The Shell Houston Open has finally arrived as a big-time PGA Tour event.

After an ugly divorce from The Woodlands, and a difficult transition period in which most of the best PGA Tour players avoided the event, the 2009 tournament has attracted the best field in the history of the event and one of the top fields of the PGA Tour season to date. Although Tiger Woods will be tuning up in Florida for the Masters next week, 15 of the top 20 players (and 21 of the top 30) in the World Rankings will be playing, including No. 2 Phil Mickelson, No. 3 Sergio Garcia, No. 5 Padraig Harrigton and No. 6 Vijay Singh.

The first Houston Open was in 1922 and the tournament is tied with the Texas Open as the third oldest non-major championship on the PGA Tour behind only only the Western Open (1899) and the Canadian Open (1904). This is the fourth Houston Open to be played on the Tournament Course at Redstone Golf Club and the seventh event overall at Redstone, which hosted its first three Houston Opens on the club’s Jacobson-Hardy Course while the Tournament Course was being planned and built.

This is the SHO’s third year of being played the week before The Masters and, despite Woods’ policy of not playing the week before major championships, the strong field is confirmation that the SHO’s move to the pre-Masters date was the right one. The Houston Golf Association has done a good job of promoting the tournament with Tour players by grooming the Tournament Course in a manner similar to Augusta National, but the course is actually a flat-land course that bears little resemblance to the hilly venues of Augusta.

Even with its superior conditioning, the Tournament Course is a favorite of neither players nor spectators. The course actually has a nice variety of interesting holes, but the routing of the course is a disaster, with 16 of the holes separated by a long walk and a drainage ditch from the 1st and 18th holes, the driving range and the clubhouse. Unfortunately, there is not much the Houston Golf Association can do about that routing problem, so let’s just hope that the course’s superior conditioning and the SHO’s attractive tune-up date for The Masters keeps persuading the top players to overlook the routing problem.

Although I’ve had my doubts that the HGA would be able to turnaround the SHO at Redstone, I’m happy to be wrong on that score. Houston has a rich golfing tradition and the HGA is a fine charitable organization that worked miracles in reviving the tournament during its 20-year run in The Woodlands. It’s going to be a great week at Redstone, so sit back and enjoy the SHO!

This year’s Shell Houston Open during the first week of April is shaping up to have its best field in over 20 years. The Chron’s Steve Campbell reports:

Tournament director Steve Timms announced another flurry of player commitments Monday that includes No. 13 Paul Casey, No. 15 Steve Stricker, No. 22 K.J. Choi and former British Open champions Justin Leonard (No. 25) and Ben Curtis (No. 32).

With nearly a full month until the April 2-5 event at the Redstone Golf Club Tournament Course, the SHO has commitments from four of the world’s top eight players (Sergio Garcia, Padraig Harrington, Henrik Stenson and Robert Karlsson) and 13 of the top 30. And that’s not even taking into account former No. 1 Greg Norman making one of his infrequent appearances to tune up for the Masters. [.  .  .] What’s more, Timms has plenty reason to hope No. 3 Phil Mickelson, No. 4 Geoff Ogilvy and defending Masters champion Trevor Immelman (No. 29) will submit their entries by the March 27 deadline. That trio of major champions teed it up at Redstone last year, after all. 

The SHO is one top-30 player away from having the most in its field since 1986 — the first year of the world rankings.  .   .   . Just three years ago, only four top-30 players teed it up at the SHO.

In the era of the Tiger Chasm, that’s a darn good field. It’s looking as if the SHO’s recent move to the week before The Masters, coupled with The Players Tournament moving to mid-May, is really paying dividends. The Houston Golf Association’s attention to good conditioning of the Tournament Course at Redstone hasn’t hurt in attracting top players, either.

But think of the quality of the field that the SHO might attract if it was played on a golf course that the Tour players really enjoyed.

Another consequence of bad decisions?

The late author John Updike loved to write about and play golf, and his death this week reminded me of a fine speech that he gave about the game during the United States Golf Association’s Centennial Dinner in New York in late 1994.

Thankfully, the USGA has posted Updike’s speech on its website, the beginning and closing of which is set forth below. The entire speech is a must read for any golfer:

When I was asked to speak to you this evening, my first thought was, "Oh, no – my golf is not nearly good enough!" But then I reflected that one of the charms of the game is that nobody’s golf, not even Fred Couples’ and Nick Faldo’s, is good enough – good enough to please them and their supporters all the time.

