🐮 Two Steppin' Round The Room

📢 Fore, Please…

Howdy Partners — I played golf yesterday and it didn’t go particularly well. I hit a lot of weak shots and made a bunch of soft bogeys. I was annoyed but then I remembered that we are DAYS AWAY FROM MASTERS WEEK!

Let’s enjoy it.
Rick

🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

Gary Woodland ($7,400): 137.0 pts
Nicolai Hojgaard ($9,200): 120.0
Min Woo Lee ($9,900): 114.0
Jake Knapp ($9,500): 108.0
Sudarshan Yellamaraju ($7,200): 108.0
Johnny Keefer ($6,700): 105.5
Total: $49,900: 692.5 pts

💪 Stronger Than Ever

Where do we even start with the Gary Woodland victory from last week? Gary didn’t just win, he dominated. It was a five shot victory where he gained +18.05 strokes to the field. That was the best performance of his career, edging out his 2019 U.S. Open victory.

He was 7th in Driving Distance, 2nd in Greens in Regulation, 1st in SG: Putting, and he made more birdies than anyone else in the field. It was a complete show of force as Woodland cruised to his fourth career victory.

The power is impressive. The 41-year old is cruising at 128 MPH Club Speed which is, by far, the fastest of his career. The olds aren’t supposed to be doing this!

His club speed is three MPH faster than it was last year and six MPH faster than it was in 2023. He is the fastest 40+ year old ever recorded.

🤒 Sunday Stumbles

Nicolai Hojgaard shot 62-63 on Friday and Saturday — the lowest back-to-back rounds in Houston Open history — to enter Sunday just one shot back. Then he shot 71 and finished five shots behind Woodland.

Hojgaard's week wasn't a failure by any stretch. He grabbed a Masters invite through the top-50 cutoff and continues an excellent 2026 season.

He’s now one of 11 players who have made every cut in 2026 (min 7 starts) and he’s gaining +1.60 strokes per round during the campaign. That’s the third best mark of those 11 players, behind Jacob Bridgeman and Min Woo Lee.

🐎 Course Horse Country

Course History at TPC San Antonio is sticky, meaning that players seem to have similar results each year (both good and bad). This is definitely a week to weigh Course History more heavily than others.

If there's one player who treats TPC San Antonio like his personal rodeo, it's Jordan Spieth. The Dallas native has gained +1.99 strokes per round at this venue — the best mark in the field over the last decade. He won the Valero in 2021 and has four additional top-12 finishes here.

And here's what makes this week even more interesting: over his last four tournaments, Spieth has gained +12.4 strokes on approach, producing three top-11 finishes. The iron game has been elite. His putter has also started to heat up — and no better time for that to happen than … right now!

🥷 The Quiet Assassin

Si Woo Kim doesn't get nearly enough attention for what he's doing in 2026. He’s also one of those players who hasn’t missed a cut yet this year but he’s also racked up five top-15 finishes in eight starts.

He’s, statistically, the best ball-striker in this field:

1) Si Woo Kim +1.46
2) Austin Smotherman +1.45
3) Keith Mitchell +1.04
4) Johnny Keefer +1.03
5) Joel Dahmen +1.00

Of those five elite ball-strikers, he’s the only one who gains strokes around-the-green (+0.22). As you can imagine, all of those five are significant losers on the putter surfaces. If they weren’t, they’d be Scottie Scheffler.

But Si Woo had an extended run of being a positive putter at TPC San Antonio before losing 1.7 strokes on the greens last year in route to a missed cut.

There is a lot of attention on Jordan Spieth, currently projected at 35% ownership in DFS while Si Woo Kim sits at 18%. He could be one of my favorite pivots OR you could reasonably play both of them together.

 🚧 Bobby Mac's Built-In Floor

Robert MacIntyre has gained strokes putting in eight consecutive events. Eight! On the PGA TOUR, where putting is the most volatile stat week to week, that kind of streak is absurd. It gives him a built-in floor that most players in this field simply don't have.

But here's the thing — when the putter AND the ball-striking show up together, Bobby Mac's ceiling is a tournament win. He's gained 7+ strokes tee-to-green three times in nine starts this year. He finished 4th at THE PLAYERS and was T4 at the Sony Open.

He’s the third best putter in this field in 2026 and has been a proven winner globally. Of players in this field who gain at least 0.50 strokes per round, MacIntyre has the third highest “SGPUTT %”. Over 72% of his strokes gained come from the putting surfaces behind only Stephan Jaeger and Rickie Fowler. Most weeks this would be more concerning, but I find it quite valuable at TPC San Antonio.

🍺 Last Call!

The Valero Texas Open winner — if not already qualified — gets the final Masters invitation. Ninety-three players are currently headed to Augusta with (maybe) one spot being added.

These are the five players, not already qualified for the Masters, with the shortest odds to win the Texas Open:

Michael Thorbjornsen: Ranked 54th in the OWGR, you could argue that Thorbjornsen “should” be into the Masters already. His devastating drop from the final group to T22 at THE PLAYERS Championship cost him a lot of money, points, glory, etc. He’s been playing great golf but now he is going to need to fit his game into a course that doesn’t look great for him. When he misses the fairway, he misses big. If he can keep it in play this week, he’ll have a great chance.

Rickie Fowler: Playing the best golf we’ve seen from him in the last few years but a missed cut in Houston really hurt his chances of getting to Augusta. He could miss the Masters for the fourth time in five years. He's got four top-20s in seven starts this season and the putter has been a strength — 11th on TOUR in SG: Putting — but it hasn't been enough to push him over the edge.

Keith Mitchell: He’s gaining +0.70 strokes per round in 2026 which is the second best year of his career, behind 2022. His Texas Open history is excellent, with four finishes of T26 or better. The key, as always, will be the putter. Mitchell has gained +12.15 strokes putting in his last 12 rounds at TPC San Antonio.

Ryo Hisatsune: My favorite of the group, Ryo wears out the middle of the clubface. Like Mitchell, his week will be decided on the putting surfaces. He gained +2.43 strokes putting here last year en route to a T5.

Denny McCarthy: If you have some time, go back and watch the final round from 2024. It was pure cinema. McCarthy closed with a 28 to force a playoff with Akshay Bhatia before hitting one of the worst shots I’ve ever seen a pro hit! Denny is on one of his mini streaks with his approach play — +8.5 APP in last 10 rounds — and those don’t usually last long.

🐋 Show Out In The Showdown

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