PGA Tour 2024 - Texas Children's Houston Open

[Splatt]

G’day Golfers,

Only two more weeks until the first (and best in my humble opinion) major of the season, which means only two more tune ups for the pros to get their game into Major winning form.
These next two weeks are critical and we should see a lot of the big names returning to action.

This week the pro’s are teeing it up at The Texas Children’s Houston Open, in the first of two Texas stops, before everyone heads a few states over to Georgia for The Masters.

Interestingly, this will be the first time the Texas Children’s Houston Open has been held since November of 2022, since the PGA Tour moved from a wrap around schedule in 22-23 to a calendar year schedule in 2024, this meant the tournament wasn’t held last year.

The Texas Children’s Houston Open is held at Memorial Park Golf Course, a par 70, 7,435 yards course. Memorial Park is a municipal course which first opened it’s gates back in 1912, it had often been skipped as a venue in the modern era, but after a huge Tom Doak renovation back in 2019, Memorial Park welcomed back the PGA Tour after 60 long years.
The 72-hole record here was shot by Tony Finau back in 2022 when he won this tournament during its last run.

The defending champ here from back in 2022 is Tony Finau.
Finau was the leaderboard from round 1 and once he had the lead he never let go.
He came out hot firing an open round 65 to take the lead, he then came out even HOTTER on day 2 and fired an 8 under 62. These two days were enough that Finau cruised to victory with a final round 1 under par to claim a 4 shot victory.

But this time, he’s got an in form Scottie Scheffler to deal with.

 

Field Highlights

·         Tony Finau – The defending champ and current world number 30. He’s had a steady 2024 season so far with 8 events under his belt and only 1 missed cut, however, he’s currently only had 1 top-10 and the missed cut came last week at the Valspar Championship. Not the best form he’d like to be in coming into a title defense. His best finish of the year came at the Farmers Insurance Open where he finished T-6, without a 3rd round 74 he could have been in with a serious chance of a victory here.
 

·         Scottie Scheffler – The man of the moment and the number one target for everyone else in the field. Scottie has 2 wins on the PGA Tour his year and both have come in his last 2 events, he’s on somewhat of a hot streak. Almost more impressive than the back-to-back wins is his consistency. In his 7 events this year he’s not missed a cut, in fact, he’s not even come close to missing a cut. His worse finish of the year is a T-17 at The American Express. Of those 7 events he’s had 2 wins, 4 top-5’s, and 6 top-10’s.
I bet Rory is kicking himself for suggesting a mallet putter to Scottie.
 

·         Sahith Theegala – Theegala is an incredibly entertaining golfer to watch, you just never know what your going to get. From the rounds I’ve watched him play he can very easily get himself into trouble, but he has a very Speith-like knack for getting himself out of it.
So far this year he’s been chipping away at the leaderboard and I think we’ll see him hoisting another trophy sooner rather than later. He’s had a runner up finish at the season opening Sentry, he’s had 4 top-10 finishes and 5 top-25. 2 of his top-10 finishes have come in his last 2 events where he’s finished T-6 at The Arnold Palmer and T-9 at The Players Championship. Both high end tournaments.
 

·         Jason Day – J-Day has had a very mixed start to the season. He started off well at The Sentry with a top-10 finish, then hit a bit of a slump with a T-34 at The American Express and a missed cut at the Farmers Insurance. Day returned to form after the missed  cut and had his best finish of the year with a T-6 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and followed that up with a solo 9th at The Genesis, before hitting another slump with a T-36 and T-35.
You never know what you’re going to get with Jason day, one thing is for sure, he never stays down for long.
 

The rest of the field for the Texas Children’s Houston Open can be found here.

 

For those in the Pick ‘Em comp, now’s the time to get your tips in.
Seems like a good week to pick a few underdogs and see how they go.
 

Will Scottie win again for this third in 3 tournaments??

 

SPLATT

[GolfSpy_APH]

Scottie going to go back to back to back to back

[Josh Parker]

Great stuff @Splatt!  

I picked a bunch of underdogs this week hoping for a standout. 

[Samuel09152]

I got Theegala winning it (over all awesome dude, and his dad is the coolest person every), Scottie in second, out of nowhere comes Beau Hossler (with BIG WAVE on the bag "Have a Day" Plug), followed by Happy's caddy Will, and then Wyndam Clark taking 5th. They all move me to the play increadably well, and I take it and move up the Pick'em leader Boards  Buckle up and hold on tight! 

But in all seriousness, this is an awesome preview @Splatt! Thanks!

Edited March 27 by Samuel09152