We are hitting the home stretch towards The Masters as the PGA Tour makes its way to Texas for the Texas Children's Houston Open. While eyes may begin shifting towards Augusta, the field at this week's event still sets up to give us an exciting tournament, where the field includes world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler trying to get fully right by the first major.
Memorial Park, the host of this week's event, has turned out to be a bit more of a bomber's paradise in recent years, which is a style of course that is all too familiar to the PGA Tour nowadays. Another event whose fate with the proposed changes to the Tour schedule is probably up in the air, I find it hard to justify the continuation of the Houston Open in its current form.
The benefit I see is that it gives us another week to find another winner in the rankings, as Matt Fitzpatrick came through with a great win at the Valspar at Innisbrook (a great way to spend a birthday). We're sitting on back-to-back wins currently, so let's keep the streak going.
Honorable Mentions: Rickie Fowler, Ryan Gerard, Brooks Koepka, Aldrich Potgieter, Alejandro Tosti
9. Min Woo Lee
I was disappointed by Lee's T32 at The Players, but coming back to a course that he's won at, with a strong year so far has me liking him this weekend.
A big thing from Min Woo Lee's win here last year, where he outlasted Scottie Scheffler, is that he did so being completely average off the tee, an outlier from his normal performance. If he's able to drive at his usual ability this weekend, a repeat win is definitely not out of the question.
8. Chris Gotterup
He's come down from being the world beater he was in February, but Chris Gotterup sets up perfectly for Memorial Park. The driver has really gotten away from him in recent weeks, as his driving accuracy has plummeted.
But the beauty of Memorial Park for these bombers is that the fairways are relatively wide, and the penalty for missing the fairway is non-existent. If you let someone like Gotterup grip it and rip it, without worrying about losing scoring opportunities, expect a strong performance this week.
7. Sudarshan Yellamaraju
I've had Yellamaraju on my radar since the AMEX, and his T5 at The Players feels like a fantastic payoff. The 24 year-old is maybe golf's best story right now, learning the game completely from YouTube videos while growing up in Canada.
He's not only in the rankings because of his story, but Yellamaraju's game fits Memorial Park extremely well. Strong driving and putting pays around Memorial Park, and that is how he has built his success this season. While The Players was a great finish, don't expect it to be the last you hear of Sudarshan.
6. Michael Thorbjornsen
Thor is still very raw as a pro golfer, as we saw in Phoenix and on Sunday at The Players. He has the talent to get himself into contention, he just needs to learn how to get comfortable closing on Tour.
The Players was a great bounce back from a few rough weeks for the 24-year-old, and he should take so many more positives from the week than the negatives from Sunday. If he can pull on those positives, then Thorbjornsen is going to be contending once again.
5. Harry Hall
If we look back to last season, the Houston Open was the spot where Harry Hall really started to become the top-20 machine that he ended up being all throughout the summer.
While this season has been a little more up-and-down for the Englishman, he's kept the same heights he reached last year when he's on. Hall's putting has stayed just as strong this year as it was last year, and he should find himself adding some more green to his DataGolf page this weekend.
4. Pierceson Coody
Coody's 2026 has been solid, although he has cooled off in recent weeks. However, much like the Chris Gotterup pick earlier, Coody can rip it around Memorial Park and be absolutely fine.
Remember, Coody has finished in the top 25 in five of his first six starts this season, and only struggled when he hit a couple of tough setups at the API and The Players. This week is going to be easier for the pros, so I think Coody will get back on track.
3. Marco Penge
I've been waiting on the big Marco Penge coming out week this season, and we finally got it last week with his T4 last week at Valspar. We got a positive week with the irons from Penge, which was key to him finally finding some success last week.
An absolute bomber, Penge has always had a very American style of play, and his driver coming into Memorial Park feels like a match made in heaven. I'm still waiting on one of my breakout picks for this year to pick up a win, and I think we could get the first one from Marco Penge this week.
2. Jake Knapp
Well, picking Jake Knapp at The Players didn't turn out too well. I'm not giving up on him, though. It was a crazy weather week, the course was playing much more difficult than it had been in recent years, I'm willing to overlook the week and focus on Knapp's great start to 2026 leading up to TPC Sawgrass.
For as bad as it was through the bag for Knapp, he putted the ball great at The Players, so I think that this week will be a get-right week for him, and he should be able to contend this weekend pretty easily.
1. Scottie Scheffler
I know everything is going wrong seemingly for Scottie right now, but he still hasn't finished outside of the top 25 this year, and he's finished T2 at three of the last four Houston Opens.
While my year-long expectations for Scheffler may have cooled down a little bit from before the season, it would feel wrong to put Scottie anywhere but at the top of the list at an event like Houston. The Masters may be a different story, but there are still a couple of weeks to go. Everything could click again. We just have to wait and see.