The Cheat Sheet provides DraftKings fantasy golf players with course info, player history and the most noteworthy trends of the week to help them with their roster selections.
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The Field
This week marks the second-to-last event before the Masters. The Texas Children’s Houston Open has undergone a few name changes, a venue switch, and now a date switch (it was last played on the PGA in November 2022) but has remained a regular stop for the TOUR. This event had a three-year stay on the fall swing but this year is back in its late March spot (right before the Masters) and will be contested at Memorial Park Golf Course for the fourth time in a row.
The field this week is comprised of 144 players and features just 10 of the world’s top 50 players (as of writing). As of now, world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is the massive favorite on DraftKings Sportsbook at +275, with Wyndham Clark (+1200), and Will Zalatoris (+1800) rounding out the rest of the top three. The cut will take place after Friday with the top 65 players and ties making the weekend.
The Course
Memorial Park Golf Course — Houston, Texas
par 70, 7,412 yards; Greens: Poa trivialis overseed
This year marks the fourth season that the Houston Open will be played at Memorial Park Golf Course, a public links course that was renovated before 2020 by the city of Houston and once hosted this same event for a time, back in 1963. This venue/event wasn’t seen on the PGA in 2023 after it hosted a fall event back in 2022. However, it’s now part of the main yearly schedule and is set to have a big impact on player preparation for the year’s first major.
The redesign of this course was completed in 2019 by Tom Doak, who brought in former PGA TOUR pro Brooks Koepka as an advisor. The venue is a parkland course but was modified significantly from its old layout. Water is in play on four holes, and natural hazards like ravines come into play throughout the venue. Elevation changes to the greens and fairways also occurred, while the redesign also decided to eliminate much of the sand that was on the course, as only 19 bunkers are in play now. Memorial Park was also given a variety of new tee boxes, allowing the course to play at various lengths, including an ultra-long setting for the pros. The course now plays as a par 70, and at over 7,400 yards, it is actually one of the longest par 70s the pros will see all season.
In 2020, this venue played as the 12th-toughest on the PGA TOUR, and the field here had a tough time with just about everything. Driving accuracy particularly was down vs. the PGA TOUR average, as players hit about seven to eight percent fewer fairways than usual. Despite the penal rough, it still played as a driver-heavy course, as Driving Distance for the week was over 295 yards and well above the PGA TOUR average. Driving the ball well here is certainly a theme to be keyed in on this week as well. Tony Finau led the field by a wide in Good Drive % in 2022 and gained over 4.0 strokes OTT. Many of the other top performers the year Finau won also performed well off the tee.
Scrambling around these greens is also difficult, and it’s worth mentioning Carlos Ortiz gained +6.1 strokes Around the Green on his way to winning in 2020. In 2021, Jason Kokrak leaned more heavily on his ball-striking as he gained 6.1 strokes on approach and also gained a very impressive 8.7 strokes putting.
A solid comparison for this week may be Copperhead at the Innisbrook Golf Resort, the host of last week’s Valspar Championship. Both Memorial and Copperhead feature five par 3s and three par 5s, and feature harder-to-hit fairways and greens, strewn around a tree-lined flatter course. We’ve also seen a lot of the same names pop up at both venues as Finau, Sam Burns and Kokrak (2021 winner of this event) have all posted top-10 finishes at these courses. Both courses also put a lot of stress on long iron play and this week there will be six par 4s at Memorial Park which run over 450 yards in length, requiring lots of approaches from 175+ yards.
Players at Memorial Park will also need to take advantage of the par 5s, which typically have run as the easiest holes on the course. While good putting is a must, consistent driving will be the main ingredient needed for grabbing birdies at those scoring holes and avoiding bogies on the tougher ones.
2024 Weather Update: While there is a little bit of early week moisture expected, the event should go off mostly without issue. The highs will be around 75 F on all four days and the wind, which can be a big problem when we hit Texas, isn’t set to be a huge factor. Thursday has winds at 5 mph or less (so almost non-existent for Texas) for most of the day while Friday does have gusts rising slightly as the day progresses into the 10-12 mph range. The afternoon forecast on Friday may be worth watching and certainly for showdown lineups and betting the morning wave players on Friday may have a slightly better chance of posting lower scores that day.
