2024 Houston Open Preview

In this episode of the Golf Gambling Podcast on the Sports Gambling Podcast Network Steve Schirmer breaks down Memorial for the 2024 Houston Open.

After some closing remarks about the Valspar Championship and TV talk, he breaks down the entire course on Google Earth for 2024 Houston Open.

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Of Fame bets app visit H bets.com use code s gpn get 50% off your first month and start making smarter bets today all right Deens welcome back to the golf gaming podcast this is pre-recorded on what day is it days blend together when you get a little kid

Like a real little kid Friday is Friday morning really early in the morning it is really cold in uh the garage here but thankfully I got the golf ging podcast hoodie here I got a coffee here the golf ging podcast mug all of these you can

Get in our merch store uh and I believe the merch Madness contest is still going on or uh promotion right now is going out where you get 50% off everything but I am going on vacation starting on Saturday morning and I will be back on Wednesday which means I will not be here

For the usual betting show I will not be here to the preview but as promised I’m not contractually obligated to do it but as promised I am going to give you the preview this place and it’s important and I’m actually glad I’m doing it because I really like this golf course

That they’re going to for the Houston open I think it’s one of the better ones they play it’s uh the renovation they did by Tom dop was really good and there’s some exciting changes that they making for this tournament that I think are going to have pretty big implications for what happens

In a couple weeks at Augusta so we will get to that in a little bit but first you know listen why don’t we just start off with the field in this uh in this event and you know the big fish in this is uh Scotty is back Scotty is back to

Take all of our money again uh he is in the field this week and obviously with with his new Potter the the spider t x Taylor May Potter pairing that with his good ball striking has made him pretty much Invincible even despite the fact he

Was injured at the players and look I uh that was heartbreaking for me and several of our gamblers to see Scotty sheffler uh beat your bets at uh at the Players I’m just gonna warn you as I go through this golf course and what it’s uh demands and how it’s set up he’s

Probably going to take your money again this week too too so maybe this is time for you to consider single building Scotty at this point but if you don’t want to do that there’s a couple other really good names in the field too you got Tony fenale who won this event back

In 2022 uh Windam Clark will zator sahit deallen Jason day all of them are in this field this week uh I think the full field will be uh released tonight maybe there’s a couple more big names that will be added to the commit list but you

Know that’d be pretty cool if we got another Scotty versus Windham Clark uh battle there’s absolutely no reason I think Windham Clark couldn’t do very well this week based on uh how it’s set up and what it’s goingon to ask of guys um it’s I and I’m hoping it’s gonna be a

Fun tournament um you know have a couple these guys battling again I know the TV ratings are not reflecting it but the last couple tournaments seeing good players battling for the win that’s what the PJ T needed uh I of the Masters coming up so uh before I start showing

You the golf course why don’t we take our first break and then we will uh go on a little tour of Memorial Park in Houston All right so obviously like I mentioned uh we are running our merch Madness contest you get 50% off everything in the merch store using

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Get into the actual Dolf course I think it’s probably important to first talk about just the Houston open in general and what has happened to it on uh the PJ T this is a very old event this is uh event that I think dates back to the 50s

And it’s been played in a lot of different golf courses around the Houston open and it just seemed like it never found a true home uh I know most recently before they came to Memorial Park it was at the golf club of Houston uh it was bounced around the schedule

First it was in the spring before the Masters then I think they tried to have it after the Masters then it got punted to the fall and eventually and ended up losing its sponsorship I think shell uh shell was its sponsor it lost uh it it just decided it didn’t want to sponsor

Tournament anymore uh one year it actually just called the Houston open it was sponsorless and it got ped to the fall the field was terrible I think lanto Griffin won that tournament it’s a pretty gross field and it seemed like the Houston open was probably not going

To be in the PG to lead the r but a couple key things happened around that time first in 20 8 the Houston Astros Foundation uh stepped up to save the uh golf course and the the tournament uh they basically agreed to uh you know be the primary charity uh benefactor for

