From the Florida Swing to the other side of the Gulf of Mexico — now known within the United States as the Gulf of America — 156 of the PGA TOUR’s finest descend on Memorial Park Golf Course in Houston for the Texas Children’s Houston Open. Another Texas tournament — next weekend’s Valero Texas Open in San Antonio — will follow.
For most of the top players in the field, this weekend’s tournament will be the final tuneup before the first major of the 2025 season, The Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia. That will almost certainly include World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, a +350 favorite to don his third green jacket in four years come April 13.
Memorial Park is about average in difficulty without any one particular strength that is required to succeed. It ranks as a standard PGA TOUR course in all four major facets of golf, so players that succeed here require a relatively well-rounded profile.
With the course and the tournament (briefly) previewed, here are my three favorite golfers to be in the Top 20 come Sunday afternoon:
Best Top-20 Parlay at the Texas Children’s Houston Open
Aaron Rai Top 20 Finish
It just feels like the second PGA TOUR victory for the 30-year-old Briton is coming, and it may well be this week. Rai is in excellent form, with four Top-20 finishes this season in his seven starts, and he has also finished in the top 20 in each of his past three starts: a T-4 at the Mexico Open at VidantaWorld, a T-11 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and a T-14 at THE PLAYERS. What’s more, he’s projected as the third-best fit for the course via the PGA TOUR’s Course Fit Score, behind Scheffler — who’d be a fit for any course — and Harry Hall. Rai does struggle somewhat around the greens — to be fair, the hardest aspect of Memorial Park — but ranks either within or near the top quartile off the tee, on his approaches, and with his flat stick.
Min Woo Lee Top 20 Finish
Let Lee cook! The 26-year-old Australian has been a less well-rounded player than Rai this season, struggling mightily on his approaches to the green, but that doesn’t matter when you’re as much a wizard with the wedge as Lee is. Lee ranks ninth on the PGA TOUR this season in Strokes Gained: Around the Green and 15th in Strokes Gained: Putting, and he’s also above average off the tee thanks to the fact that he’s the third-longest driver on the PGA TOUR. His results, too, have been pretty good, with four Top-20 finishes in his six starts, including a tie for 20th at THE PLAYERS that saw him hold the lead after the second round.
Jacob Bridgeman Top 20 Finish
The Bridgeman call here is the ultimate test of form; the 25-year-old is a relatively unknown player who had zero Top-10 finishes in his first 36 career starts. But he burst onto the scene at the start of the month with a tie for second at the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches, dueling with Joe Highsmith on the final day as the latter earned his first PGA TOUR victory. Then, last week, he finished solo third at the Valspar Championship and had a chance to force Viktor Hovland into a playoff if he holed out for eagle on the par-4 18th hole. Bridgeman has the 10th-lowest Course Fit Score — lower is better — and, like Lee, excels with his wedges and on the green. I’m confident he can record his fourth Top-20 in his last five starts.
