Valero Texas Open 2025: Best Outright Bets, Long Shot Picks Before Masters at Augusta

The Valero Texas Open 2025 begins on Thursday, April 3, at TPC San Antonio (Oaks Course), serving as the final tune-up event and qualifying opportunity for the Masters at Augusta National. Any player who has yet to be invited to Augusta can do so only by picking up a victory in San Antonio this week.

TPC San Antonio (Oak Course) opened in February 2010 and was designed by LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman with help from player consultant Sergio Garcia. The course stretches a whopping 7,438 yards with tree-lined fairways, 2.25-inch Ryegrass rough, 64 sand bunkers, and Champion Bermuda greens overseeded with Poa Trivialis. The track meanders through the Cibolo Canyons and is susceptible to heavy Texas wind gusts and unpredictable weather, which always influence the scoring conditions.

The 144-player field teeing it up at TPC San Antonio this week is among the strongest since the tournament was moved to the Masters prelude in 2019, with 12 of the top 40 in the Official World Golf Ranking in attendance. Ludvig Aberg, Hideki Matsuyama, Patrick Cantlay, Tommy Fleetwood, and 2021 champion Jordan Spieth are the biggest stars in the field and are joined by Keegan Bradley, Tony Finau, Tom Kim, Sam Burns, Rickie Fowler, Max Homa, Matthew Fitzpatrick, two-time winner Corey Conners, and defending champion Akshay Bhatia.

Last time, Bhatia defeated Denny McCarthy in a playoff in one of the most memorable finishes of the 2024 season. Bhatia entered the final round with a four-shot cushion and hit the back nine with a five-stroke lead, only for McCarthy to birdie eight of his final nine holes to shoot 9-under 63 in the final round. Despite sitting 4-under through 17 holes on the day, Bhatia had to make an 11-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole just to tie McCarthy at 20-under and get into a playoff. Incredible. In the playoff, McCarthy chunked his third shot on the par-5 18th into the water hazard, while Bhatia hit a wedge shot to five feet and made the putt for his second PGA Tour title.

Bhatia's 2024 stat line (Strokes Gained rankings): OTT (6th), APP (1st), ARG (2nd), T2G (1st), PUTT (24th), DIST (8th), FW% (33rd), GIR (1st), Scrambling (8th)

Let's get into my best bets this week at TPC San Antonio!

BEST BETS

Keegan Bradley (+3000 Bet365 Enhanced Win)

United States Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley has played excellent golf early in the 2025 season, with five top-20 finishes in seven starts. While the Vermont native hasn't tee'd it up at TPC San Antonio since 2022, he does have two top-10s under his belt on this course and should be uber-motivated to get into the winner's circle for the first time this year.

Bradley checks in at No. 7 in my model this week, ranking ninth in SG: Approach, 10th in Total Driving, 11th in SG: OTT, 11th in Sand Saves, 12th in SG: Par-4s, 18th in Par-5s: 600+ Yards, and 32nd in Greens Gained over the past 24 rounds. Even though Keegan sits 77th in Bogey Avoidance and 84th in SG: Around The Green during that same stretch, he's been sturdy in the chipping department on this course. The seven-time PGA Tour winner has gained strokes around the green five times in six starts here, including over 5.5 strokes en route to top-10 results in 2011 (T9) and 2022 (T8).

Keegan doesn't have the largest sample size in the state of Texas, but it's worth pointing out he finished T2 in his last appearance in the 'Lone Star State' at the 2024 Charles Schwab Challenge, tying with Scottie Scheffler. He also has four top-15 finishes at the Houston Open in his career, not to mention his maiden PGA Tour victory occurred at the 2011 HP Byron Nelson Championship at TPC Four Seasons Resort near Dallas. Bradley finished runner-up on that same track in 2013 and had four other top 30s there. Despite not playing in Texas too frequently, he's got a handful of high-end results.

I'm not sure how many more prime-time opportunities Bradley will have to earn a victory before having to shift his focus to Bethpage Black. I'll ride with the Northeasterner for one more week, considering his strong incoming form, while also playing against a non-Signature Event field for the first time since late January.

Bud Cauley (+5500 FanDuel)

Bud Cauley has been DIALED so far in 2025, as he's coming off back-to-back top-six finishes to wrap up the Florida Swing. The 35-year-old former Alabama Crimson Tide standout is playing his best golf since returning full-time to the PGA Tour in 2024 and has a decent track record at TPC San Antonio, finishing T18 in 2012 and T10 in 2017.

