their range of outcomes, Champ is one of the few who has first place in his.
A couple super long names are intriguing for very small investment this week, given their propensity to get hot with irons. For just a sheckle we like Danny Lee (+16000), Doc Redman (+19000), former champ Andrew Landry (+23000), and Tyler Duncan (+31000).