Last 5 winners
**Tournament was played at the Golf Club of Houston prior to 2020
2022—Tony Finau -16 (over Tyson Alexander -12)
2021—Jason Kokrak -10 (over Scottie Scheffler -8)
2020—Carlos Ortiz -13 (over Hideki Matsuyama -11)
2019—Lanto Griffin -14 (Mark Hubbard -13)
2018—Ian Poulter -19 (over Beau Hossler playoff)
Past Winner Stats and Trends
2022—Tony Finau (16-under-par)
Previous five starts coming into 2021 (MC-T9-T28-T5-win)
SG: OTT — +4.2
SG: APP — +5.3
SG: TTG — +10.7
SG: ATG — +1.1
SG: PUTT — +7.9
- Five of the top-10 finishers in 2020 ranked in the top eight for strokes gained: tee-to-green stats for the week, and five of the top-six finishers gained +1.5 strokes or more around the green.
- In 2022, four of the top five finishers gained over 2.0 strokes off the tee; in 2023 14 of the top 15 finishers gained over 1.0 strokes off the tee
- Carlos Ortiz gained most of his strokes around the green in 2020 but the last two winners (Kokrak and Finau) and have gained far more OTT and on Approach
- Finau was the leader in GIR% gained and Fairways gained last season
Finding Values (DraftKings Sportsbook)
Odds to win are one factor to think about when picking players (but not the only thing, so be careful putting too much weight on them). This section is going to detail a few of the players who have the best fantasy value comparative to their DraftKings Sportsbook odds of winning this week.
Kurt Kitayama +5000 and $8,100
Comparables:
Akshay Bhatia +6000 and $7,500
Comparables:
All odds provided by DraftKings Sportsbook and all odds subject to change.
Recent Form
1. Scottie Scheffler ($13,000; win-win): Scheffler’s current form is sublime. He’s coming off back-to-back wins against elite fields in Florida and has now gained over 12.0 strokes tee to green in three of his last four starts. The Texas native will be hard to topple this week.
2. Wyndham Clark ($10,900; T10-T13): Right behind Scheffler is 2023 US Open winner Wyndham Clark. Clark has finished runner-up to Scheffler in the last two events putting up solid efforts on both occasions. It’s hard to find a flaw in his game right now either, although his driving isn’t quite as consistent as the world number one, which could hurt him on this unforgiving venue.
3. Sahith Theegala ($10,300; T3-T16): Theegala has shown an improved form of consistency in 2024. The winner of the Fortinet Championship over the fall, Theegala has three top 10 finishes in his last four starts and has gained over a stroke putting six straight events. He’ll need the putter to stay hot but did finish T22 at this venue back in 2022.
4. Keith Mitchell ($9,200; T17-T73-T9): Mitchell imploded on Sunday at the Valspar, missing short putts and hitting wayward off the tee on many holes. The American is still in fine form and did gain 11.2 strokes ball-striking alone last week. He’ll be a clear bounce-back candidate but will need his putter to show up on the weekend to really challenge.
5. Matthias Schmid ($6,300; T17-T26-T10): Schmid has played well of late. The German rode a T10 at Puerto Rico into a surprisingly solid T26 at Sawgrass on his first visit. He kept up the momentum last week with a T17. The big hitter has been gaining lots of strokes off the tee which could make him a dark horse of such to consider in DFS and betting for this week.
DRAFTKINGS DFS STRATEGY
Cash Games: Don’t stray from Scheffler
Scottie Scheffler ($13,000) is expensive this week but is also just +275 in the outright market and has no clear peer on TOUR at the moment. In this field, starting cash game lineups without him is still very doable as many players (some with decent recent form) are cheaper than normal due to the new DraftKings pricing. Doug Ghim ($8,200) is a solid medium-range target you could consider pairing with Scheffler in this spot. He’s made six cuts on the fly, has been playing great tee to green, and is uber-consistent off the tee, which should make him a good fit for this week. Other names to consider for this format include Thomas Detry ($7,400), Joel Dahmen ($7,100), and Matti Schmid ($6,300).