This so obviously the H Astros wildly popular Houston for obvious reasons wildly successful they helped uh basally revive this tournament but they need to find a golf course and what they wanted to do they wanted to actually bring the golf tournament back to well there’s you know a municipal called Memorial Park

Golf Course uh it accommodates 60,000 rounds per year but it was in desperate need of fa which I’ll show you once I go back in time and show you how this golf course has changed over the years so they realized that they need to invest in their Municipal Golf Course to make

It both Championship worthy and also friendly to amateurs to play and they brought in Tom do who you know I mean you probably everyone’s probably heard of him uh he has created some of the best uh I would say uh golf buddy trip golf courses that you can go to uh you

Know he created Pacific dunes and Old McDonald and Bandon dun stream song cap kidnappers Terry Edie those are beautiful golf coures down in New Zealand uh He restored pasta TMO yeah there’s a lot there’s a couple golf courses in Michigan that he all also uh uh restored as well and renovated and

Built um the problem with dooke courses though is they’re not really all that long they don’t they can’t support all the infrastructure needed to host PG Tour Tournament so you typically don’t go to them uh but this one though he built it with a design to make it a

Championship style golf course it can be stretched up to 7,400 yards in length now it’s not going to play that way and I’ll I’ll show you that uh I’ll talk about that in a little bit but um you know he did a really good job with this

Golf course so first why don’t we actually um let me rearrange the uh screen here so I can actually see everybody okay all right so why don’t we first go over what this looks like let me Zoom a little bit so this is most recently what is today let’s go back to

You know about 7 this was what it was I mean look you see all of this really overgrown here um I mean this is probably this is in March the remita start just starting to come out at Dy um you know it just it looked pretty

Run down um and while it’s a wildly popular Golf Course for amateurs yeah if it was going to host a Houston open actually really revive the tournament it me is some you know something really big and then you know flash back to here you know you can see

The lines as well uh just where the holes are now you can see a couple T boxes are where the woods are uh you see some greens over here uh are where there’s trees they completely changed the routing uh created new holes where in Greens where there wasn’t uh so what did

They specifically do to change it well one of the things they did was they wanted to incorporate let’s Zoom over here so this is a canyon that runs through the center or the center of the property here it’s got a little stream as well and they did a couple things

This first of all uh they Ed this as a source of drainage so any of the water that runs you know if it rains it can run off the fairways and off the greens here into this Ravine and then the water just carries it out uh naturally um you know

And instead of having catch basins around every green and you know spending infrastructure to create pipes around the golf course you know they actually use this Ravine here to get the water out but they also wanted to make it more of a hazard and a challenge and so they

Ended up moving a couple greens closer to this candy and bring it back so you know let’s go back in time here so um you know so this is where so this is what the second green used to look like here uh they end up taking the T box on

This green over here at probably a I think a par three that was going this way and they end up building in green very close to uh the Ravine over here this is a um all Short Grass over here that falls off into the Ravine if you

Missed the green uh uh a little bit to the uh short and right here uh the seventh green as well another par three again you know this was the green where it was they end shifting this closer to the Ravine over here to bring it more in play and number four as well

So this is a little longer part for this is where the green was they have shifting it a little closer to this Canyon over here to bring it more in play so that are some of the ways they have shifted some greens and moved things around in order to you know bring

It a little closer some natural hazards uh and that’s another thing too let’s talk about the hazards on this golf course I mean let’s zoom out a little bit you’ll probably notice there’s not a lot of Hazards on this golf course you know you got this big water hazard right

Here but it’s mostly the the Fairway bunker or greenside bunker variety that they got rid of and um one thing I forgot to mention uh Tom Joe consulted with Brooks Pepa H now he’s on He’s listed as a co- I think designer of this golf course he probably just walked the

Golf course and talked to Tom a couple times and Tom probably nodded said like okay yeah sure we can do that in did own own thing but one of the things that Brooks said to Tom was he thought that bunkers were quote unquote Superfluous uh and what does that mean

Well he meant that for professional golfers they’re just not that all much of a challenge for them I mean it’s pretty easy for them to get out of it if they hi um you know unless they’re against the lip it’s pretty easy still get on the Green from there they’re able

To control their spin um you know if they’re in their green side they can get up and down but for amateurs though I for most of us if you’re at a fairway bunker it’s it’s essentially a penalty stroke so what they wanted to do instead was they got rid you know there’s still

A couple Fairway bunkers that they have here just but just you know one and they’re not usually in play for the for uh some of the T boxes that are up so you know a lot of the amateurs probably fall short of it but they’re in play for

The pros there’s only like one a hole or so uh they got rid of you know maybe uh you know maybe only one or two per green as well I mean you know 13 over here there are no bunkers so they got rid of all the bunkers what they didn’t said

Though was um so let’s like zoom in so in the rough over here it’s not flat and uniform there are subtle undulations and mounds with it deep within the grass here that is pretty much imperceptible to an amateur golfer so we wouldn’t really know but to a pro golfer they

Would know they would know if it’s an slightly uneven lie they want to be a little bit more of a nuisance for a professional golfer who’s trying to be a little more precise with their shots versus an amateur that is just hoping to get out getting close to the green so um

They also removed a lot of water hazards on the golf course so let’s go again go back in time here so on the first hole there was a pond on one here they completely got rid of that uh they also on the sixth hole where is number six

It is right here there was a pond right here green side they completely removed it and it’s now just rough here uh and then on 15 which I’ll show you the green in a little bit so the water there still is a water header this is a creek right here

That it’s a really cool green I’m actually looking forward to show it to you right after I’m done talking about some of the things about the golf course uh this used to be just an all carry over water they completely just filled it all with dirt there’s a little creek here so you

Know sorry a little fishies but uh you know you know you had to find a new home which actually they ended up expanding this water hazard right here on 16 and 17 um you know so going back in time here just a little it look like a you

Know an arrowhead this uh this Pond here not really all that play all in play on this hole or this hole but now it’s in play all along off the tea here for the professionals and this is basically an island green now so if you

Want to go for it in two on the par five you know I run some risk now for these professionals you can hit in the water here um you know and and based on some of the Agronomy changes that they made to this place I would expect everybody’s

Probably going to go for it unless there’s a seem win and then on 17 here so actually there’s one change they made for this tournament uh a recent one uh the green for 17 used to be right on the water here they ended up moving it back

30 yards so now the green is here you know water is still in play if you um miss it over on the rights but they just move the green back on this hole though mostly these guys are playing positional golf there it’s like probably I like 225 230 to here see lot

Guys taking irons and hitting over the water into the green here um but yeah those are just some some of the ways uh they made um some changes to the overall Golf Course itself and I think it’s great I think the roundings really good what really makes this golf course

Really good is that a lot of the greens H are have very little rough around it it’s mostly tight lies and collection areas um especially up in front of the green and again this was on purpose from T do he wanted to create more tight lies

Around the green for amateurs to be able to pop back to it but a professional who wants to get the ball maybe closer to the hole have to chip off it and that’s pretty challenging anytime you have tight lies around the green very challenging at one specific example let me pull this up

Here this is the 15th hole let me zoom in actually this is set short par of three so uh I think a couple times it played as short as 115 as long as about like 140 or so and you can see this you you can’t see it from here but like this

Is a very deep green and uh um significantly undulated green a lot of The Greens at Memorial Park are very undulated but you can see here this all falls off down to the creek now um in past Houston opens kind of like what they did with the players there’s a

Little patch of rough around um the creek here to stop BS loll in but if it’s going pretty fast it might roll in and based on some of the Aging changes they made uh I don’t think the rough might be uh as high as it could be to stop some of these balls

