On the verge of the first major of the season, the PGA TOUR has one more event on the schedule before heading to Augusta National for the Masters. This week’s Valero Texas Open takes place at The Oaks Course at the TPC San Antonio in San Antonio, Texas. Let’s take a quick look at the history of the event and what to expect from the course as we get ready for another great week of golf.
The history of the event
The event has one of the longest histories of any tournament on the PGA TOUR. It dates all the way back to 1922, making it the third-oldest PGA TOUR tournament. It’s also the oldest professional golf tournament that has stayed in the same city its entire existence.
While it has been in the San Antonio area, it moved around to eight different courses. TPC San Antonio has hosted the event since 2010, located northeast of the city in the affluent Cibolo Canyon community.
Like last week’s event in Houston, the Valero Texas Open has bounced around on the schedule over the last few years. It was a Fall Series event opposite the Ryder and Presidents Cup for a while and then happened after the Masters in 2011, when Kevin Na took an unforgettable 16 (+12) on his ninth hole of Round 1. In 2013, this event took place just before the Masters for the first time, and it has been consistently held in this spot in the calendar since 2019. In 2020, the pandemic canceled the event, but the tournament has returned to prominence over the last four seasons.
Those four events have had four memorable winners–Jordan Spieth, J.J. Spaun, Corey Conners and Akshay Bhatia have all claimed victory at TPC San Antonio. Last year, Bhatia won with a -20 total score for the tournament after holding off Denny McCarthy in a playoff. Bhatia and McCarthy were nine strokes ahead of Rory McIlroy, who finished alone in third place. Russell Henley finished solo-fourth while Adam Schenk and Brendan Todd finished tied for fifth.
This week is the final week for players to earn points in the Aon Swing 5 to get into the next Signature Event of the season – the RBC Heritage. The top five FedExCup points earners in the Puerto Rico Open, Valspar Championship, Texas Children’s Houston Open and Valero Texas Open will earn spots at Hilton Head, South Carolina. The winner this week will earn 500 FedExCup points and take home $1.71 million of the $9.5 million total purse.
A closer look at the course and field
The Oaks Course at the TPC San Antonio is set up to mimic Augusta National in many ways to help players get in one final tuneup. Rory McIlroy has been vocal about how much he likes the event for that reason, but he’s passing on it this year. There are still nine OWGR top-30 players in the field, led by Ludvig Aberg, Tommy Fleetwood, Patrick Cantlay and Hideki Matsuyama.
Primarily, like Augusta, TPC San Antonio is a course that rewards play for strong approach play. Strokes Gained: Approach is by far the most impactful metric to watch this week.
The course has played as the 13th-most demanding annual PGA course with golfers averaging +0.02 strokes per round. It features fairways lined by brush and mature oak trees, that can swallow up shots like what famously happened to Kevin Na 14 years ago. With challenging pin positions and elevated greens, along with the potentially unpredictable gusty “Texas” winds, this course is always a challenging track for golfers and a fun event to watch.
There have been some shocking winners in the past, so don’t rule out a longshot taking the win even though there are some big names in the field.
Here are the extended highlights from last year’s Round 4, which shows multiple elements of the course and gives an idea what to expect this year:
At TPC San Antonio, Strokes Gained: Approach is king. Bogey Avoidance, Par 5 Scoring, Good Drive% and Sand Saves Gained are other factors that have closely correlated to success in the past and should be considered as you fill your betting card and DFS lineup for this week’s Valero Texas Open.
