It started just like every other recent Thursday morning in the Klos house. Let the dogs out, take the kids to school, knock out 100 pushups and sit-ups and watch “Killa Keith” fly up the leaderboard.
After tying for the first-round lead in each of his past two starts, Keith Mitchell was at it again—this time in the opening round of the Valero Texas Open.
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With benign scoring conditions at TPC San Antonio, the talented but often inconsistent Mitchell got off to a quick start with birdies on Nos. 3 and 4. After pars on the next three holes, his drive on the par-5 eighth sat in the left rough with 286 yards remaining to a tough pin position tucked in the back right of the green. Asked about the approach shot post-round Mitchell said, “I was just trying to get it to the front. I think it was 270-something to the front edge. I was a little bit downwind, my ball’s in the first cut, so I had a little bit of grass behind it. I hit it really solid.”
It was perhaps the shot of the day, leading to a three-foot putt for eagle and providing the impetus for the three-hole birdie stretch that followed. Sitting at -7 through 11 holes, Mitchell shot -1 the rest of the way finishing with a 64 and taking the clubhouse lead, which was later bested by Sam Ryder’s 63.
When viewing his player page in the “Rabbit Hole” (the new PGA Tour database at Betsperts Golf), Mitchell has always been one of the better “first round” players on tour.
But recently, he has taken his first-round prowess to another level, averaging 3.73 strokes in his last five Thursday rounds entering this week. When we add in the eight strokes gained from Thursday’s round, that strokes gained average jumps to an incredible 4.45 over his last six first rounds.
This prompted Golf Digest’s own Stephen Hennessey to quip…
Who's peak was better: Scottie Scheffler in 2024 or Keith Mitchell on Thursdays in 2025?
— Stephen Hennessey (@S_HennesseyGD) April 3, 2025
Thanks to the “Rabbit Hole,” that data is readily at our fingertips. In 2024, during his incredible season in which he won seven times on the PGA Tour, nine times counting the Olympics and the Hero World Challenge, Scottie Scheffler gained 2.76 strokes per round. Statistically, the closest thing to Tiger Woods we’ve seen. Coming into today, Mitchell was at 2.34 per round this year on Thursdays. Following today’s round, that average jumps to 2.96 on the year.
So, yes … an even greater SG/total clip than Scheffler, who put up a generational type of season. That’s how good Keith Mitchell has been on Thursdays in 2025.
We have seen this story before from Mitchell. Hot starts have often ended in frustrating fashion with his best finish this year being a 17th place showing at last weekend’s Texas Children’s Houston Open. The ultimate prize in San Antonio this week would be an outright win and a trip to next week’s Masters. “My game’s been trending. I’d like to put some solid rounds together, hopefully it’s this week. I feel like my scores have been showing at least in the first couple rounds lately, that my game’s where it needs to be and just going to try to stack them all up this week.”
This article was published in partnership with BetSperts Golf, one of the leading data-analyzing tools in the industry. The Rabbit Hole is a tool that allows users to utilize strokes-gained stats and any other metric from the PGA Tour for their own modeling purposes. Golf Digest readers can get 25 percent off a subscription now by using the promo code GOLFDIGEST. Now’s a great time to use it—so you can win your Masters pools with some advanced stats!
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
