Flag Hunting: PGA Betting Picks - 2024 Texas Children's Houston Open

Between Monday's Course Preview piece (found right here on RotoBaller), and last night's podcast (currently posted on our X page), we've given y'all every possible trend, key stat, and player take needed to make the most educated betting decisions possible this week at Memorial Park. This Wednesday article will now serve as a final bow to wrap up a jam-packed week of PGA content at Flag Hunting. No fluff, no rants or superfluous soliloquies, just the entirety of our 2024 Texas Children's Houston Open outright betting card.

The three names on this betting card are aimed at returning ~6.5 times our investment (including potential live adds). Because of the inflated odds associated with the outright market, it becomes even more imperative to remain disciplined when setting your unit allocations from this article's picks. Golf outright betting is a notoriously fickle beast, and multiple month-long droughts are very much within the range of outcomes. However, at these prices, one single hit can pay off many weeks of poor decision-making.

In the two-year history at Flag Hunting, we've been fortunate enough to cash a total of 22 outright winners (a 20.7% hit rate) for a profit of nearly $15,000 (betting roughly $350 per week) and an aggregate ROI of 38.2%. The volatility of the sport means I can't promise you a winner in any given tournament, but if you're willing to bet methodically and stick with the process, the outright golf betting market has the potential to be one of the most profitable (and enjoyable) betting sweats in the business. But I suppose I'd better keep my word about the necessary rants, so with no further ado, here's every bet I've made for the 2024 Houston Open!

Texas Children's Houston Open Betting Card

Sahith Theegala (22-1)

GOLF SHOT. 🤯

Sahith Theegala with an exceptional 8-iron to set up birdie from 183 yards out behind a hill on 14.

📺: Golf Channel & @peacock | @WMPhoenixOpen pic.twitter.com/MPT92cxfFL

— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) February 10, 2024

Fresh off of his fourth top 10 finish of the 2024 season (and third in an elevated event), Sahith Theegala marches into Houston with as much confidence as any of Scottie Scheffler's competitors this week. We talked in our Monday preview article just how impressive the strides in Sahith's driving have been in the last few months, and around one of the more driver-intensive courses of the season, he'll have ample opportunities to showcase this progression.

Theegala has gained strokes off of the tee in six of his last seven starts to open his 2024 campaign, including a +3.9 rating at Bay Hill and a +3.4 rating in three rounds at Torrey Pines South. These marks are virtually impossible without an elite combination of distance and accuracy, and prove to me that Theegala is a dangerous commodity at even the most demanding driving venues.

Of course, Theegala is also a player who won a PGA Tour event last fall despite rating out as a dead-neutral driver for the week: instead gaining 3.3 shots on approach and nearly 14 strokes with his short game to capture the 2023 Fortinet Championship. This sort of upside that he continually shows in other aspects of his game outlines just how dangerous Theegala could be if these new driving splits become a new norm. Theegala ranks 3rd in Long-Iron Proximity over his last 50 rounds, he ranks 3rd in SG: Putting, and 4th in SG: Around the Greens.

The tools are all in place for Theegala to emerge as a legitimate top-ten player, and with four marquee performances already to his name this season, the second win looks to be an inevitability as well. I find myself as high on this kid's stock as anyone else on Tour right now, and I will not pass up an opportunity here at 22-1.

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End of the Season Totals: @rotoballer @BettorGolfPod

2017 +54.26 Units
2018 +55.88 Units
2019 +27.743 Units
2020 + 37.015 Units
2021 + 68.846 Units
2022 +67.485 Units

Total Winnings: +311.229 Units

Total Outright Wins Since 2017: 36

H2H Totals Inside Thread… https://t.co/pNQrSK1rFE

— Spencer Aguiar (@TeeOffSports) December 12, 2022

Jake Knapp (66-1)

Excellent tee shot on 17 from @THEPLAYERS first-timer Jake Knapp. 🎯

📺: Golf Channel & @peacock | #THEPLAYERS pic.twitter.com/k1jmQZlAzZ

— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) March 14, 2024

After a surge of positive results landed him in the 50-1 range in Bay Hill's star-studded field, it's taken just two weeks to see numbers better than that in an event featuring just four of the OWGR's top 20 names.

