One and Done Houston Open Picks: Who to Target at Memorial Park

You weren’t using Scheffler anyway.  It changed the betting odds, it screwed up DFS, but for the one-and-done, it’s pretty damn moot.

The Texas Children’s Houston Open is a $9.9 million event, roughly half the purse of a signature event or the Players. The smart long-term approach in one-and-done is to preserve most of your top 15 players in the world for the four majors, eight signature events, the Players, and the two playoff events. Those 15 weeks carry the big money and the deepest fields.

Memorial Park rewards a specific profile. Driver usage is around 83 percent with almost no rough penalty, so distance matters. But the course is ultimately won with approach play from beyond 150 yards and a reliable short game from tight lies.

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Form

With a 133-player field and one of the least predictive courses on tour, recent form carries more weight than usual this week. Course history is less sticky here than at most stops, so a player who tore it up at Memorial Park two years ago does not get much credit from me. I want players who have been showing up on leaderboards over the past two to three months, building momentum into what figures to be a firmer and more demanding setup than last year. Guys trending in the right direction with their ball-striking and short game are worth more here than a past top 10 from a soft-conditions year.  This is a rolling form look, sorted by the last 12 rounds

Bombing It

With the rough sitting at just 1.25 inches, the bombers get a free pass off the tee this week. What separates the good distance plays from the great ones at this venue is what they do with that distance. You need ball speed that translates into birdie looks from 176 to 200 yards, the most common approach distance at Memorial Park.  2026 golf only, sorted by driving distance rank.

Scrambling from Tight Lies

About 67 percent of all around-the-green shots at Memorial Park come from shaved surfaces. The tour average is around 40 percent. When conditions play firm, which is expected this week after a warm, dry stretch leading into the tournament, that number climbs even higher. Sand save percentage is nearly irrelevant here, with only 21 bunkers on the course. You want players who convert from tight lies on undulated greens. That is the skill that separates the contenders from the pretenders when conditions get fast.  Last 12 months, sorted by Scrambling % from the short grass:

One and Done Suggestions for the Houston Open

With Scheffler gone, the betting market has reshuffled, and the ownership in one-and-done pools will likely chase Min Woo Lee as the defending champion and Chris Gotterup as the most cited pick of the week. Both are reasonable options, but neither fits the save-your-big-names strategy perfectly, given their rising world rankings. The better play is one tier lower, in the range that gives you real winning upside without burning a name you will want later.

The Shortlist

Adam Scott

Wyndham Clark

Nicolai Hojgaard

Scott is old as hell, but he’s still a damn nice fit here. He ranks second in the field on approach play from beyond 200 yards, has been gaining strokes in five of his last six events, and has four PGA Tour wins in Texas. His world ranking keeps him squarely in the right range for a week like this, and his ownership in one-and-done pools will be low.

Clark is a buy-low play that fits the strategic framework well. He has gained strokes on the greens every single time he has played here. He missed the cut at Valspar last week, but his approach play and ball speed were both solid. At his current projected ownership, he represents real value for a course that genuinely suits his game.

Hojgaard rounds out the card as the highest-upside option of the three. He scrambles better from short grass than from any other surface, which is the single most important around-the-green skill at Memorial Park this week. He won at the Renaissance Club, the top comp course for Memorial Park, and shows up consistently near the top of distance and multi-stat models for this venue.