But you can see here basically this is what is you know really challenging about this golf course is sure um you know it’s only 115 yard shot but you know kind of small targets here with where the you know put some the pins here uh because it’s really undulate if

You miss a little bit it’s going to roll off the green and a lot of holes are like that basically uh the green side surrounds are very challenging especially for professionals trying to Chip and get up and down because the greens can be really unated and you’re

Tripping off the tight lies so um that’s Memorial Park again like I’m very excited for you guys to uh to see it next week uh glad you could go a little bit of tour uh with it why don’t we take our second ad break and then uh we’ll go

Into um some of the nitty-gritty uh about this uh uh uh about this tournament and specifically a lot of the changes that uh you’re GNA have to account for uh with it being played in uh March versus uh October uh when it was played back then um when it was in

It’s for place in the schedule all right let’s talk about game time so if you if you’re buying tickets you know today maybe you want to go to March Madness you’re in town um in Brooklyn or something and um you know you’re looking for you know you want to go to the game

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You want on game time with the lowest price guarantee so forget planning months in advance game time has deals on tickets right up to the day of the event you can get exclusive flash shows for football basketball baseball concerts comedy theater and more so download the

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Very grateful that it is out uh this early thank you maybe they knew I was going to record a podcast for you guys at this point but here are the general facts and what you need to know for uh the Houston open this year so like I mentioned this is Golf Course

Me uh open here this is something to uh you know keep in mind so it says that it plays 7,400 yards here’s the thing I don’t know if this is because it was played in the fall and maybe there was less Daylights available so they didn’t

Want to make it quite as long of a golf course or maybe they just didn’t want to play 7,400 yards uh it played closer to 7,000 yards the problem though is it’s not like I can pinpoint like specifically to a particular hole that was different a lot of these holes when

You look at the actual scorecard yardage from the tips and where they played it there’s a pretty significant variance across a lot of holes it seems like they used a lot of multiple T boxes on several holes every day so I can’t really point to a particular hole the

Only one I can really point to that was signicantly changed is 18 is typically a par five plays like 540 yards I think from the tips uh it played as a long Par Four so there’s 60 yards but there’s still over 340 yards basically C for so

I don’t know specifically right now uh how long it’s going to play uh given my next points it may play the full 7,400 yards because I think that this thing is they’re trying to make this as close of a warmup to austa National as possible what do I mean by

That well you know obviously or you know we at the start these are these are big greens 7,000 square feet but as I mentioned these are significantly undulated greens too a lot of undulation curvature to these greens so um just like Augusta National obviously I talked

About the uh tight green you know tight lies around the green or get up down obviously that’s really important in Augusta National but before though this was played on Bermuda so it was a different test getting up and down Bermuda we talk about this on the podcast in March though you’ll notice

This is a big change it is a completely different grass that they’re chipping off of now now we are dealing with the overseeded grass so we have PO trivialis overseed on the greens here we talked about a little bit last week as temperatures get a little warmer the

Bera starts popping up a little bit uh you know the PO overseas is still there but you start seeing a little bit of grein so it start behaving a little more likea green but you know these are oversea greens more importantly though is that everything around the green and

The fairways and the rough is now the Ry grass overseas and you actually you can kind of see it here let me pull this up you can see you know this was taken in February this is how you can tell a golf course is overseed all of this brown right here that’s dormant

Bermuda we see how vibrant green the actual holes are that’s the overseed so because that can actually grow and have color in a little bit colder temperatures so let’s get back to um the gcsaa another thing to keep in mind too the rough it is only one and a quarter inches in

Length that’s I think exactly what the rough length is at Augusta National and it’s also a Ry grass overseed again Augusta National is actually a Bermuda Golf Course in F grass greens but when they play it for the Masters all that is Ry grass overseed and considering they both have the same Ru

Length this is a true warm-up to Augusta National I think anybody who’s playing here that in Houston that is qualified for the Masters I think this is a very good test good warmup for them it’s a tough golf course it has a lot of the things you’re know looking for ande you

Know basically things you have to do well at this golf course and the types of shots you got to hit that is going to translate in two weeks I think anybody who signed up for the Houston open um and playing this is making a great um a

Great choice and the ones that are going to play Valero the following week like Rory I think he’s making a mistake playing that because I don’t think that’s actually a very good uh warm up so got other than just shaking off the rust uh one thing

The gcsaa also notes is you know they note the overseed but the overseed now will provide a much tighter plane surface than RR did this will highlight the penal green size surrounds at this place and we’ll get to the stats in a little bit about how difficult is this

Is one of the moreal golf courses around the green so the fact that this overseed is now going to only heighten the difficulty and it’s pretty exciting stuff uh you know they talk about like I mentioned number 17 G was moved back 30 yards and they added a couple bunkers

There uh they also talk about the uh the climate so we’ve been dealing with a lot of rain in the Southeast and California and soft golf courses apparently per the gcsa it’s been warm and dry throughout most of the uh um most of the season so maybe we’ll get another firm maybe we’ll

Get a firm gol course that would be nice uh instead of these pillow soft Fairways with the ball just sticks um or the green just stick it would be nice to actually see uh a little bit of movement in the stuff and then the average Fairway wids are between 30 and 40 yards

Wide but you know you can kind of see let’s pull this back up without a lot of trees a lot not a lot of uh you know bunk Fair bunkers to cont with it’s a pretty wide openen golf course so you can and especially with the rough only

About one and a quarter inches you can pretty much just bombit pretty much anywhere at this place okay so you might forget let me let me take another sip from um my golf pocket mug here quick okay so he might have actually forgot who’s actually won this place I

Mean we haven’t seen this in a year and a half it’s been moving around the schedule so while we give you actually a little recap of uh who has W here and what the lib look like so back in 2022 Tony fenale won one with uh by four

Strokes this is actually misleading I think he was up by like eight heading into the back nine or maybe seven it was just over at that point I remember actually betting fenale I think he was up five five or six heading into or how much actually I can just see he was up

Four heading into um Saturday and I had a bet on him he was a four on like just well I mean Wham Clark is no longer a Scrub but at the time wiam Clark was a scrub Russ Rose was kind of scuffling too but like Ben Taylor Tyson Alexander like

He was seven up on basically the next best player the field and this field was not very good and a lot of people don’t want to get Tony credit for wi is because it was such a bad field but I mean he was up six or seven on the back

Nine and he faded a little bit he kind of went in cruise control but this was and you can see from the scoring really tough scoring conditions over the weekend it got cold and windy and it got really tough to play and the fact that

He he did exactly what a good golfer and a very good golfer should do in a weak field beat him by multiple strokes and that’s all you can really do at the end of the day like we we try and knock some of these guys for performances against

Weak Fields but you’re playing against the golf course so the fact that feno beat a weak field by multiple Strokes on a really difficult golf course I is a very underrated win and a very good win for him I I look very favorable on this win maybe it’s because I the outright

Pat me on the back but um I think people like knock and Tony F out for not winning in real Fields I I would I would push back on this one this was a good win considering what this golf course is how high a seam I I put it um and that

He beat the the field M let’s go back to when it was a little bit stronger for field so let’s go to 2022 I don’t want to see this yet and again when you’re looking at the course history you only want to go back three years with the

Houston open that is when been played moreal Park before that I was a v Houston don’t want to look at that at all uh Boston kapper boy Jason CRA I think he actually bet CRA for this event he won it at 10 under but what was interesting though is Scotty sheffler

Was leading heading to the final round you have Matthew wolf is six under you know Johnny Vegas up Russell Henley but a lot of you know pretty good drivers at the golf course or drivers were up here um Scotty kind of gagged it away on Su I

Mean not gagged he shot 69 but he just couldn’t really get it going uh KRA had a find around 65 to take it Matthew uh Matthew wolf was pretty disappointing that day I think I had a bet on him that day Burns so burn this was the start of when