Tournaments: Get down with Day
Jason Day ($9,500) isn’t too expensive this week and has three top 10s on the season. Given the lack of talent behind Scheffler and Clark in this field Day makes sense to target in larger GPPs where you’re fading one or both of those names and likely won’t have a ton of ownership. Day is coming off a slow week at Sawgrass but his around-the-green game has looked fantastic all season and that’s the part of his game that can carry him for long stretches on a course like Memorial Park. It’s worth noting he’s a multiple-time winner in Texas as well. Si Woo Kim ($9,200 – see below) makes a ton of sense to me in GPPs as does Kurt Kitayama ($8,100) who finished T8 in Phoenix and gained 6.1 strokes ball-striking at the PLAYERS. Other GPP targets this week include Victor Perez ($7,000), Kevin Dougherty ($5,800), and Tom Whitney ($5,400).
MY PICK: Si Woo Kim ($9,700)
Driving the ball well this week is important. Tony Finau led the field in 2022 in Fairways gained, Good Drive %, and dominated the event as he was able to pair that consistency with a great week on the greens. Kim comes in driving the ball extremely well (5th in strokes gained OTT; 2nd in Good Drive %) but still looking for that spark on the greens. It’s possible that he may not be far off from finding it either. His last time out saw him finish T6 at TPC Sawgrass, gaining 4.8 strokes putting for the week.
That PLAYERS result was an outlier this year for Kim, who has ranked near the bottom of most putting metrics this season, but it’s also possible it was the start of a new trend. His tee-to-green game is on par with anyone not named Scheffler at the moment and he’s played well in Texas over his career, posting a T4 at the Valero (TPC San Antonio) in 2019 and a T2 last year at the Byron Nelson (TPC Craig Ranch). Seeing continued confidence from his putter this week would not be overly shocking.
From a big-picture standpoint, Kim has played good golf from the get-go this year and certainly feels like a player who deserves to be paid off with a win soon. Given the Masters is just over the horizon and this week has a thinner talent pool, it wouldn’t be shocking to see the South Korean push through for a big week. He makes sense as a core play to use in DFS GPPs and as an outright betting target at +2800 on the DraftKings Sportsbook.
MY SLEEPER: Justin Suh ($6,200)
I think the price on Justin Suh has likely dipped enough that he now makes sense as a relatively solid upside gamble. There is undoubtedly risk involved with a player who missed four cuts in a row, before last week’s T33 at the Valspar, but the reward at these kinds of prices outweighs the risk. Suh gained strokes on approach last week, after a disastrous week with his irons at Sawgrass, and the fact he was able to pair it with a good effort around the greens should give us some hope better play is coming soon.
He’s been relatively solid off the tee (36th in Strokes Gained: OTT) this season and did play this venue back in 2022 posting a T47, while gaining 4.2 strokes putting. The putter is ultimately Suh’s best weapon and that club came to life for him last week and has been solid most of the year. Given that we have similar putting surfaces to last week in play (overseeded Poa) and given Suh’s uptick in ball-striking, it makes to use him as an overly cheap option in large field GPP builds. For betting, you don’t have to get too crazy but he makes sense as a flyer in the top 10/20 markets on the DraftKings Sportsbook.
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I am a promoter at DraftKings and am also an avid fan and user (my username is wavegoodbye) and may sometimes play on my personal account in the games that I offer advice on. Although I have expressed my personal view on the games and strategies above, they do not necessarily reflect the view(s) of DraftKings and do not constitute a representation that any particular strategy will guarantee success. All customers should use their own skill and judgment in building lineups. I may also deploy different players and strategies than what I recommend above. I am not an employee of DraftKings and do not have access to any non-public information.
