Latest<\/p>\n
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Highlights | Round 3 | Texas Children’s Houston Open<\/p>\n
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Written by Jimmy Reinman<\/p>\n
HOUSTON \u2014 Michael Thorbjornsen enters Sunday at the Texas Children\u2019s Houston Open in a familiar position of intense pressure.<\/p>\n
He sits six shots back of leader Gary Woodland in a distant T3, but ever-present to those paying attention is his position in the Official World Golf Ranking. The math isn\u2019t exact, but a T5 finish or better would likely vault Thorbjornsen from No. 56 into the top 50, earning his first career start in the Masters Tournament just two weeks from now.<\/p>\n
This is the final week for players looking to qualify for the Masters via the OWGR, with the cutoff locking in invites for the top 50 in the world following the finish at Memorial Park. The only other way to secure a last-minute trip down Magnolia Lane is to win, either this week or next at the Valero Texas Open.<\/p>\n
Thorbjornsen knows what\u2019s at stake.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what you\u2019re playing for when you tee it up,\u201d he said after his bogey-free round of 66 on Saturday. \u201cOut there, it\u2019s not like I\u2019m thinking, \u2018Oh, I need to hit this one close or make this putt in order to get more points.’ No, you\u2019re not thinking about rankings or anything other than just a shot that you have in front of you while you\u2019re out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Michael Thorbjornsen hits 117-yard approach to 3 feet, sets up birdie on No. 5 at Texas Children’s<\/p>\n
It would serve the 24-year-old well to keep that mindset. Twice already this season, he has stood on the edge of a breakthrough, and twice, he has watched it slip away.<\/p>\n
At the WM Phoenix Open, he played in the penultimate group and surged into the solo lead with three holes to play Sunday after an eagle at the par-5 15th. He followed with bogeys on both the 16th and 17th holes, missing a playoff by one stroke.<\/p>\n
A month later at THE PLAYERS Championship, he again found himself in contention, paired alongside Ludvig \u00c5berg in a glimpse of the TOUR\u2019s rising future. His bid for a signature victory unraveled almost immediately, a quadruple-bogey 8 at the fourth hole set the tone for a jarring 77. He tumbled to a T22 finish.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, it\u2019s happened a few times now where I\u2019ve been in that final group or have kind of been in the mix going into Sunday,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel like every round is different, whether you\u2019re in the lead or tied for the lead or chasing someone. You can\u2019t treat it like it\u2019s a special day or anything like that, you just have to treat it like any other round, whether it\u2019s a Thursday round, a Friday round, or whatnot. Just go and hit your shots and do the best that you can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thorbjornsen made the bold decision to skip last week\u2019s Valspar Championship, foregoing a chance at additional points in his pursuit of a Masters invite. The gamble could still pay off. His game has been well-suited for Memorial Park, where he has carded just one bogey through 54 holes and ranks fifth in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee and 11th in SG: Approach.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, a handful of players arrived in Houston with similar ambitions.<\/p>\n
Nicolai H\u00f8jgaard has done what he needed to do to maintain his position inside the top 50, entering the week at No. 47 in the world and sitting one shot off Woodland\u2019s lead into Sunday. Rickie Fowler, who needed a T7 finish or better to climb from No. 61 into the top 50, missed the cut after a second-round 73. Sahith Theegala remains a long-shot possibility. Currently T7 and ranked No. 80 in the world, he would likely need a solo second or better to have any chance at Augusta.<\/p>\n
The most uncertain position belongs to Pierceson Coody, the week\u2019s bubble player at No. 51, who withdrew due to injury<\/a> prior to Friday\u2019s round. His fate now rests on how the numbers fall late Sunday.<\/p>\n And hovering over it all is the same question Thorbjornsen has faced before: opportunity, and how to handle it when it\u2019s finally his to take.<\/p>\n What would it mean for him to play in his first Masters?<\/p>\n \u201cNot going to get too far ahead of myself \u2026 I\u2019ll tell you tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n *:not(style){overflow:hidden;position:absolute;top:0px;right:0px;bottom:0px;left:0px;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;width:100%;height:100%;}.css-11jnzpa>img,.css-11jnzpa>video{object-fit:cover;}.css-11jnzpa::before{height:0px;content:””;display:block;padding-bottom:66.66666666666666%;}]]> Mar 27, 2026<\/p>\n Koepka\u2019s putting woes return, misses cut at Texas Children\u2019s<\/a>Latest<\/a>![\"Image](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774755490_918_brooks_cutline.jpg\"\/)
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"4H AGO 3 Min Read Latest *:not(style){overflow:hidden;position:absolute;top:0px;right:0px;bottom:0px;left:0px;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;width:100%;height:100%;}.css-17ygvlf>img,.css-17ygvlf>video{object-fit:cover;}.css-17ygvlf::before{height:0px;content:””;display:block;padding-bottom:56.25%;}]]> Highlights | Round 3 | Texas Children’s Houston Open *:not(style)~*:not(style){margin-top:0.5rem;-webkit-margin-end:0px;margin-inline-end:0px;margin-bottom:0px;-webkit-margin-start:0px;margin-inline-start:0px;}]]> A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-551640","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}