LIV Golf Houston Odds, Picks and Predictions

LIV Golf Houston

After a month off, LIV Golf begins the second half of its season in Houston. Jon Rahm (7/1) is once again the tournament favorite as he has been for all events on the LIV calendar this season. However, he now has more company at the top of the odds chart with two-time LIV 2024 winner (Mayakoba, Jeddah) Joaquin Niemann and PGA Championship runner-up Bryson DeChambeau both priced at 8/1.

The second group in the market consists of Tyrrell Hatton (12/1), LIV Hong Kong winner Abraham Ancer (16/1), LIV Singapore winner Brooks Koepka (16/1), LIV Miami winner Dean Burmester (16/1), Cameron Smith (16/1) and Talor Gooch (16/1).

The Golf Club of Houston is the host course for this week’s event and five players in this field have won on this course when the PGA TOUR hosted the Houston Open: 2009: Paul Casey (price of 40/1 this week), 2010: Anthony Kim (1000/1), 2011: Phil Mickelson (200/1), 2014: Matt Jones (130/1), 2018: Ian Poulter (150/1).

Carlos Ortiz (30/1) and Jason Kokrak (80/1) also won the Houston Open when it was held at Memorial Park in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

The event

LIV Golf makes its Houston debut this week. As always, there are three rounds and 54 holes of play in a shotgun start format, and all 54 players play for an individual purse of $20 million, with $4 million going to the individual winner.

The lesson

The Golf Club of Houston is located in Humble, Texas, just northeast of the city. The course plays out like a Par 72 of 7,425 meters. Designed by renowned architect Rees Jones and major champion David Toms, the Houston Golf Club Tournament Course opened in 2005. Golf Summary ranks the course among the top 50 in Texas and one of the best public courses in the Lone Star State.

Hole highlights include the 315 yard Par 4 12th which should be playable for most of the course and the 485 yard Par 4 18th is guarded by a lake on the left side of the fairway and bordering the entire left side of the green .

The course uses Mini Verde Bermudagrass on the greens and Tif Sport Bermudagrass in all other areas. At 12 p.m. at the stimpmeter, the greens will be at medium speed.

LIV Golf Houston Best Bets

Abraham Ancer 22/1 BetMGM

Ancer was a winner earlier this year at LIV Hong Kong and has three Top 10 finishes since that victory. He placed 8th on this course in 2018 at the Houston Open. Ancer currently leads LIV in driving precision.

Paul Casey 50/1 BetRivers

Casey is a previous winner at this course having won the Houston Open in 2009. He was runner-up earlier this year behind Ancer in Hong Kong and was also in contention at the Singapore Classic before finishing 6th. Casey currently leads the LIV for the Greens in regulation and is 3rd in scrambling.

Thomas Pieters 50/1 DraftKings

Pieters returned home to Belgium two weeks ago and finished second in the DP World Tour’s Soudal Open. This was after finishing in the Top 5 in Singapore in early May. The cheers and well-wishes from the Belgian faithful might just be what is needed to spur Pieters to continue his recent good play. He also finished in the Top 15 in his last three LIV events.

Eugenio Lopez-Chacarra 150/1 DraftKings

The former amateur world number 2 won in Thailand in 2022 during his professional rookie season. He also won last year at St. Andrews Bay in an Asian circuit event. The Spaniard has just posted his first Top 10 of the season in Singapore. He also qualified for the US Open two weeks ago in Dallas by finishing T-2 in qualifying.