PGA Tour First Round Leader Predictions & Best Bets

This week the PGA Tour completes its run-up to The Masters with their annual warm-up party in Texas. This time revisiting the now-familiar Memorial Park in Houston for the Houston Open.

This course was a new addition just a few years ago, but 2025 marks the fourth edition here and we have a pretty good idea what to expect.

A good snapshot is looking at previous year winners with the likes of Tony Finau, Stephan Jaeger, Kevin Tway, Jason Kokrak, and Alejandro Tosti all finishing first or second here in previous years, highlighting how this course can be attacked with a big driver game.

It plays super long at 7500 yards and only a par 70, but also favors the bombers and great long iron players even a little more with still having 3 par 5’s despite being a par 70.

With that in mind, the first guy we are going to look at for a shot at the first round leader is the dynamo known as Charles Reiter.

Reiter Monday qualified for this event, just like he did for the Farmers. He also made it through to the US Open through local qualifying last year.

The thing with Reiter is he hasn’t proven that he can really compete or make cuts on basically any professional Tour, but he also hits it THIRTY yards past your average PGA Tour field, which is a full club longer than even some of the longest guys, like Rory McIlroy.

He’s also proven that he can randomly go really really low with these good one-day qualifying results recently, and it kind of makes sense. He’s not a chump, he’s made the final stage of PGA Tour and European Tour Q-schools last year, and works hard on his game with George Gankas, who is one of the most popular coaches on tour.

He’s kind of a freak show athlete, but that’s the PERFECT candidate to buy a lottery ticket on hoping a top 1% performance comes out the barrel for him on Thursday. He has at least one huge, consistent advantage in his bag, and I guarantee you that is way more than we can say for anyone else coming in at +40000 to have the lowest first round score.

The next guy is basically the polar opposite play, as far as risk, with Rory McIlroy being available at +2000 on sites like FanDuel.

McIlroy’s play is situational, because it’s obviously a great setup for him here, the course suits his game perfectly to maximize his advantage, and he’s also extremely hot coming in. However it’s mostly a super simple play based on a good number.

The datagolf model says he’s +EV at this number, and the line is still available, so it’s a pretty rare opportunity to make a pretty mindless play and keep it as simple as that. There’s definitely more variance involved in this single-round bet compared to getting him for less than half this payout for the full tournament, but the math says the edge lies in that +2000 number.

Charles Reiter +40000 (possibly up to +60000 at some sites)

Rory McIlroy +2000

NBA | MLB | NHL | CBB | PGA | SOC | CS2

Editor’s Note: Looking for more golf props content? Be sure to check out our outright winner and Round 2/3/4 picks for this week’s event!

The PGA Tour visits the “snake pit” this week for their yearly stop near Tampa Bay. This course is famously difficult, and famously short and tight, making for an opportunity to play some very different types of golfers than we normally focus on for the bigger Tour events.

The conditions look quite calm this week, but it will be blowing just enough during the first round to make it interesting.

Missed fairways and missed greens are the norm here, with both very much on the smaller side compared to normal Tour stops.

That makes this kind of a “specialist’s” setup this week, and that specialty is short, accurate hitters who can chip and putt well – which also brings a lot of the more veteran players who are still holding on for dear life potentially into the mix.

It doesn’t get any more veteran, short, accurate, and good around the greens than Brandt Snedeker and Matt Kuchar, and both actually have a lot of momentum lately in these categories.

Snedeker in the past 6 months with 20 shotlink rounds is killing it on the greens gaining +1.2 strokes on the field which is far more than anyone else teeing it up this week and has one of the best fairway % numbers on Tour.

Kuchar has made 15 of his last 19 cuts on tour and still chips and putts it as well as he did in his prime. Both have also done very well here throughout their careers, and in a single round with the wind blowing a little bit, Kuchar at +11000 and Snedeker at +22000 on FanDuel have a better chance than a lottery ticket at sniping a low score to open up this tournament.

The next play is a lot less contrarian, but Sepp Straka really isn’t getting enough credit for how much he is absolutely shredding the early schedule this year.

Always known as a streaky-hot player, he’s beaten the field by over a stroke on approach in 11 of his last 12 starts worldwide, going back six months, with 5 of the last 6 at +1.3 or better, which is just insanely good. Also gaining strokes off of the tee in all of those rounds, mainly through accuracy, he’s got 8 top 15s in those 12 tries.

These are freaky-good and reliable numbers, and his +4500 number for a FRL bid is way better than his win-number and is soundly +EV according to datagolf’s baseline metrics, so this is a very easy play to make at Innsbrook.

The last guy to look at is journeyman shortballer Andrew Putnam. He’s made a living off of driving accuracy and phenomenal putting and chipping. He just can’t compete off of the tee in normal tournaments events, but this is a great opportunity for a level playing field.

The fact that he bombed out at the Players last week is even better, as his FRL number stretches out as long as +15000 at FanDuel.

First Round Leader Bets:

Sepp Straka +4500
Matt Kuchar +11000
Andrew Putnam +15000
Brandt Snedeker +22000

MORE CONTENT: