The Texas Children’s Houston Open is next up on the PGA TOUR schedule. This is a look at the best first-round leader bet to make for the event at DraftKings Sportsbook.
Texas Children’s Houston Open
The Texas Children’s Houston Open is played at Memorial Park. Memorial Park Golf Course is a par-70 golf course and ranges 7,432 yards. The greens are Bermudagrass and should be challenging for the field. The Houston Open field will feature 156 golfers and there is a standard 36-hole cut with the top 65 and ties making the weekend. The field is mixed following THE PLAYERS. The field features the two best players in the world, Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy.
Here is a look at my pick to lead after the first round of the Texas Children’s Houston Open:
Tony Finau FRL (+5000)
The Houston Open has the top two players in the world, but many of the other best players on TOUR will not be participating in this tournament following a big week at the Valspar Championship. That leaves the door open for the likes of Tony Finau to take a run at the top of the leaderboard. If McIlroy and Scheffler are slightly off their game, someone on that Finau tier could take home a Houston Open win. Finau has an amazing course history here at Memorial Park and should feel great about his chances. Finau was the 2022 Houston Open champion and finished T-2 in last year’s tournament (there was no Houston Open in 2023). Those are two phenomenal finishes in a row at Memorial Park, so Finau should feel great about his game heading into this one.
It has been an up-and-down season for Finau so far, but he does have three top-15 finishes in seven starts. That includes a T-5 finish at the Genesis Invitational last month. Finau has been boom-or-bust, which is why I like his value at 50/1 to lead after the first round of this event. Finau has great finishes at the Genesis, Sentry and Pebble Beach against great fields this season. However, he also missed the cut at THE PLAYERS and finished T-36 at the API. Finau is not a player that you want to make a conservative bet on, but the type of player you want to take a big swing on. When Tony Finau is on his game, he can play with anybody in the world. What he struggles with the most is his consistency from round to round and week to week.
For those reasons, I am backing him to be the Houston Open first-round leader. Finau was still one of the best players in the world last season, finishing 10th on TOUR in strokes gained: tee to green. He also finished second on TOUR in strokes gained: approach to green. Finau can hit the ball far and when his driver is working in unison with that great approach game, he is one of the best players on the planet. As long as Finau can get his putter working, he is one of the only players in this field capable of going toe-to-toe with Scottie Scheffler if he’s playing well. I am willing to take the value on Finau to potentially get hot out of the gates and put up a low number, taking the first-round lead.
