You can thank Houston Astros owner Jim Crane for the new Memorial Park Golf Course in Houston. It was his generosity and the newly formed Astros Golf Foundation that basically saved the Houston Open from extinction and in the process moved the longtime PGA Tour event back to Memorial Park, which first opened as an 18-hole golf course designed by John Bredemus in 1936. After 25-year title sponsor Shell didn’t renew its deal after it expired in 2017, Crane, an accomplished amateur himself, stepped in to not only help carry the Houston Open but find it a new home after 17 years at The Golf Club of Houston in Humble.
Crane, as well as other city leaders like Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, wanted the PGA Tour event back in the city of Houston after a near half-century of it being played in The Woodlands and Humble. The natural choice was the city’s crown jewel municipal course, Memorial Park, which played host to the event 14 times from 1947 to 1963. Memorial Park, even though it had undergone a significant renovation by Carlton Gipson in 1994, was not suitable for the modern tour, so Crane hired Tom Doak’s Renaissance Golf of Pacific Dunes fame to renovate. The result is a dramatically different experience even though the routing largely has remained unchanged. After more than $30 million and counting for the entire complex, Memorial Park is more demanding, especially for better players, and has a more wide-open look to it.
When the course reopened at the end of 2019, tee times were at a premium and are still hard to get, even with a new green fee structure that now charges non-Houston residents a lot more to play it than residents. (Nonresidents, by the way, include golfers who live in Bunker Hill, Bellaire, West University, all unincorporated cities within the city of Houston. Most who live in suburbs like Sugar Land, Clear Lake, Galveston and The Woodlands, are charged the nonresident rates, which start at $170 walking, compared to $38 for residents.)
The older course had plenty of length, well over 7,300 yards from the tips, but good players who reached greens in regulation were most likely to make par. Two putting was routine, and players with good short games almost always had a reasonable chance to get up and down, no matter where they missed. That’s no longer the case. With Doak’s imaginative greens that are really two or three greens in one, missing on the wrong side is almost surely a bogey or worse for almost any player. Long putts can certainly be an adventure now.
To find proof that this version of Memorial Park is significantly harder than it was before all you have to do is look at the first Houston Open played at the new Memorial last November. The winning score by first-time PGA Tour victor Carlos Ortiz was just 13-under par. World No. 1 Dustin Johnson and 2021 Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama were second at 11-under par. The cutline was 3-over-par. Jordan Spieth, Lee Westwood and Phil Mickelson were among the big names to miss the cut. Even Brooks Koepka, the tour player consultant on the new design, struggled a bit with a first-round of 2-over par, but he did rebound over the weekend with a pair of 65s to finish in a tie for fifth.
During the tournament, Doak said early feedback from players was that Memorial is a hard golf course. He was a bit surprised, but he shouldn’t have been. He knew what he was doing with the greens complexes and subtleties of the course. Birdies were hard to come by. Pars were often hard work. And this was the case despite having removed some of the old water features and half the bunkers. Still, it only stands to reason as these tour players get more experience at Memorial they will figure it out. They always do.
The new Memorial has just 30 bunkers. The ponds on the par-4 sixth and par-3 15th have been removed. The one on 15 has been replaced by a meandering stream alongside a much more dramatic green. The lake between the par-5 16th and par-4 17th is much larger now and way more scenic. There’s a semi-island green now at the end of the 16th hole and the 17th is a short par 4 with a peninsula green. The par-4 18th is 100 yards longer at 501 from the tips and has a most difficult elevated and sloping green with three deep bunkers on it, the most bunkers of any hole. It’s a great finish.
Really, every hole has a different look. And a few holes have changed pars. The ninth, for example, used to be a dogleg left par 4; now it’s a very tricky par 3. The par-4 13th, which used to be a reachable par 5, is now a short par 4. The former par-14th is now a par 5. And while the course remains in the 7,300-yard range, the pros now play it as a par 70, so it has plenty of length for them, while the rest of us play it as a par 72. (The first and 14th holes are long par 4s in the Houston Open.)
Perhaps one of the best holes is the par-4 12th, which plays 496 yards from the tips. It’s always been tough, but the rolling greens complex makes it really challenging. It can be difficult to hold this wide but shallow green, but Doak gives players an out with a slope to the right of the green. Yes, the prudent play here is to miss the green right, which can not only kick balls left onto the green but prevent shots from going long. It’s those kinds of nuances that players learn as they play the course more.
Finally, the course just looks better, and for that matter, so does the entire golf property. The work included removing underbrush and trimming back trees, so it much cleaner. There’s a new clubhouse for the tour players, new facilities for The First Tee of Greater Houston and even a short-course now for the youngsters. A new double decker driving range, which is lighted, is always packed, and it was recently expanded to allow players to hit all the clubs in their bag. (The adjacent tennis center was shifted to the west to accommodate the longer range).
Doak’s aim was to create a more difficult layout for the tour players and better amateurs while being easier to navigate for the higher handicappers. But the greens are hard for everyone, even more difficult for less-skilled players.
The new course drains better, has better irrigation and is watered by its own water supply, thanks to a retention pond that stores stormwater.
To maintain top conditions, the course has been largely cart-path only, which makes it tough on summer players. Perhaps as the course matures that policy will relax a little more, at least during times that are well in advance of the tournament.
It’s also a shame that the Greater Houston City Amateur, which is played in October, is no longer at Memorial. It was moved to Gus Wortham Golf Course, another city course. Gus Wortham underwent a sparkling renovation a few years ago. It is also operated by the Houston Golf Association, which runs the city am, so the move makes sense on several levels. And Gus Wortham has never been better. Between Memorial and Gus Wortham, few cities can rival what Houston has with regards to municipal golf.
By Mike Bailey