Ben Coley's golf betting tips: Texas Children's Houston Open preview and best bets

Golf betting tips: Houston Open

2pts e.w. Jason Day at 33/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

2pts e.w. Tony Finau at 30/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

2pts e.w. Min Woo Lee at 35/1 (Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Hayden Springer at 200/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Alejandro Tosti at 225/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook

In the most complicated and maddening sport of them all, some things are simple. Memorial Park, home of the Houston Open, is a fantastic golf course for big hitters. It should be, when you look at the scorecard and the nature of the holes, and it is, when you look at the outcome of four renewals since the event came here.

Dustin Johnson looked like winning on debut, but champion Carlos Ortiz is no mug off the tee. Jason Kokrak succeeded him and he’s outright long. Tony Finau succeeded Kokrak, and he’s outright longer. Last year, the story behind Stephan Jaeger’s breakthrough was the speed work he’d done so that he too could be called a bomber.

In fact, taking the six including Jaeger who finished first or tied for second, Scottie Scheffler might just be the short-hitter of the party. Taylor Moore? Long. Thomas Detry? Long. Finau… long. Alejandro Tosti? Not just long but totally committed to the idea of hitting driver unless it really is not possible to hit driver.

That’s another thing about Memorial Park, this Tom Doak-restored municipal which is one of the best venues on a PGA Tour packed out with private courses: it encourages these longer hitters to use the club they so enjoy using. Rory McIlroy, joining Scheffler in the field to complete his Masters prep, is going to love it.

Both market leaders are reasonably priced but I can’t for the life of me find a way to rate Aaron Rai, JJ Spaun and Davis Thompson their biggest dangers. In all three cases this places far too much emphasis on Sawgrass, a completely different course where someone like Rai, and indeed Spaun, is able to be among the best in the field off the tee.

Around here that’s almost impossible for them and while Rai has course form and correlating form, and is straightforwardly in-form, I still wouldn’t have this down as completely ideal.

Their presence means JASON DAY and TONY FINAU are both bigger than they ought to be despite being superior golfers, albeit less consistent ones perhaps.

Starting with Day, he’d have been 20s for this had it taken place a week after Bay Hill. Remember, he opened much shorter than Rai, Spaun and Thompson for The PLAYERS but then didn’t take part, for which he has been pushed down the betting.

The reason for Day’s withdrawal was a stomach bug which swept through his household and he was back playing golf during the weekend of the tournament, so this was pure bad luck. There’s absolutely no reason to believe it’ll have a detrimental effect on his game a couple of weeks later.

And that game has been solid all year. He’s been third, eighth and 13th from just five starts, two of those in Signature Events. Last year had ended promisingly too and having reunited with former coach and mentor Col Swatton, I’m pretty bullish about his short- and medium-term prospects, especially with the putter having clicked last time.

He was still in there contending with three holes to go at Bay Hill, the second chance he’s had to win already this year, and he’s definitely performing at a higher level than he was 12 months ago. DataGolf’s 50-round tracker has his total strokes-gained per-round up 50% from 0.8 to 1.2, a significant climb and one more reason to be optimistic.

He’s also done it at Memorial Park before. Back in 2020, Day arrived with form figures of MC-64-38-MC-WD-60 since he’d been fourth in the PGA Championship, yet was always in the mix at a course he ought to enjoy on paper. Two years later, while admittedly in better form, he once more gained strokes through the bag to be 16th.

Less impressive performances either side have to be acknowledged but I don’t think Day has offered this much promise for quite some time now. His last win came in Texas, as did his very first all those years ago, and the former world number one can have a big say in the outcome of this tournament.

So can Finau, who placed for us at 40/1 in the Genesis Invitational just three starts ago.

Suffice to say all the game’s best took part in that and both Spaun and Thompson, for example, went off at three-figure prices. How is it that form at Sawgrass is singularly enough to outweigh not just the more similar Torrey Pines, but form in Houston itself?

Finau won here in 2022 and perhaps ought to have won again last year (the first subsequent renewal following a calendar switch), given that he was beaten a shot ranking 75th in putting. All told he’s played Memorial Park four times, and on each and every occasion has gained strokes off the tee, on approach, and around the greens.

Combined, his return is more than two strokes gained per round from tee-to-green, adding up to almost nine shots better than the field average per 72 holes, and he’d have been right up alongside Day in the betting had this taken place just a few weeks ago.

Of course, things change, but the fact that two subsequent starts have been at Bay Hill and Sawgrass is key. Finau has one top-20 in nine PLAYERS appearances versus five missed cuts. At Bay Hill, his best result is 24th, which he was well on course to eclipse when fifth entering Sunday only to shoot eight-over in the final round.

It’s actually quite simple to draw positives from both, as his driving improved throughout these two to the extent that Sawgrass represents his best performance with that club since last April. Given how important it could be at a long and soft golf course, that recent improvement could be very significant.

There are two worries: his approach play and his putting. The latter will never not be a worry but two top-10 performances this year, and a decent one at Bay Hill, demonstrate that we’re not without hope. As for his approaches, they were good the last time he played a suitable course and while we need more, around here I’d expect more.