Burns I think uh we’re starting have a little trouble around the green with some tight lies so on 18 I I don’t have a picture of it but there’s a big collection area right in front and it’s a r and it’s you can technically putt up to

It but you got to hit it up a big slope to get back to the green and so he decided to putt it pull Putter and he went up and down up and down a couple times just like he did I think a month later in Albany uh when he couldn’t get

He was in The Collection area and tried to get up and down there too he just ball kept rolling back to his feet so that happened to him here as well but Sam Burns has a good result here too uh 20121 uh this is so this was the week

Before the Masters if you remember and this was this was different weather than what we saw my Fino one it was hot it was really firm and it’s kind of sad this is it’s a really a it’s a really good leaderboard here and B A lot of live guys Carlos

Ortiz won Dustin Johnson finished second hii the final round 63 making a charge did really good Taylor gu kka so for the top five here were live guys you got terl Hatton uh going to live eventually but this is a really good leaderboard here uh this is a really entertaining

Tournament I mean caros r was 151 minute I think I had a positional on him that day instead of the outright you know that’s on brand for me but um you know good Le but you can see with the scoring though you know 2021 plus7 under par

2022 plus. N9 overpar 2023 plus7 over power again again so this is one of the more difficult golf courses despite the fact that you know I mean they built a golf course that is not all that long and doesn’t have a lot of Hazards but because it’s designed

Incredibly well it’s a challenge to these guys so where is it a challenge to these guys well um so let’s actually so um let’s change this to rankings so the par fivs par fives are actually one of the more difficult ones on the PJ tour

Uh you know since 2015 they rank as the 12th uh hardest out of like 88 golf courses I will probably Chuck that up into um so I think on eight it plays pretty long but also plays into the wind uh 16 has the water that you got cont

With so there’s a lot of penalty Strokes you can you can rack up on those but the greens are also really tricky and if you try going for an in two you know you got tight lies around the green it might not stay there you’re chipping back up to a

Really undulated green um it’s not one where you can probably like get to the green and two based on how you know it’s really firm and fast you know it’s hard to control your ball from long distance so it’s not easy par par F it’s also not

Easy par Force to you can see here let me actually uh change the values so the average uh distance all par fours and fives is 477 so that is the ninth longest on PG tour since 20 2015 now here’s the thing though so like I actually didn’t highlight a couple there’s a couple

Driveable part part fours like this you know 13 is 430 or or 330 here um this one is uh 388 not really drivable unless you got a Tailwind but you know shorter ones so the fact that the average distance of all the par fours and fives

Are you know pretty long you know it’s a combination of shorter holes where you hit driver and longer part fours and fives you guy had driver which considering brck ska consultant on the place want to make it a driver heavy Golf Course where you gotta drive it really

Well makes a lot of sense why it’s a little bit longer on some of these hols uh let’s go to the Str difficulties here so off the team not incredibly all that difficult t- shots you know I mean for obvious reasons what I talk when I

Showed you the golf course not a lot of Hazards um you know 30 to 40 yards wide um you know it’s you can kind of bomb it everywhere I think the fact now that this is only one and a quarter inch Ry grass rough not really all that

Challenging for these guys not all you can hit it in there and still get a very good uh you know contact in the ball so it’s probably going to be very easy t- shots for the most part um I’ll go back to this a little bit because I

Want to talk about round green and approach play a little bit but you know let’s go some of the driving stats this is interesting I couldn’t quite figure out why this is the case so the a driving distance has varied wildly over the first three Houston open so it was 296.55 284 in

2022 I was trying to think about why that is I think what happened was in 20121 I think it may I think it played a little wider well and actually it’s not the case because it’s 54 % Tri accuracy but it played a lot firmer and it was

Hot and I think guys got a little more roll out on their drives so that’s why I think the average driving distance is a little higher but in the next couple years um you know was colder I maybe it wasn’t as firm although in 2023 was firm I don’t know

