Houston Open preview and best bets

Two big-hitting youngsters with enormous potential form part of our staking plan for the Texas Children’s Houston Open.

Golf betting tips: Houston Open

2pts e.w. Sam Burns at 30/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

2pts e.w. Michael Thorbjornsen at 33/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1.5pts e.w. Pierceson Coody at 55/1 (Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Sudarshan Yellamaraju at 80/1 (Betfred, bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

0.5pt e.w. Pontus Nyholm at 500/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

0.5pt e.w. Jimmy Stanger at 500/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook | Free bets

Last week’s DP World Tour event served as a timely reminder that course dynamics can and do change from year to year, but if that happens in this week’s Texas Children’s Houston Open, it will be the first time since it first became a PGA Tour venue in 2020.

On paper, this beefy par 70 ought to suit long drivers and to say that it has would be something of an understatement, especially since moving to a spring slot to serve as Masters preparation. Last year’s top eight featured six of the very longest drivers on the PGA Tour, including winner Min Woo Lee and 200/1 outsider Alejandro Tosti, an enigma elsewhere who has been consistently excellent here.

Though Min Woo’s short-game was key to holding off a charging Scottie Scheffler, who had lost out narrowly to a stronger-and-longer Stephan Jaeger a year earlier, the Aussie’s length was still vital. And in the end, while the top three players in strokes-gained off the tee were not in contention, they were Trey Mullinax, Michael Thorbjornsen, and Jesper Svensson, each of them very long even by modern standards.

Keen followers of golf won’t need numbers, only the leaderboard, to get what we’re looking for here, but the 2025 ball speed stats paint a clear picture. Third was Gary Woodland. Fifth was the champion. Wyndham Clark was 12th, Rory McIlroy 13th, Tosti 19th and Taylor Pendrith 25th, these the names of those six long-driving contenders I referenced earlier. Grip it and rip it is a formula there’s no reason to deviate from.

Players know it, too. Among the top 30 in those ball speed stats, the only players absent from this field are ones who have the luxury of not thinking too much about winning the Houston Open: McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, and Cameron Young. Shorter hitters who are not able to pick and choose where to play kind of have to be here, but Collin Morikawa, Russell Henley, JJ Spaun and Sepp Straka know they’re best staying put.

That means there are numerous options to sift through and one of the complicating factors is that we’ve just been through a set of very different courses. Bay Hill seems to play more into the hands of straight drivers each year (notwithstanding what Akshay Bhatia managed to do) and until thumping that tournament-winning drive down the last, length wasn’t necessarily what carried Young into the lead at Sawgrass.

With the Valspar firm and fast and seeing Matt Fitzpatrick rank third in fairways en route to the title, we simply don’t have a comparable recent event. In fact the most power-heavy leaderboard so far this year comes from Riviera back at the start of February. Even Torrey Pines and Puerto Rico threw up variety, though they are at least both long, beefy courses which ought to offer some clues.

But I will begin with one who did show up at Sawgrass and back MICHAEL THORBJORNSEN to land the first of what could be a big collection of titles.

This former amateur star has flourished over the past 10 or 11 months and has had two chances to win this season, first when hitting the front with three holes to play in Phoenix and then when playing in the final group on Sunday at The Players.

Neither worked out as he’d have liked but he has a good head on his shoulders and has vowed to take away the positives. It can be easy to forget that this is very much how Scottie Scheffler had to go about things before the penny dropped and we’ve seen Young transformed recently, so I certainly wouldn’t hold either performance against Thorbjornsen.

Now dropping back in grade following a high-intensity fortnight in Florida, Thorbjornsen arrives at a course which is made for him. He’s an excellent, powerful driver who ranked second in strokes-gained off-the-tee on his Memorial Park debut last year, but the rest of his game was a bit of a mess at the time and he wasn’t able to build on it.

In fact 39th here was his joint-best finish of the 2025 season so far (clear best if you adjust for field strength) and followed five missed cuts in seven, so if anything the fact he was competitive supports the idea that this is a really good opportunity at a course where he can take the shackles off and open his shoulders.

Since that performance he’s managed six top-10s, three of them at courses where his power was especially useful, and with the experienced JJ Jakovac by his side he’s closing in on his first win. Should it come here he’ll not only qualify for The Masters as a PGA Tour winner, but climb into the world’s top 50 and take a massive step towards securing starts in all four majors this year.

That won’t be on his mind right now of course but he’ll be itching to get back out and put Sunday at Sawgrass behind him. In Memorial Park, he could scarcely wish for a better course upon which to do that.

Thorbjornsen ranks inside the top 40 for ball speed and is 24th in distance of all drives, two of the best ways to assess raw power. With the Mexico Open pushed back to October, there probably won’t be a better time all season to lean fully into this angle and while it’s been a rough start to the year for this column, this event last year saw us land the winner and Tosti’s place money at 200/1 by doing exactly that.

