After watching Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy both lose in the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play Semi-Finals, Sam Burns logged his fifth career win with a dominant 6 & 5 effort over Cameron Young to bolster his PGA Tour resumé. Match Play events are a nice change of pace since the scoring system abandons the traditional stroke play format. Still, we’ll return to this default scoring during the 2023 Valero Texas Open.
Heading south of Austin Country Club, players will relocate to play four rounds at the TPC San Antonio Oaks Course, initially designed by Greg Norman and Sergio Garcia in 2010. The undulations in the fairways and greens will no longer be a factor like they were at Austin CC. However, large sand bunkers flank the Bermudagrass fairways, rough and greens. Sand save percentage will be more important than normal at Valero, while ball-striking remains a premium off-the-tee and tee-to-green. The rough is cut to just over two inches, but the Texas tall grasses and vegetation can grow up to half a foot in length, creating difficult lies for errant tee shots and approach shots alike. There aren’t many water hazards for players to avoid, but the fairways remain fairly narrow, and thick rows of Oak trees will obscure the hole location and also create difficult conditions to recover from errant lies in the tree line.