Sure, the 12 he made at Bay Hill's sixth hole and a closing 73 at TPC Sawgrass have depressed his stock a bit from the run he was on from Torrey Pines to PGA National, but I'm not prepared to penalize a PGA Tour rookie for getting got at two of the trickiest venues on the circuit. Especially not when this week's test at Memorial Park might be the best true course fit we've seen for Knapp since his win at Vidanta Vallarta.

The driver-heavy, 7,400-yard layout and 1.25-inch rough on tap this week should give Jake free reign to wail away with one of the fastest club head speeds on Tour (122.9 mph), and Houston's long-iron-heavy approach distributions will bring back many comparisons to the setups he torched in Mexico and La Jolla (+12.5 SG: APP between the Famers and Mexico Open's). Knapp has also shown a sneakily consistent baseline with the putter since he's come onto Tour: gaining stroke on the greens in five of his last six starts, and notably, gaining a combined 6.9 strokes putting in eight rounds on other overseeded Bermuda green complexes (Sawgrass/Scottsdale).

With just eight starts to his name, we clearly don't have a firm grasp on where Jake Knapp fits in the PGA Tour hierarchy, but he has produced some very promising early returns. Plus, Knapp was one of the Korn Ferry Tour's most consistent entities in 2023: notching 10 top 10s and only two missed cuts in 22 starts. I truly think he has every tool to ascend into the top 25 in the World Golf Rankings and potentially even make some noise in a Major or two this season. Weeks like this will be crucial for Jake, as his skills have already been proven to be best accentuated around the Tour's longest layouts.

Kurt Kitayama (66-1)

Feeling it 🐦@Kurt_Kitayama takes a 2-shot lead @APInv pic.twitter.com/gNIY68MiB7

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 3, 2023

In a field full of winless/unproven commodities, Kurt Kitayama's track record in big-time events (and on similarly driver/long-iron intensive courses), makes him an enticing commodity in the 50/60-1 range. He's one of the few players in this field in recent history to best Scottie Scheffler on a Sunday in contention (2023 Arnold Palmer Invitational). Throughout his career, Kurt has routinely raised his baselines on some of the PGA Tour's longest layouts:

• Winner at 7,500-yard Bay Hill (aforementioned 2023 API)
• 2nd at 7,600-yard Congaree (2022 CJ Cup)
• 2nd at 7,300-yard Vidanta Vallarta (2022 Mexico Open)
• 2nd at 7,300-yard Renaissance Club (2022 Scottish Open)
• 4th at 7,400-yard Oak Hill (2023 PGA Championship)
• 8th at 7,300-yard TPC Scottsdale (2024 WM Open)

The statistical profile fits this run of results, as over his last 50 rounds, Kurt ranks inside the top 25 in Driving Distance, Bogey Avoidance, and Long-Iron Proximity, and in his last start at TPC Sawgrass, Kitayama posted his best ball-striking week since the last May's PGA Championship (+6.0 Strokes Gained). The week-in, week-out consistency has left a lot to be desired throughout Kurt's PGA Tour career, but with six made cuts in his first seven starts, 2024 may well be the year he finds his footing in that respect. In any case, there are no questions regarding the upside of the three-time worldwide winner, and Houston's distance-intensive layout makes for another great spot to take a shot at an inflated outright number.

Joseph Bramlett (150-1)

An excellent approach by Joseph Bramlett to set up birdie and extend his @ATTProAm lead to two. 🎯

📺: Golf Channel and @peacock pic.twitter.com/wjwhZdZe8Q

— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) February 4, 2023

If you're not throwing at least one massive punt down the board in 2024, are you even trying to win an outright bet? In all seriousness, my interest in Bramlett was comparable to interest I had in guys priced 60-70 points lower than him when lines opened Monday morning, so I decided to take the shot on the former Stanford Standout.

Bramlett has all the tools we outlined in our Monday article for success around Memorial Park: elite distance off-the-tee (14th on Tour), touch around the greens (over a half-shot gained per tournament in his last 20 starts), and trending iron play (+5.6 SG: APP over his last three rounds at Innisbrook). Additionally, he's also shown us he can marry these three phases at this very venue.