Next for me then is PIERCESON COODY, one of those for whom we do have to make a couple of excuses.

Coody began the year in exceptional fashion, picking up where he left off at the back end of 2025 to be 13th, 18th and second on his first three starts, latterly at Torrey Pines. Tenth in Phoenix was another fine effort and it wasn’t a surprise at all to see him perform well at Riviera for 16th place given how well that set up for bombers like him.

The issue is that he’s gone MC-MC-55 since, but it was only one bad day at Bay Hill and two more at Sawgrass, where his waywardness was a problem. That was also the case last week and I’d suggest that his shift from gaining strokes off the tee to losing them is more about the golf courses he’s been playing than it is the way he’s hitting the ball.

There was a lot to like about his start to the Valspar, too, as he struck it superbly in round one and putted better than he has been. Sunday’s closing 71 under toughening conditions was fine too and I expect he’ll relish arriving back in his home state of Texas at a golf course where he knows he can get away with the odd loose drive.

He’s not pulled up any trees here as yet, but 57th in his rookie season followed form figures of MC-MC-MC-WD-MC-32-MC to start the year, the 32nd coming in an opposite field, then last year he’d gone MC-MC-40 on the PGA Tour, his only good golf having come at a lower level. Like Thorbjornsen, he simply wasn’t playing well anywhere yet still made the cut at Memorial Park.

Now a fully-fledged member once more, one whose third place in Utah at the end of the year came at another course where long drivers dominated, he will be a massive factor here if he’s in the form he showed in January and February. Like Thorbjornsen, he’s right on the cusp of the world’s top 50 too so there’s a lot to play for under ideal conditions.

Coody came closest to winning on the PGA Tour when second at Keene Trace, another big-hitter golf course, and more recently has three top-25s and a best of fifth from his last four starts in his home state. It would be a fitting place to break through and he could prove up to the task at prices similar to those he was going off in much deeper fields not so very long ago.

Clark is about the same price despite successive 64s for fifth place last year. Wild and long and with his irons firing, there’s a sound argument for the former US Open champion. The flaws in it are that, unlike Coody, he has no top-class form this year, since last July in fact, and is currently dogged by putting issues. The same concern would have to apply to Pendrith alongside him in the betting.

I’m a big fan of Sam Stevens, second and third in Texas before and second also at Torrey Pines. His record here is solid without being spectacular but he’s never hit the ball better and without being super-long is certainly long enough. The issue once more is that putter, which was abysmal in Florida and has only really fired once in his last dozen starts. Perhaps look for signs of life with next week’s home game in mind.

SAM BURNS showed those signs of life at Sawgrass, where he climbed from 99th after round one to finish an excellent 13th, and he can enhance a strong if dated record at this course.

Burns was seventh in 2020, leading through 54 holes, then finished seventh again the following year. He withdrew after a poor start in 2022 and returns now for his first go at this in April.

Given that he’s a two-time past champion at the Valspar it feels significant that he’s opted instead for the Houston Open and it’s certainly a course that should prove a better fit under the anticipated conditions, as he remains a powerhouse whose putting is among the best in this field.

Generally speaking I shy away from those whose approach play is their weakness but it was one such player who won this title after better signs in that department last year, and I wonder if Burns could follow suit. He did show signs of improvement at Sawgrass, too, gaining strokes in rounds two and three and hitting a number of good wedges in the final round as well.

His form this year is best described as patchy – three good performances including sixth at Pebble Beach set against three missed cuts – but The Players may prove something of a turning point given the three sub-70 rounds he produced to finish, and again I don’t think he could be coming to many better golf courses on the back of it.

Burns hit the ball beautifully here on debut, including his irons despite not having done so in the weeks prior, and was again strong fom tee-to-green the following year. He also boasts an excellent record in Texas, winning in Austin and Fort Worth and producing seven top-10s in his last 11, including fifth on his last visit at the CJ Cup.

That wide-open golf course at Craig Ranch offers more correlation with Memorial Park and sets up well for big-hitters who can putt, so despite still being a little scarred by Burns’ failure to capitalise on a winning position in Canada last year, I find him difficult to overlook.

He’s preferred to Lee, who was very high on the list but can be left alone at a general 14 and 16/1. He’s a better player than he was this time last year but I’d struggle to argue for taking even a fraction shorter than he is now for all that he clearly fell in love with this place on debut.

There’s one other particularly interesting form line to consider here and it relates to the Pinnacle Bank Championship on the Korn Ferry Tour, an event David Skinns has won twice and Tosti once.

It’s played at Indian Ridge, a 7,500-yard course in Nebraska, and big hitting has been key to it, something emphasised by Christo Lamprecht’s victory over Peter Kuest back in August. Beyond Tosti and Skinns (seventh here on debut then shot 64 in round two last year), Jaeger, Pendrith, Max Greyserman and even shorter-hitting Tyson Alexander help tie these two events together.

