PGA DFS Core Plays: Vivint Houston Open
Top-ranked grinder, Notorious, breaks down his favorite daily fantasy golf plays at various salary ranges for the coming week’s golf tournament. Who should you be building around? Find out below.
Vivint Houston Open
There isn’t a whole lot to recap from the Bermuda Championship, but congratulations are in order for Brian Gay. He’s been a grinder on the PGA Tour for many years and it’s always fun seeing the veterans break through with a win after a prolonged slump. This week is the PGA Tour’s version of Christmas Eve. It’s the event before the Masters. The Houston Open used to be held at the Golf Club of Houston, but that had to change this season. As sort of a one-off, the event will take place at Memorial Park Golf Course, which is a Par 72 that measures 7,432 yards. It isn’t your typical Par 72, as it features five par fives and five par threes.
This is a public course that is apparently around $50 to play 18 holes, which makes it easily the cheapest course featured on the PGA Tour that any of us could play. The course was re-designed earlier this year with the help of Brooks Koepka. In the redesign, they widened the fairways and removed a number of trees (don’t anyone tell Gary Player). It sounds like golfers can be aggressive off the tee, so expect a lot of drivers to be hit this week (especially with five par fives). I’m giving off the tee a substantially bigger weight in my model than usual. Approach play is key each and every week and while we don’t know a ton about the course, I am expecting another birdie fest. The course features bermudagrass greens if you like looking at putting splits.
I will be reading any and all player quotes that I can find throughout the week, so make sure to tune into my model breakdown video on Wednesday to get my final thoughts on the course and the potential course fit for these golfers. As of now, I am focusing most of my attention on ball striking, putting, and a good track record on bermuda courses. It sounds like we could have some fans in attendance this week. While it will be good to see spectators on the course, the timing is a little surprising given the biggest event in golf is next week. Regardless, let’s all hope it goes off without a hitch.
Note: the late-week update is now part of my model breakdown video, which is posted on Wednesdays.