Houston Open contenders hunt win for different reasons as Masters looms

Since moving to the spring, the Texas Children’s Houston Open has seen a wide variety of pros fill its field with the Masters right around the corner.

There are superstars looking for one final tune-up before the year’s first major. There are stars hoping to dig their way out of an early season rut and feel more confident before arriving at Augusta National. There are young up-and-comers looking to play their way into the Masters or hunting for their first win. And there are those players, young and aging, just grinding, hoping to find a good four rounds that can give them job security and perhaps be the spark that gets them back into an echelon of pro golf they once inhabited.

After three rounds at Memorial Park, the leaderboard at the 2025 Texas Children’s Houston Open is a microcosm of the tournament’s evolution.

At the top is Min Woo Lee, the 26-year-old Australian whose talent has been the talk of the golf world for years. But while Lee has elite talent, he has lacked consistency and, therefore, is still searching for his first PGA Tour win. Lee doesn’t need a win in Houston to drive down Magnolia Lane. He already has a ticket to the 2025 Masters. Lee hasn’t been in contention that often on the PGA Tour — he has three DP World Tour wins — and when he has found himself in the cauldron, he has wilted. Such was the case at the Players Championship a few weeks ago, where Lee held the 36-hold lead only to shoot a third-round 78 to fall out of contention.

Lee shot a 6-under 64 on Friday in Houston and followed it up with a 7-under 63 on Saturday to take a four-shot lead into Sunday. On a golf course that allows him to use his driver as a weapon without fear of getting into too much trouble, Lee will enter Sunday with a chance to lean on the lessons from his early-career failures and add PGA Tour champion to his growing resume.

“It’s just a sport where you get beat down so many times, and I haven’t been in contention too much, and when you’re there you just want to win or obviously play well,” Lee said after the first round. “But that happens, you go backwards, and a lot of people have gone backwards, great players. Don’t beat yourself up and just move on. You’ve got to learn from it, I think that was the big takeaway.

“I talked to Jason Day at the beginning of the week, and just the hard part is to get yourself in contention. That’s what people don’t realize, and I don’t do it that often. So it was quite nice to be on top of the leaderboard heading into the weekend. As long as you keep putting yourself in those positions, hopefully, one week, you can keep it up and hold the trophy.”

Lee will start Sunday with a four-shot lead on Alejandro Tosti, who carded a 5-under-65 on Saturday to vault into second place.

The 28-year-old Argentine finished T2 in Houston last year but has just one top-10 finish since. Tosti, who is ranked 214th in the world, finished T4 at Q School in December to retain his card after falling out of the top 125 last season.

“I’m not the same guy going into tomorrow,” Tosti said Saturday when asked about coming up short in Houston last season. “I’ve learned a lot in the last year. Last year was my first time being in contention for a big tournament. It’s just another opportunity. I’m real excited. I prepared very hard for this and worked very hard for a long time. Just excited to have this opportunity.”

A hot Sunday would not only give Tosti his first trip to the Masters, but it would also guarantee his spot on the PGA Tour for two years, which would be a weight off the young pro’s shoulders as he looks to find solid footing on the top circuit.

Lurking one shot behind Tosti is Scottie Scheffler, who held the 36-hole lead after firing a course-record-tying 62 on Friday. Scheffler’s putter was uncooperative on Saturday as he shot just 1-under par and watched Lee and Tosti pass him heading into Sunday.

Scheffler arrived in Houston hoping to knock off the remaining rust from the hand injury that cost him more than a month of the season. Scheffler has admitted the puncture wound that was suffered while making ravioli for Christmas Dinner might have “set him back,” but he has used this week to dial things and will have a chance to win Sunday before turning his eyes to Augusta National.

“I felt like I hit it better today than I did yesterday,” Scheffler said Saturday, one day after tying the course record. “It’s a funny game sometimes. Yesterday was a day where I felt like I really needed to go to the range and hit some balls and make sure things were feeling the way I needed to, and today I felt like I was striking it a lot better, just a bit off.”

Tied with Scheffler at 12-under-par is Ryan Gerard. The 25-year-old earned his PGA Tour card by finishing in the top 30 of the Korn Ferry Tour last season. While a trip to Augusta would be nice, Gerard’s focus Sunday in Houston is on making the most of an opportunity to win and add FedEx Cup points toward future status, which doesn’t come around often.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a lot more pressure,” Gerard said after the round when asked if being a rookie with fewer guaranteed starts ratchets things up for him Sunday. “I think you do have to take advantage of the situations. You don’t have as many starts as some of the other guys. You’re not getting into events without playing your way into them, especially some of the smaller fields or any of the Signature Events, so you’ve got to go earn your way into those.

“Just there’s a lot of really, really good players out here, and basically you have to go beat all of them if you want to kind of stick around here. So when you get into those situations, you’ve got to make sure that you’re putting yourself in a position to take advantage. You can live with bad golf shots, you can live with just bad execution, but you just want to make sure that mentally and just emotionally you’re in the right frame of mind before you go commit to ’em.”

Thirty-eight-year-old Ryan Fox is also at 12-under. The New Zealander has fallen to No. 109 in the Official World Golf Rankings and will need to win Sunday to earn a trip back to the Masters, where he has finished T26 and T38 the last two seasons.

There’s a lot on the line for those on the leaderboard in Houston on Sunday. But exactly what that is depends on who you ask.