Featured Groups: Valero Texas Open

The Texas Hill Country and TPC San Antonio (AT&T Oaks) take center stage this week for the Valero Texas Open, where Kevin Chappell will defend a PGA TOUR title for the first time. The Valero is the third of five tournaments in the Lone Star State, with Texans like Jimmy Walker, Jhonattan Vegas and Sergio Garcia (a part-time resident of Austin) garnering much of the attention. A Chilean, former No. 1-ranked amateur Joaquin Niemann, will be in the news as well. The Valero marks his professional debut. Si Woo Kim, who will defend his title at THE PLAYERS Championship next month, comes in hot after a playoff loss at the RBC Heritage last week. But Garcia, who co-designed TPC San Antonio with Greg Norman, will get most of the attention. He hasn’t played the Valero since its first year at AT&T Oaks, in 2010, and is coming off a wild Masters defense that included a record 13 at the 15th hole. Players stay at the J.W. Marriott, which features such an elaborate water slide, the Valero has a reputation as one of the most family-friendly stops on TOUR. The AT&T Oaks Course is a 7,435-yard, par-72 that rewards exceptionally solid tee-to-green players, and those, like Chappell, who thrive on hard courses. PGA TOUR LIVE Thursday-Friday broadcasts will begin at 8:15 a.m. ET, and end at 6:30 p.m. The Twitter window will be from 8:15 a.m. to approximately 9:15 a.m. Thursday and Friday. We will move to Featured Holes Coverage at 3:30 p.m. Featured Holes consist of the 13th, which at 241 yards is the longest par-3 on the course, and which features a view of downtown San Antonio from the tee; and the par-4 17th, which presents players with the widest fairway on the course and at 347 yards will tempt many to try and drive the green.  Here are the Featured Groups: (Note: All times Eastern; FedExCup ranking in parentheses.) MORE: PGA TOUR LIVE | Tee times THURSDAY Pat Perez (17), Xander Schauffele (44), Kevin Chappell (52) After winning the CIMB Classic to open this season, Perez is trying to bounce back from a missed cut at the Masters in his last start. Still, he’s not far off; he was in contention at the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship until a final-round 75 (T20). Reigning Rookie of the Year Schauffele is coming off a T32 at the RBC Heritage and hasn’t had a top-10 finish since the Genesis Open in February. Meanwhile, defending champion Chappell is coming off two straight missed cuts and a forgettable WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, where he didn’t make it out of his pod. TPC San Antonio, though, is his happy place. Tee time: 8:40 a.m. off 10. Jhonattan Vegas (85), Jimmy Walker (117), Adam Scott (113) Vegas got off to a nice start in 2018 with a T7 at the Sentry Tournament of Champions and a T11 at the CareerBuilder Challenge, but he’s cooled off since. Last start: T38 at the Masters. Walker, meanwhile, is enjoying a bit of a bounce-back after having to write off most of 2017 as he recovered from Lyme disease. He finished T20 at the Masters, and was T28 at the Valspar Championship before that. Scott is coming off a T32 at the Masters, but at 113th in the FedExCup he’s clearly struggling. One likely culprit: He’s 194th in strokes gained: putting (-.595). Tee time: 8:50 a.m. off 10. FRIDAY Charley Hoffman (81), Zach Johnson (60), Matt Kuchar (54) Hoffman is the all-time career money leader at TPC San Antonio’s AT&T Oaks course, with a victory in 2016, T2 in 2011, and T3 in 2013. He also has four more top-15 finishes, and has made the cut eight times in eight chances. Johnson, 42, has seen glimpses of his old self in making 11 cuts in 11 starts this season, but is still chasing the form that made him a 12-time PGA TOUR winner and potentially a Hall of Famer. The ever-steady Kuchar has three top-15 finishes at the Valero; he also has two top-10s and two top-30s in his last four PGA TOUR starts.   Tee time: 8:40 a.m. off 10 Billy Horschel (110), Si Woo Kim (26), Sergio Garcia (83) A four-time TOUR winner and the 2014 FedExCup champ, Horschel is starting to heat up after his T5 finish at the RBC Heritage. He also has a solid record at the Valero: top-five finishes in 2016, ’15 and ’13. Kim, a playoff loser at the RBC, came just a roll of the ball from picking up his third TOUR win last weekend and is rounding into top form just in time for his title defense at THE PLAYERS at TPC Sawgrass next month. And Garcia should be ready to roll in San Antonio after his missed cut at the Masters left him with more time off than he’d anticipated.   Tee time: 8:50 a.m. off 10.

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