Actually I don’t actually know why it’s there’s this huge Delta between the two I guess there also are a couple holes where you do have to lay up a little a little bit off the tee so you know I mean number 17 you’re not pulling driver here

Um maybe on number five you’re not maybe you’re laying back here um I that though I don’t really see a reason why you’re not pulling driver a ton here so I don’t know the uh day golf has kind of stumped me on this one so there are others who

Are going to be doing breaking this down this week maybe they have a better explanation than I but anyways so theage driver accy rates is still pretty low you know 57% in 2023 54% 2021 because no one could hold a fairway um so you know I mean it’s because it was

Really firm at those time it was hard to hold Fairways guys are hitting driver a whole lot I mean at least I would think um it’s hard you know they’re not hitting Fairways as much um I would probably expect if his firm again this year probably similar drive drive accuracy rates but again

Because the rough is only at one and a quarter inches it’s not really going to impact much and you can actually see it even without um you know the uh you know even with longer Bermuda at these three Houston opens there’s very little penalty for hitting in the rough uh only

About you know there was in 2021 but in 2022 203 very little um if I switch this to the rankings yeah so like this was you know middle of the RO like 22 out of 45 golf courses for the difference between hitting the rough and um you know

Hitting from the Fairway 20th out at 38 in 2022 uh non- rough penalty is virtually non existent because they’re just really isn’t a lot there’s not a lot of Fairway bunkers and so this isn’t really Factor low penalty rates too lack of water hazards so overall the Miss P Miss

Fairway penalty is pretty low relatively other inv forces so um but the approach play though is a little more difficult so it’s 32nd out of about 85 golf course so definitely a little uh harder than average and you know thinking about it just you’re hitting into really undulated greens with smaller

Targets than they play so the degree of difficulty of actually getting the ball close to the hole especially when they’re playing firm is difficult so that is why I would say that the difficulty of the iron play here is a little harder than most golf course where it’s basically just splatball you

Know it’s relatively flat greens that are soft the ball is just going to stay um you know where you hit it and you know I don’t particularly think that’s exciting golf some people don’t care uh whatever all right uh around the green though very difficult uh around the

Green compared to other Golf Course is 13th hardest out of like 85 or so uh so let’s actually pull that up here the Fairway this is where it’s really tough seventh hardest of all golf courses play since 2015 that is the tight lies around the green back and you’re chipping or

Sometimes putting back to very undulated greens and you know for amateurs if you’re just looking to get it out with a bogey or so and have like a 15 footer car you know it’s a good result but for a pro you’re trying to hit it close

Trying to get up and down here and the degree of difficulty of doing that from the Fairway Memorial Park basic on where some of the pins are and where you miss it you know it’s very difficult to do that um you know it says 20th most

Difficult out the r but the things is are not really a lot of rough around the uh the green here so that’s not really a factor get up and out from bunkers that seems like where you probably want to miss it but there’s only one bunker uh around each hole or

So um but yeah most of it the biggest storyline around the green this week is going to be how guys do shipping off the Fairway or putting back to it if you choose to be like Sam Burns and do that and then putting you know a little above average

Uh difficult a little above average in difficulty 39 that about 88 or so uh where it’s most difficult is prob between five and 15 feet I would say because the undulated nature of these greens probably a lot of break to a lot of these you know middle length putts so

A lot of these 10 to 12 Footers are probably going to have some good you know uh you’re have to start it you know a cup or two outside or so it’s just they’re difficult puts to hold that point and you know if these greens are

Running a little firm and fast makes it kind of tricky so those are the core stats so just biggest takeaways um not all that penal off the tea just because of the lack of Hazards um you know I think the fact that it’s going to be very uh short rough this

Year makes the penalty for hitting the rough a lot less um but fairly difficult approach shots just because you’re hitting the undulating greens and smaller targets really difficult conditions around the green because of the fairways um you know the tight lies around them and putting you know it’s um