Lamprecht isn’t the worst 300/1 shot you’ll find but this correlation also points towards SUDARSHAN YELLAMARAJU, who arrives here in much better form.

The self-taught Canadian earned plenty of media coverage with fifth place in The Players last time but that was no flash in the pan, as he’d made five cuts in his six prior starts, the exception coming when missing by one. In amongst this he was 13th in the Sony Open, a course which tends to reward experience, and 17th in the Cognizant Classic more recently.

24-year-old Sudarshan Yellamaraju, who learned to play golf via YouTube, has an outside chance at @THEPLAYERS title in his tournament debut.

Who is he?

Yellamaraju was born in India and moved with his family to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada as a pre-schooler, where he first… pic.twitter.com/fkHLb1dqXh

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 15, 2026

Fourth at Indian Ridge last year, there’s a lot to like about this from a timing perspective now the 24-year-old knows he can compete at the highest level, and there’s a lot to like from a statistical perspective, too.

Yellamaraju is 15th in driving distance, 23rd in distance of all drives, 13th in club head speed and 19th in ball speed, so we’re very much looking at one of the longest and so far best drivers on the PGA Tour given that he’s hitting plenty of fairways as well. He ranks first in total driving and a handy 36th in strokes gained off the tee.

Also 28th in strokes-gained approach, you’d be forgiven for assuming the putter must be his weakness but that isn’t the case as he currently ranks 16th, so it’s really just his work around the greens that has been an issue so far. With 397 FedExCup points, he may already have enough to keep his card but seems sure to do so one way or another.

It has been an excellent start to life on the PGA Tour for a young player who was hard to weigh up before beginning the season at the Sony but now looks to be one of the most promising youngsters around. So, while I wouldn’t necessarily have been looking to Sawgrass for clues, that blend of correlating form at a lower level, abundant power and putting touch is a perfect match with Memorial Park.

I’m going to follow a similar path to PONTUS NYHOLM, the pick of two outsiders at massive odds.

The Swede is very much in the big-hitter category at 25th in ball speed and unlike Lamprecht, he has some recent form to go on. At the beginning of March he closed with a round of 66 for 13th in the Cognizant, four solid rounds in Puerto Rico followed that for 16th place there, and in the Valspar he missed the cut by a couple of shots after a solid second round.

More will be needed but he was very solid off the tee and with his approach shots again there only for his recent putting improvement to go missing, so if he can fix that then this could be a good chance to get back onto the fringes of contention at a golf course he’ll like the look of.

Nyholm was second in Texas at the Veritex Bank Championship back in 2022 and that event has provided some pointers towards this one, but it’s his form in the Pinnacle Bank I really like. Nyholm has form figures of MC-29-9-14 there and the pick of them was especially impressive given that he’d shot himself out of it with an opening 76.

Perhaps it will be the raw talent that is Lamprecht who lives up to this theory that Indian Ridge will provide some clues, but he’s struggled badly with the putter and has done very little so suggest he will be competitive here. Nyholm can be on the basis of the last few weeks so is preferred.

Another rank outsider I could see going well is JIMMY STANGER, whose form figures over the last three events he’s played read 32-26-30.

Stanger was inside the top 10 at halfway in the first two and actually went further than that to contend in the Cognizant, so he’s been catching the eye on his return from a career-threatening injury, seemingly feeling better than he has in a very long time.

Granted, he has a long association with the Valspar but he’d never made the cut there before so again, he really does seem to be on top of his game.

Last week saw him continue to play well, ranking 10th in strokes-gained off-the-tee for the tournament and third in Sunday’s final round, and he’s fifth for the season in this category. Also a good putter, that’s a game which at least bears some resemblance to that of the defending champion and it’s one which is hinting at something significant.

Stanger’s best PGA Tour finish to date came when third in Puerto Rico two years ago and he played well again there recently, while he has been 11th in the Pinnacle Bank albeit among some lesser efforts.

Ultimately we’re taking a big chance but on the right kind of player: one who is long off the tee and stringing together good rounds right now. He’s made a really good start in his bid to regain full status playing on a medical extension and of the eight starts he has left, I doubt any will come at a more suitable golf course.

Gordon Sargent’s top-10 two starts ago means there’s something of a case for him but the one I came very close to siding with was Isaiah Salinda. Another prodigious driver, he was 11th here last year and third in Mexico so it’s definitely the right kind of course, but his putter can be hopeless and that’s ultimately too big of a concern to ignore.

You get the idea, though. Long drivers at a long golf course where the penalty for missing the fairway is often negligible. The difficult part is that just about every player with that profile has come to Houston knowing this course is made for them.

Posted at 09:00 GMT on 24/03/26

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