The PGA Tour returns to Austin for the first time since the 2023 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. The inaugural Austin Championship will be held on the Fazio Canyons course at Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa, a Tom Fazio design that opened in 1999 and was rebuilt under his direction in 2022. It is the first PGA event ever held on this course.
Fazio Canyons will play to a par of 72 at 7,451 yards. The course runs through limestone canyons on the eastern edge of the Texas Hill Country, with Short Springs Branch, a limestone-bedded creek, crossing or bordering a number of holes. The themes that repeatedly come up from those who have played it are large elevation changes on almost every hole, forced carries over creeks and ravines, a premium on finding the fairway from elevated tees, and a back nine that carries most of the difficulty.
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Courtesy of Omni Hotels & Resorts
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Courtesy of Omni Hotels & Resorts
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Courtesy of Omni Hotels & Resorts
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Courtesy of Omni Hotels & Resorts
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J.D. Cuban
Previous Next Pause Play false Austin, TX • Private Omni Barton Creek Resort Fazio Canyons 4.3 13 Panelist Score
- Best In State
One of Texas’ best golf resorts is the Omni Barton Creek, located just 25 minutes outside of Austin. The resort features four 18-hole designs, and the highest-ranked layout is the Fazio Canyons design, a former Golf Digest America’s 100 Greatest Public winner. This signature Tom Fazio design, which offers scenic views of Austin’s Hill Country, recently underwent an extensive renovation. View Course
The field for the Austin Championship does not include a single player ranked inside the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking. Austin Smotherman is the highest-ranked player at No. 51, one of seven players inside the top 70 along with Marco Penge, Jackson Koivun, Andrew Novak, Jordan Smith, Brian Harman, and last week’s winner of the World Wide Technology Championship, 19-year-old Blades Brown. It is one of the thinnest fields of the FedExCup Fall, which makes it one of the more open events of the season.
Here are my favorite plays and fades in each price range for DraftKings contests for the 2026 Austin Championship. $9,000+ range Play: Jackson Koivun, $10,400 
Orlando Ramirez
The data supports Koivun being the most expensive golfer on the slate. He won the 3M Open this summer and most recently finished T-5 at the Biltmore Championship. Over the past nine months, only Blades Brown has gained more strokes per round.
He ranks eighth in this field in strokes gained/approach and 14th off the tee over the past year. Considering that birdies will need to be made in bunches this week, he profiles well in many of the important scoring metrics, including sixth in the field in par-5 scoring and 11th in birdie or better percentage. Over the past 18 months, he is also fourth-best in weak fields, gaining an average of 1.56 strokes per round.
Over the last year, Harman ranks outside the top 35 in this field in strokes gained per round. His game is also a poor match for this course. Scoring should be easy and there are four par 5s, yet Harman ranks near the bottom of this field off the tee, in birdie or better percentage and in par-5 scoring, and his strokes gained per round in weak field events over the past three years is lower than all but one player in the $9,000 range. I would rather save $100 and play Ben Kohles, who leads this field in SG/approach over the past year and has finished 29th or better in 12 straight starts.
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$8,000+ range Play: Zach Bauchou, $8,800 
Eurasia Sport Images
Bauchou has quietly stacked good weeks this fall. Going back to the Wyndham Championship, he had a stretch of four straight top-25 finishes and then gained over six strokes ball-striking in Mexico last week before finishing 33rd. He’s the third-best ball-striker in this field over the past three months and is sixth in birdie or better %.
Fade: Marco Penge, $8,200
Penge is cheaper than he has been in weeks, but the drop is deserved. He missed the cut at the World Wide Technology Championship last week, tied for 40th at the Mexico Open and tied for 68th at the Bank of Utah Championship, and over the past year he has lost strokes to the field in PGA Tour events.
His biggest weakness is his iron play. He ranks near the bottom of the field in SG/approach over the past year, and his recent form has been even worse, losing 4.9 strokes on approach over his past 10 rounds.
Sean M. Haffey
Jaeger has found something with his irons this fall. He ranks fourth in this field in SG/approach over the past three months leading to a T-4 at the Baycurrent Classic and a T-25 at the World Wide Technology Championship last week. He has also gained 0.73 strokes per round over his past 25 rounds in Texas.
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$6,000+ range Play: Lucas Glover, $6,600 
Gregory Shamus
Glover’s finishes this fall have been modest with a T-34 in Bermuda his best, but he has made the weekend in each of his last two starts, and his iron play has been much better than his results. He’s gained 0.89 per round on approach and has been equally as good around the green. He’s been very reliable in the fall and ranks fifth in weaker events over the last three years. If he can just make some putts he has the upside to be in contention on the weekend.
Sign up for the industry’s leading data tool to make golf stats easy to decipher—head to BetspertsGolf.com now and get access to The Rabbit Hole for only $10 for your first month. Use promo code GD10 at sign up for this amazing deal!
Ron Klos (@PGASplits101 on X) is a PGA Tour data analyst for Betsperts Golf.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