If it was Masters week or almost any other tournament I wouldn’t be chancing Finau. But the same applied at Torrey Pines. Around courses like these two he deserves a little bit more respect – and certainly to be ahead of several of these in the betting.

The one player who gave me a real headache was Sahith Theegala, a former Houston resident who has done lots right at Memorial Park without ever putting as we know he can. He drove the ball much better for most of last week, too, but Sunday’s ball-striking was a mess and I’ve just not seen enough encouragement.

Instead, MIN WOO LEE looks an ideal fit for a tournament which saw several first-time visitors with seemingly suitable profiles contend for the title last year.

Lee really does have his game in order and has for an age, missing just three cuts over the past 12 months: at the Open, narrowly; at the Wyndham, again narrowly; and at Bay Hill, a course he so far really hasn’t got to grips with.

Otherwise it’s been a story of consistency, with no fewer than 19 top-20 finishes during this time, and there’s more to come now he’s shaken off a persistent knee problem which meant that he wasn’t able to read greens properly towards the end of last year.

Small improvements to his approach work lately, barring a disaster at Bay Hill, suggest the Aussie is very close and a tournament like this one, with driver upon driver and creativity needed around greens with shaved run-off areas, looks an excellent opportunity.

He’s yet to win on the PGA Tour but has twice been runner-up since last March, both coinciding with a drop in grade. Of course, with Scheffler and McIlroy in this field we’re not far off Signature Event-difficulty, but I rate him a strong fancy to play well and at least ask questions of the big two.

Ultimately, I rate Day, Finau and Lee the three biggest threats to Scheffler and McIlroy, not Rai, Thompson and Spaun, nor Michael Kim as the tank surely empties, nor Wyndham Clark given concerns surrounding a neck injury, nor a badly out of sorts Sungjae Im.

Springer in the market

Alex Smalley, Max Greyserman, Jake Knapp and a handful of similar players completed my list of what you might call realistic options, but I want to roll the dice at big prices given that we have one very clear way of sifting through players.

First up is HAYDEN SPRINGER.

He’s made four cuts in five so far this season with a best of sixth at Torrey Pines making sense, as he’d be among the top 20 or 30 on the PGA Tour in terms of power off the tee – Torrey Pines, like Memorial Park, is a brute of a golf course in yardage terms.

Springer is no one-trick pony though and he’s done really well since earning his card at Q-School at the back-end of 2023, with four top-10 finishes last season enough to earn conditional status along with a place in the history books following a round of 59 at the John Deere Classic.

His PLAYERS debut last time out has to go down as a success, particularly the way he fought hard to make the weekend, and having been inside the top 20 at halfway in three of his four starts prior to that (and as high as fourth in one of them), he looks on the verge of putting something together.

Born in Tennessee but raised in Texas, where he went to high school and still resides, Springer is playing a home game this week and the course definitely suits. Last year’s missed cut hides that fact but he was excellent from tee-to-green only to suffer a shocking week with the putter, signing off by missing a three-footer to make the weekend.

That was towards the beginning of a really poor run, one which ultimately cost him his full card, but he’s developed a pleasing level of consistency since. I have a sneaky feeling he might be in for a big week either here or on his doorstep at Colonial if he can get in – that conditional status means he required an invite for Houston, which I hope he can repay in style.

Warming to Tosti

Other options with local ties include Chandler Phillips and Houston’s own Matthew Riedel. It’ll be interesting to hear what the latter has to say when he does media rounds on Tuesday afternoon – perhaps he’ll tell us he plays here all the time and shot 62 last week, in which case 1,000/1 might begin to look worth the smallest of bets.

He’s not yet lived up to his amateur pedigree though so the final two on my list were another Texas player, Monday qualifier Pierceson Coody, and the enigmatic ALEJANDRO TOSTI.

Ultimately I’ve warmed to the idea of chancing the latter, runner-up here last year after failing to get up and down for birdie at the driveable 17th on Sunday, then again for par at the difficult 18th.

That’s one of four top-10s in about 40 PGA Tour starts for Tosti and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that three came either here or at Vidanta Vallarta, the wide-open ballpark where Finau is a past champion, where Cam Champ specialises, and where Aldrich Potgieter had his pocket picked a month or so ago.

Tosti is a proper powerhouse and more to the point, he can’t resist hitting driver pretty much wherever he goes. That can make for some challenging scenarios at courses like PGA National, Sawgrass and Copperhead, and it’s why I wonder whether his apparent struggles off the tee lately may not be as they seem.

When he last played a suitable course, in Mexico, he was excellent, as he’d been at Torrey Pines, so with signs that his irons are firing right now, maybe it will all fall into place for him once more at Memorial Park, where he's about 200/1 generally with plenty of places, or as big as 350/1 if you can access it with some smaller firms.

Again it’s not a coincidence that his Korn Ferry Tour win came at a long course where last year’s fellow contenders Max Greyserman and David Skinns both boast excellent records, and where the super-long Seth Reeves is also a past champion.

Tosti could be out of this or any tournament after three or four holes, but at least we know we’ve got the right golf course to bring out his better side. Let’s hope that it does, and that we don’t have to sit and suffer while Coody instead takes advantage of this bonus opportunity in his home state.

Posted at 1230 GMT on 25/03/25

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