Despite sitting down in the middle of the odds board this week, Cauley is eighth in my model among all 144 players in the field. The Jupiter, Florida native ranks first in Sand Saves, fourth in Scrambling, sixth in SG: Par-4s, ninth in Bogey Avoidance, 11th in SG: Long Courses, 13th in Greens Gained, 17th in SG: Approach, 20th in Par-5s: 600+ Yards, 24th in Good Drive Percentage, and 25th in SG: OTT over the past 24 rounds. Cauley checks off essentially every box I'm looking at this week.

The most hit-or-miss part of Cauley's game so far this season has been the putter, as he dropped strokes to the field in three of his first four starts. However, Cauley seems to have found something on the greens recently, as he popped for 6.2 strokes en route to a T6 finish at THE PLAYERS Championship. He followed that up by gaining another 0.9 strokes at the Valspar Championship, where he finished T4 and had a chance to earn his maiden PGA Tour victory. I'm also encouraged by Cauley's results on the greens at TPC San Antonio, as he gained 3.0 strokes with the putter last year and 4.0 strokes in 2017.

Another reason I'm backing Cauley this week is because of his impressive resume in Texas, even though most of his high-end finishes occurred years several years ago. In six career starts at the Houston Open, he's only finished outside the top 20 twice with two top 10s. Cauley also has two top-five results under his belt at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson (when played at TPC Four Season Resort in Dallas) along with two top 25s at the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth.

Given his recent form and outstanding history in Texas -- along with his comeback story being incredibly heart-warming, I don't know how I leave Cauley off the card this week.

LONG SHOT PICKS

Justin Rose (+10000 BetRivers Enhanced)

Justin Rose hasn't showed much consistency so far this season but does have two top-10 finishes in five starts, coming T3 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and T8 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. The 44-year-old veteran still believes he has what it takes to win on the PGA Tour and should be grinding to get into form this week before Augusta.

While he's yet to play at TPC San Antonio in his career, Rose did finish T2 at this event way back in 2006 at LaCantera GC, in addition to a T17 in his tournament debut in 2004. The 11-time PGA Tour winner also has a fantastic history at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, having won the Charles Schwab Challenge in 2018 to go along with four other top-20 results there. In his last appearance at the Houston Open in 2022, Rose finished T9 but played alonside eventual-winner Tony Finau in the final grouping on Sunday. Texas has been relatively kind to the 2013 U.S. Open winner.

Even though he's missed three cuts in five starts in 2025, I think Rose's upside makes him worth the risk against the weakest field he's faced since his season debut in late January. Less than one month ago at the API, Rose popped for 4.1 strokes with his irons and 5.1 strokes with the putter against the best players on Tour en route to his T8. He flashed a similar stat line against a similar field at Pebble Beach earlier in the year, gaining 2.7 strokes on approach and 1.0 strokes with the flat stick.

Given Rose's pedigree and that he's contended in two Signature Events already this season, 100/1 was an easy click for me down the board this week. We're talking about a guy who finished inside the top 10 in two of the final three major championships last year. The tournament-by-tournament consistency might not be there anymore for the Englishman, but he's still game enough to win an event like this. Especially if the winds pick up as they seemingly always do in San Antonio.

Victor Perez (+11000 Bet365 Enhanced)

Victor Perez has been trending in the proper direction over the past month, as he's racked up three consecutive top-25 finishes after a slow start to 2025. The 32-year-old Frenchman was part of my card at the Valspar Championship a few weeks ago, where he came T22 but played spectacular in three of the four rounds. I think he's worthy of another crack in San Antonio from down the board at triple-digit odds.

Perez checks in at No. 15 in my model this week among all players in the field, ranking sixth in Bogey Avoidance, 14th in Greens Gained, 18th in Proximity 50-75 Yards, 22nd in SG: Par-4s, 27th in Scrambling, 30th in SG: OTT, and 34th in SG: APP over the past 24 rounds. He's yet to put the complete package together for four straight rounds, but there has been plenty to like about his game since the beginning of March.

The first signs of promise for Perez came at the Cognizant Classic, where he impressively gained 8.4 strokes from tee to green but picked an unfortunate time to drop nearly three strokes with the putter en route to a T18 result. The good news for Perez is the putter has cooperated much better in his last two starts, gaining 3.1 strokes at the Valspar and 2.4 strokes last week in Houston.

While he's yet to break through on the PGA Tour, Perez is a three-time DP World Tour winner and was in contention a few times in his first full-time season in the United States in 2024. He finished T3 at the Puerto Rico Open, was solo third at the RBC Canadian Open, and almost captured a medal at the Men's Olympic Golf Tournament in his native country of France, coming fourth. There's enough reason to believe he's capable of taking down this field and has seemingly found his rhythm in recent weeks.

*All statistics from the PGA Tour website or RickRunGood.com*