You know they’re difficult to hit putts because the unly nature of the greens okay let’s go to the course fit tool and you’ll probably see why Scotty shuer is gonna take all our money this week because it basically fits what Scotty does so you know around the green

Approach Play It’s you know it’s as predict basically your skill in that is as predictive success as other venues but there’s a higher correlation to success of guys who drive it a little longer and guys who hit more Fairways hi Scotty sheffler this is why you’re really good here and probably why you’re

Gonna win again um and actually if I toggle this you can see the important a little more of the importance here so again and you got to do everything you know relatively pretty well I mean you know got to drive it well your iron’s good you know it’s you

Know you got to get up and down very well obviously from tight lies um the reason why I keep saying it going back to Scotty but I feel like I’m 45 minutes in I probably could have just made this five minutes said like just got Scotty five

To one we but you know maybe uh maybe he’ll regress with the Potter all right let’s go back let’s do um cut two more last things let’s look at how you actually separate yourself in the tournament based on Strokes game and the Pro distribution chart so I think the

Biggest thing to look at is if we go through the years a lot higher correlation to how well you do in tournament getting up and down from around the green versus the ab PG venue and that was the case in 2023 it was the case in 2022 and it was really the

Case in 2021 it was as important to hit your this is actually kind of crazy it was as important how you hit your irons in the tournament versus as it was getting up and down which is nuts because that is never the case in almost

Any other PJ Tour event it is way more important usually in tournament how you get your irons here it was all about how you got up and down like like look at some of this like look at the top of the leaderboard car GS like 1.4 Strokes around the green tournament they gained

Over a stroke like these are big numbers to gain like typically you’re not gaining a whole lot of Strokes around the Green in general um these are pig numbers though so you can see how important it was getting up and down but even like you know going back to like 2023 or

So um you know fow was positive Tyson Alexander Aaron Ry k a billion stroks around the green that day Scotty shler gain a lot of Strokes around the green that year um yeah it was very important to get up and down down uh at Moro park

At this place for for things I have talked about at nauseum already that you probably are sick of hearing me about um but yeah it just seems like you got to do everything well here uh you know you got to hit your irons really good you got to putt really well basically like

The cream is really going to rise to the top of this place the guys who are playing the best um you can’t fake it around Memorial Park it’s a true it’s a good test of golf um and you got to do a little bit of everything really well so just Target

Really solid play ERS I guess for the most part I know I’m not really breaking much news but um I think it’s going to be a really good leaderboard I don’t think it’s going to be what we’re seeing right now with bbar which is a bunch of

Junk up there um I think it’s G to be hopefully you know Scotty versus Windam versus fow or um maybe a couple our big names in the field uh battling out for the win and’s the uh proximity chart unfort this is kind of all over the

Place I don’t again I don’t know exactly why just sitting here on a Friday morning where I haven’t done a full week’s prep for this but um the one thing you’ll notice through the years is a high uh amount of shots over 200 yards relative to the other PJ tour venues uh

This is about you know like third about a third of your shots are coming from over 200 uh La in 20 the 20 technically the 2022 Houston open in the 2021 Houston open again fairly consistent uh amount of shots over 200 and in 2021 again heavy con but in this middle range

Though in 2021 a higher amount of shots between 125 150 and 175 200 go to 2022 kind of shift it all this 150 to 175 range and then 2023 it was all less than uh pg2 were average so this is gonna be kind of difficult to try and figure out where

These guys are actually hitting approach shots from because it’s kind of moving all over the map um that’s for you guys to figure out because I will be uh down Florida uh for this so good luck um but yeah obviously use the tools and dat off if you have a

Subscription uh that’s really about it so all right I am done here I uh have to go to work now uh but thank you for joining me uh on the show uh well no one’s joining me I’m pre-recording this but uh if you’re uh watching this make sure you subscribe to

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To hear my opinion on brass and how golf course is playing and be complaining about stuff uh but otherwise I hope this helped and good luck with all your bets for the Houston open