Expert Picks: Valero Texas Open

With a new season comes a new evolution for Expert Picks. Below are picks and analysis for both betting and fantasy, as fans have a new version of the PGA TOUR Fantasy Game presented by PGA TOUR Superstore for 2025. Each week, our panel of experts will offer picks and analysis for the fantasy game, including insight on who will captain their roster for extra points. Users can submit their rosters via PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, with the current segment running through the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday.

Our Golfbet experts will also share betting picks, both for the outright winner of the tournament and which prop markets have caught their eye.

How it works: Each week, our experts from PGATOUR.COM will make their selections in PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by PGA TOUR Superstore. Each lineup consists of four starters, including a captain, and two bench players that can be rotated after each round. Adding to the challenge is that every golfer can be used only three times per each of four segments.

Aside from the expert insight below, Golfbet's Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton breaks down the field in this week's Power Rankings and offers Fantasy-specific advice in this week's Fantasy Insider.

Betting picks

WILL GRAY (Lead, Fantasy & Betting)

Winners

• Keegan Bradley (+2500): He’s doing more than just lining up plans for Bethpage. Bradley is top 25 in both Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and SG: Approach this season, a potent combo at TPC San Antonio.
• Bud Cauley (+5000): He’s playing some of the best golf of his career, with top-six finishes in each of his last two starts. A strong iron player, he’s now fifth on TOUR this season in SG: Total.

Props

• Gary Woodland, Top 10 (+500): Woodland came close last week in Houston, but this is another venue that should suit his tee-to-green strengths. He cracked the top 10 here in each of his last two starts, with a T6 in 2021 followed by a T8 in 2022.
• Charley Hoffman, Top 20 (+300): If you build a full Valero card without including a little something on Hoffman, does it even count?

CHRIS BREECE (Senior content manager, Golfbet)

Winners

• Tommy Fleetwood (+1400): The two key stats in the PGA TOUR database this week are SG: Approach (he’s 12th) and Par-4 Scoring (he’s 13th). He’s also consistently playing solid golf. In five starts this year he’s gone T22, T5, T11, T14, T16. This will be an unassuming week as we lead up to the Masters, the exact type of event where we see winners get that elusive first TOUR win. It doesn’t hurt that Fleetwood finished T7 here last year.
• Lee Hodges (+7500): He’s coming off a good T11 finish in Houston and was T6 at TPC San Antonio two years ago. Hodges is proving to be one of the best putters on TOUR ranking sixth in SG: Putting in 2025.

Props

• Bud Cauley, Top 20: (+220): He’s feeling great after his T6 at THE PLAYERS and T4 at Valspar. The metrics line up well for him to be in the mix again this week. He’s 20th in SG: Approach and eighth in Par-4 Scoring so far this year.
• Akshay Bhatia, Top 20: (+135): This worked well for me with last week’s defending champion Stephan Jaeger comfortably getting a Top 20. Bhatia feels like a similar fit in his own title defense. He’s finished T3, ninth and T9 in three of his last four starts.

CASEY JOHNSTON (Senior content manager, Golfbet)

Winners

• Corey Conners (+1600): The King of Valero. Both of Conners' two TOUR wins have come here, one as a Monday qualifier in 2019, and again in 2023. He enters on a run of three straight top 10s with incredible four-round consistency in those starts. He could easily make it a third at TPC San Antonio.
• Keith Mitchell (+4500): I love the drama the Valero Texas Open provides players with a chance to win their way into the Masters field. "Cashmere Keith" is one of those guys. He’s played some good golf this year, ranking fifth in SG: Off the Tee and GIR percentage. He has struggled with the putter, but if he can shake of some of those struggles for the week, he could play his way to Augusta.

Props

• Ben Griffin, Top 10 (+500): Another guy with a "win to get into Augusta" opportunity this week. There’s been some bright spots to Griffin’s game in 2025, and I think he gives a good run at the trophy this week. But I’m not fully confident he’s quite ready to break through for a win yet, so we’ll go with a top 10 here.
• Eric Cole, Top 20 (+360): Cole had a rough stretch for a few weeks, but he has found something recently with strong back-to-back performances in the last two weeks, registering top 15s in Tampa and Houston. Let’s tail him while he’s hot at pretty good odds.

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