Houston Open One and Done Strategy: Finding the Right Bomber

On to Houston, where there’s another small pot to be split.  $9.5 million with $1.71 million to the winner, still a nice prize to help you move up the standings, but certainly not enough to use Scottie or Rory if you have them.  Hell, I’m not sure I’d even burn Sungjae Im here.

Last week’s suggestions/results: not my finest week of advice as the leaderboard got weird and then Vik figured things out.

Sepp Straka T28
Tom Kim T36
Sam Burns CUT
Michael Kim T28
wildcard: Rico Hoey CUT

So, heading into this week, we’ll start like we always do, seeing who’s been semi-safe lately:

Cut Makers

Some of the Bomb and Gouge types can be a little volatile, so while we’d love to find the best golfer to have a spike week and cash big, I hate to do it at the expense of a high risk of missing the cut here.  I purposely scrolled down to omit the top two lines; I don’t think it’s a surprise who is heads and tails above the pack in made cut percentage here.   This sample is the past two years, and surprisingly, half the list has wins as well, although it would appear that the T1 was his only T5 for Harris English of the past 24 months and 42 starts.

 

Bombing It

Speaking of Bomb and Gouge, I think it’s a good pre-req for guys that can climb the leaderboard obviously.  Based on the length and who performed well here last year (as well as some  of the fall editions), driving distance will indeed matter.  The rain the course has been getting will make the roll out a little tougher and has me looking at carry distance rather than just straight up driving distance.  I’m not as keen on total driving either this week as the rough isn’t even as tall as a ball and the bunkering is mostly around the greens; guys will be able to hit out of their shoes all week.  So, last 12 months, carry distance: a few smaller samples in here, but how these things are measured, I don’t think any of the names are flukey.  Wyndham Clark is a name that’s shown up on both top 10s so far, but, he also WD with an injury last time we saw him.

Long Irons

While downplayed a bit this week, we certainly can’t overlook iron play.  Even for the long hitters, it’s going to be some longer iron shots into these greens.  This is sorted by overall proximity to the pin on shots 250 yards or more since there is a nice difference between the tour average and how many we saw here last year (I think it’ll be even more this year), but there’s a good case to be made for looking into any of the buckets above 150.   A few names we haven’t seen yet, and maybe not something I’m leaning too heavily on.

Around the Green

Finally, these are some tricky green complexes.  Guys are going to miss a ton of greens this week.  Tou average is 76.8%, last year golfers only hit GIR at a 68.9% clip.  Not only that, but the undulations and tiers make it tricky to find the right spot to give yourself good putts.  Putting may actually be a bit easier this year with the wet conditions, as the greens may be a little slower and more receptive when guys are trying to get up and down from the collection areas around them.

Houston Open One and Done Suggestions

Again, you can’t really justify using a big name here with a smaller purse, but you still need someone who can compete.  I’m a bit scared off some of the bigger names with some injury concerns and have narrowed it down to a few guys that have most of the skill set needed to win here:

Davis Thompson (I think will be very popular so maybe avoid if you need to get unique)
Beau Hossler
Min Woo Lee
Kurt Kitayama