Damon Hack, Tripp Isenhour and the Golf Central crew discuss major storylines entering the 2024 Texas Children’s Houston Open, including the buzz surrounding Scottie Scheffler, Tony Finau’s outlook after winning the event in 2022 and why this year’s tournament will be much different than previous years. #GolfChannel #PGATour #golfcentral
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Texas Children’s Houston Open will be ‘completely different’ in 2024 | Golf Central | Golf Channel
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Golf Central on YouTube is brought to you by the Paradigm AI smoke woods and irons from Callaway this week the PGA Tour heads to Memorial Park Golf Course in Houston Texas for the Texas Children’s Houston open this tournament was last held in November of 2022 consider that Byron Nelson won the
First event in 1946 Curtis Strange VJ saying they both won Houston three times past champions have included the likes of caral Palmer Gary Player and Raymond Floyd the PGA Tour returns to the fourth largest city of the United States and that’s where we find our Damon hack Damon the number one
Ranked player in the world is in the field what’s the buzz around having Scotty Sheffer there yeah Maddie after a single solitary week off the world number one back to work this week here in Houston he was on the golf course today he played nine holes the front nine
Alongside chessen Hadley Nick Dunlap and Blaine hail Jr Scotty’s coach Randy Smith walked the front nine as well Scotty will play the back nine tomorrow during his program he’s also expected to address the media now as for his chances become the first player since 2017 to win three consecutive starts well Scotty
Has a great record here as well in the fall of 2022 he finished tied for ninth and the year before that he finished runner up that included a course record tying 62 and Damon it’s been a minute but Tony fena will finally get his chance to defend his title this
Week yeah I spoke to Tony earlier he’s happy about his game and very happy to be back here at Memorial Park where he won by four shots over Tyson Alexander with four rounds in the 60s but this is not your typical title defense because that win came in the fall of 2022
November of 2022 during the PJ tour’s final ra round season so I asked Tony what’s it like to defend the title from six 16 months ago yeah it’s going to play quite a bit different you know with the over seated grass uh it’s not going to bounce nearly
As much so I think the golf course will play a lot longer um and it’s going to be a lot warmer so you know the ball the ball’s actually going to travel so um maybe they’ll all set each other a little bit but overall I think the golf
Course is going to play soft and um which is quite different than when it played how it played in November how might it be different from a driving perspective yeah um I think it’s I actually think the PHS might be a little easier to hit because it is you know um
The grass is longer this time of year so you’ll be able to hold the fairways I think a little easier I I do remember having my best driving week um back in November when I won um so looking for a lot of the same this week how about your
Season so far to date some strong finishes out west but maybe not so strong on the Florida swing how would you assess your season so far yeah you know I I’ve been working hard you know I haven’t got the results out of out of the season I think that uh that I feel
Like I I would have liked especially leading into major championship um months but um the work continues it’s always a work in progress I know I’m always one thought one swing away from from a spark and and that’s just a funny game that we play you know you walk that
Fine line of of not getting the results and then all of a sudden you play well for you know a couple months straight so um looking to maybe spark something in in the game this week for sure speaking of spark it seems like the best players in the world like yourself it’s usually
With the in a conversation with Scotty sheffler or Rory marroy or yourself where are you with that club in particular yeah I feel I feel good about my putting I haven’t felt this good with my with the putter in my hand in a while and the stats has shown me that you know
I haven’t driven the golf ball as well over the last couple weeks as I would have liked so this week I’m looking again to change that um it’s a golf course where I’ve had my most success with the driver the last time I was here so um that’s the combo I’m looking for
Great great driving week and and holding some putts and I think some good things will happen you mentioned it a couple weeks before the first major championship of the year a major you performed very well and historically what do you want to get out of your game
This week heading into the Masters yeah I’d like to get a good result you know at the end of the day you know I think um I haven’t again gotten out of my game what I feel like I can um especially with the work that I’ve been putting in
So I’d like to have a nice result this week um a title defense would be incredible as um some great confidence going into a major championship one that I that I actually love you know you know Matt an argument can be made that Tony fow’s best major championship is the Masters the only
Major that he’s never missed the cut he has three top 10 in six starts at Augusta National Golf Club including a personal best tie for fifth back in 2019 he played in the final group alongside Francesco Molinari and the eventual winner Tiger Woods yeah it certainly
Seems like he’s in a a good mindset hoping that the driver and the putter both behave this week and set him up for the run through the majors and the Masters that it’s now just a couple weeks away now aside from our defending Champion Scotty sheffler overall you
Have will zator sa theala Jason day they’re among just some of the great names that are teen it up this week what are your thoughts about the field Damon strong field Matt and a lot of smiles that I saw today here at Memorial Park the players talking about the
Condition of the golf course in particular saying it’s the best they’ve ever seen it you know for example in the rough in the fall the rough was typically you know higher or harder here the rough this year in the spring about an inch in length I walked the front
Nine today with James Han who dropped a couple of golf balls for me especially around the greens so the collars are pretty soft and they’re H holding and in years past the balls would often you know run off of the greens into some trouble spots and the fairways would
Play a lot narrower with the overseed with the spring the golf course is playing a lot softer and it’s really going to be a bomber’s paradise this week so a lot of smiles so far it’s only Tuesday we’ll see how things turn out once they teed up for Real come Thursday
David thank you great job very much looking forward to your work all week now as we mentioned back in the fall of 2022 Tony Fe now raced out to an early need after round one he never looked back he won by four strokes he shot at
16 under 264 aggregate to cruise to his fifth PGA Tour victory feno has been waiting almost 18 months to defend this one here’s a bigger look at what we were just talking about this week’s field the biggest draw of the course will be Scotty Sheffer obviously his first start
Since back-to-back wins at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard and the players Windam Clark the man who was runner up in both of those tournaments will also Tee It Up This Week same for as just mentioned will Zur who already has two top five finishes this season as we welcome in
Trip Eisenhower this is a course with a great history but from the last time we saw this event played here it’s moved from the fall to the spring how much is that going to change the way the golf course is going to play as we were just talking about with Tony
Fenal well Damon did a great job there explaining it I mean it it’s it GNA be completely different I I was talking to Billy Ray Brown who’s a Houston resident who works for for Golf Channel and he was telling me you know this time of
Year it was going to play a lot softer around the greens those greens the the Tom do redesign um it absolutely has a lot they’re B big greens and and but they have a lot of runoff and and when it when it’s overseed Bermuda it’s not
Going to run as far and it’s softer and then it’s got you know some over seated rough to stop the ball closer to the greens I mean these balls would continue rolling off into really hard spots to get uh up and in from when it played that firm and also the fairways were
Harder to hit so as Tony Fen out said it’s going to be a a kind of a counter punch uh punch argument is yeah it’s going to play longer cuz it’s softer but it’s also going to play easier because of it’s easier to hit the fairways and
Keep the ball around the greens look for Tony Fen now score of, 1600 remember this is a par 70 it’s got five par 3es and just three par fives so again like Copperhead last week they’re going to have five chances at par 3es and one of
The things about Pros when they play a lot of par 3es typically they don’t take advantage you know and make a lot of birdies on those holes so you would expect the scoring average to be fairly High which has been here last year it was actually overpar for the field for
The week so this year I think it’s going to be underpar for the field for the week and when you look at uh the scoring as I said I think 16 unders in danger this week and of course who does it favor well the long hitters are usually
Favored but you got a long hitters that are on top of their game right Now
