Memorial Park Preview: A True Muni Hosts This Week's PGA Tour Event

With a 2020 title in the pocket and the injection of real muni golf onto the PGA Tour schedule, I will set aside my feelings about the cheating Astros*. And this week’s host, their cheating, thoroughly remorse-free owner, Jim Crane (along with various dishonest players).

While I’ll never quite fully grasp why this murky crew pushed one of America’s elite golf associations aside to take over a storied Tour event, we at least have Tour players prepping for the one-off Fall Masters on a low priced public course. This is a long overdue victory for the Houston Open and validation for the Bethpage effect we hoped had taken a stronger hold by now.

Josh Sens gives the revitalized Memorial Park a positive review and explains how the Tom Doak-Brooks Koepka effort does not try to protect par for this week’s Vivint Houston Open.

The work that made Memorial Park Tour-worthy once more — bringing the Houston Open back from the suburbs, where it was held for decades, to within the city limits — began in earnest in late 2018.

The first phase alone cost $18.5 million, but the money didn’t come out of taxpayers’ pockets. It was furnished by the Houston Astros Foundation (a non-profit founded by Jim Crane, the owner of the baseball team), which, in consultation with the city, tapped the noted architect Tom Doak to renovate the course.

Every renovation brings its own demands. Doak’s mandate was to dream up a Goldilocks design, a course that would ask compelling questions of the world’s best golfers while answering the needs of its muni clientele during jam-packed year-round play. As his consigliere, Doak leaned on Brooks Koepka, an official advisor on the project, a four-time major winner, who provided his two cents on design.

From the start, both men knew that defending par against the pros couldn’t be a top priority. That would only yield a one-dimensional layout. The emphasis, instead, should be on excitement — especially, Koepka urged, on the closing stretch. Electric late-day lead changes were what he hoped to see.

History and design buffs will enjoy Sean Martin’s “Five Things To Know” about Memorial Park as the Tour descends on Houston.

This isn’t the first time Memorial Park has been the venue for the Vivint Houston Open, however. It hosted the event 14 times between 1947 and 1963. Winners at Memorial Park included major winners Arnold Palmer, Bobby Locke, Jack Burke Jr., Bob Charles, Bobby Nichols and Jay Hebert.

Burke’s father, Jack Burke Sr., was a Houston golf pro who is credited with hitting the first tee shot when Memorial Park opened in 1936. Jack Burke Jr., who also won a Masters and PGA Championship, was on-hand for Memorial Park’s re-opening ceremony last year. Burke is 97 years old.

Charles’ win at Memorial Park in 1963 was the first on the PGA TOUR by a left-hander. He won the Open Championship later that year to become the first left-hander to win a major.

Memorial Park nearly was the site of Jack Nicklaus’ first PGA TOUR win, as well. Nicklaus lost a playoff to Nichols after suffering a strange penalty in the third round of the 1962 Houston Open. While tending the flag for his boss’ 35-foot birdie putt, Nicklaus’ caddie accidentally pulled the hole liner out of the ground. Nicklaus was assessed a two-stroke penalty after his ball struck the liner.