In a ninth-place finish here back in 2022, Bramlett recored the second-best tee-to-green performance of his entire career (+9.3), ranking fifth in the field over those four days while being one of only five players that week to gain at least 2 strokes with his driver, irons, and short game. Interestingly, the only other venue where Bramlett has recorded a tee-to-green week of that caliber? Vidanta Vallarta at the 2023 Mexico Open - another course where distance off of the tee and long-iron acumen are paramount for success.

I'll be the first to admit that this field doesn't feature a ton of compelling options past the 100-1 threshold, but Bramlett checks as many boxes as you could hope for out of a 150-1 bet in this beleaguered field. I'd value him just as highly as many of the other "toolsy" entities in the 75/80-1 range (List, Rodgers, Bhatia, etc.).

In-Tournament Strategy

With these four names on the card, we're still left with ~50% of our weekly budget to use on in-tournament additions. This section will outline a few names to monitor in the live markets, as well as a few potential angles to use when assessing player viability over the course of the week.

• In full disclosure, my final two adds to this weeks card were going to be Will Zalatoris (22-1), and Stephan Jaeger (50). However, recent wind projections have thrown a bit of a wrench in my strategy, as we could be in for a legitimate wave advantage for those going off in the afternoon on Thursday. Throw in recent reports regarding Wyndham Clark's back and doubts have been cast on much of my initial shortlist. As a result, I concluded it wouldn't be the worst strategy to save a portion of my budget to be used as things develop throughout the week. Below are a few of the angles I intend to use whilst scouting for value in live markets:
• Memorial Park in itself isn't a golf course that affords players a multitude of great birdie chances. Through three Houston Open iterations, only six of the 18 holes on property have played under par, and not a single one has featured a birdie rate north of 40%
• Even the Par 5's here at Memorial Park are no joke: as the 3rd, 8th, and 16th holes here play to a cumulative scoring average of just 0.52 shots under par, which at most courses, amounts to the expected strokes gained on just one of their five-pars.
• Of course, there won't be a ton of reprieve on the Par 3s or 4s either, as Memorial Park features one of the longest sets of Par 4's on the PGA Tour (467 yards on average), and none of the Par 3's here feature a birdie rate over 18% (four of five feature a bogey/worse rate over 18%).
• Where this routing is certainly more prone to bogey avoidance than birdie making, the front-nine here at Memorial Park does carry substantially more scoring opportunities. The three easiest holes on the course reside on the front half (3, 5, and 8), while four of the five toughest holes reside on the back side (11, 12, 14, 18).
• This dichotomy has led to a nearly one-stroke difference in scoring averages between the two nines, which is certainly something to monitor as you access tournament additions. As a general rule on Thursday/Friday, I would avoid targeting many of the hot starters going off of the softer front nine, and instead look to target players who have managed to keep a clean enough card on the much tougher half.
• Of course, the main storyline this week has been about how the March overseed could soften the playing surfaces and make this course play a bit more forgiving (particularly around the greens). However, softer conditions will also give an additional advantage to longer hitters, as we don't expect to see nearly the same level of runout in the fairways as we saw on the dormant Bermuda in November
• I'll be sticking pretty tightly to my general profile outlined in the Monday article when assessing in-tournament additions (driving distance, long-iron play, ability off of tight greenside lies), and therefore will be keeping my in-play shortlist relatively small compared to other weeks. Although we have seen a few shorter hitters pop up on leaderboards through the years (Dahmen, Rai, Hadwin, etc.), each of the last three winners here have ranked inside the top 20 in driving distance, and I expect this years rendition to play further into the hands of the bombers.
• With all that said, here are the two sets of players I intend to target in the live market:
  • Subset 1 - Players starting in the PM wave (projected to have the wave advantage), who could see a bit of drift if a few guys get hot in benign morning conditions in Round 1:
    • Si Woo Kim
    • Alex Noren
    • Tony Finau
    • Jason Day
    • Wyndham Clark (keep tabs on potential back injury)
  • Subset 2 - Players starting in the AM wave on Thursday who I'll be looking to target if they get off to a particularly good start (with the belief that they can properly navigate the heavy projected winds on Friday afternoon and still find their way into he weekend picture:
    • Stephan Jaeger
    • Will Zalatoris
    • Luke List
    • Scottie Scheffler (lol, jk, he'll still be 10-1 even with an opening-round 78).
    • Joel Dahmen

Best of luck guys, and happy hunting!

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