The Memorial Park Golf Course in Houston, Texas, is no stranger to PGA Tour events. Hitting double digits when tallying up events held, this course remains a local favorite and tourist attraction for anyone visiting the city. This week the PGA Tour returns to this public course for the 2021 Houston Open.
I am a big fan of golf as a sport, but I never followed the Tour outside of the Majors. This year that has changed quite a bit as I watch more and more of the smaller tournaments and even mix in events from the Korn Ferry Tour. With that, my interest in the golf courses they are playing has also grown. I envision playing it and seeing if an amateur like myself would have fun on a manicured course and prepared for the pros. I think about how I hit the ball and the distance each club travels to imagine the hole.
Listen, I know that I am just the weekend warrior golfer. Still, it is tremendous to think my way through a hole at my level of play and follow it up with watching the masterful execution demonstrated by professional players. It is why I love the sport so much. It is a game the by design, is simple; however, the execution of the simplicity is anything but that.
As I looked through the holes on this golf course, I came across hole 8. This hole is a solid 618 yards down a narrow fairway with a double dogleg style layout. Over the past three tournaments, the average drive distance from the tee was 301.33 yards, leaving the second shot 316 yards to reach the hole still. Check out the video below that gives you a look at how challenging this beast would be.
I wondered what it would look like if I took my club averages and put them on the layout of the newly created hole showcased above.
You can see quickly, on the image below, that my shorter driver distance of just over 200 yards immediately puts me into a hole but leaves a good view of the fairway before it bends back the other direction. My three wood on average lands 195, so again, my shorter distances with my clubs would leave me relying on perfect aim and strategy to give me any chance. My 195 yard three wood would also leave me needing another 195 three wood to reach the green. Once I finally made my way to the green, I would be facing my retched putter to finish things out. My two-putt average would secure my fate of a +1 Bogey score on this hole if I were to hit everything perfect.
Now I know that professional golfers are leaps and bounds better than I am, but to think that golfers like myself, the 95% of players out there, would struggle even to come close to par on this hole is crazy to think. What’s even crazier than that is this hole isn’t even on the top ten list of longest holes in the United States!