Golf is a game that almost never fails, even at the highest levels on which it can be played, to mar a round with a lapse or two, and that at the other extreme rarely fails to grant even the most abject duffer, somewhere in his or her round, with the wayward miracle of a good shot. I am here – I have written so much about the game – because I am curiously, disproportionately, undeservedly happy on a golf course, and perhaps we are all here for much the same reason. [.  .  .]

When did American golf come of age? Some might say in 1904, when Walter Travis won the British Amateur Championship, the first foreigner to do so. Some might pinpoint the 1920s and the international admiration and affection won by the great Bobby Jones. But perhaps most would specify the happy moment in September of 1913 when the unknown 20-year-old Francis Ouimet beat the two foremost British players, Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, for the U.S. Open Championship – an upset that made news, not just golf news. The moment is commemorated by a USGA Centennial logo, based on a well-known photograph.

Look at it; what do we see? Two figures, one of them our heroic golfer, a workingman’s son who happened to live in a modest house across from The Country Club in Brookline, Mass. He picked up golf balls on his way to school, he watched the matches across the street, a member gave his older brother some cast-off clubs, the young Ouimets fell in love with the game. Francis played without fuss; needing, on the 18th green, needing to sink a 5-foot putt to enter a playoff with the Englishmen, he rapped it at the back of the cup without a second look. The next day, he calmly beat Vardon by five strokes and Ray by six. And who is the other figure in our logo, a little figure? He is Ouimet’s caddie, a local 10-year-old called Eddie Lowery, carrying a canvas bag that looks to hold about eight clubs. Think of the caddies in today’s championships – burly yardage technicians toting bags the size of small sofas, loudly blazoned with manufacturers’ names for the greedy eyes of the television cameras.

We have come a long way in American golf, but has it been a journey without a price? Amid the million-dollar tournaments and the $5 million clubhouses, might we be losing the unassuming simplicity of the game itself?

This out-of-doors simplicity, surely, lies at the heart of golfing bliss, as we are reminded by our logo of two New England boys out for a walk on a drizzly September day.

All it takes for a golfer to attain his happiness is a fence rail to throw his coat on, and a target somewhere over the rise.

Clear Thinkers favorite Dan Jenkins is already in mid-season form with this hilarious pop quiz (H/T Geoff Shackelford) for the start of the 2009 PGA Tour season. Some of the questions to get you started:

7. Camilo Villegas is:
(a) A golfer on the PGA Tour.
(b) A golfer on the LPGA Tour.
(c) An island off the coast of Spain.
(d) A contestant on "Dancing With the Stars."

11. When 38-year-old Phil Mickelson said that he had somehow grown an inch through stretching exercises, was it in:
(a) Height?
(b) Width?
(c) Between the ears?

15. Since winning the Masters in April, Trevor Immelman has:
(a) Disappeared.
(b) Quit golf.
(c) Changed his name to Sam Parks Jr.

Meanwhile, with the dawn of the 2009 season, Daniel Wexler provides this timely overview of the current top players on the PGA and LPGA Tours. It’s an excellent primer for the upcoming season.

Except for the incredibly large amounts, there are no surprises at the top of Golf Digest’s annual list (H/T Geoff Shackelford) of professional golf’s top 50 money earners from both prize money and endorsement income.

Tiger Woods ($117 mil total/$110 mil endorsements), Phil Mickelson ($45 mil/$38.5 mil endorsements) and Vijay Singh ($$43 mil/$26 mil endorsements) lead the way, while Arnold Palmer ($30 mil in endorsement income!) and Greg Norman ($25 mil in endorsements) rounding out the top five.

And, by the way, Golf Digest calculates that Woods has earned close to $900 million in winnings and endorsements since 1996.

Although there aren’t any surprises in the Top Ten earners, there are certainly a few down the list a bit.

For example, can anyone explain to me how 12th-ranked Retief Goosen — who induces sleep whenever interviewed — managed to generate $9 million in endorsement income?

Or how 34th-ranked Rory Sabbatini — one of the most boorish players on the Tour — generated $3.5 million in endorsement income, which is $1.5 million more than 35th-ranked Geoff Ogilvy, who is one of the most pleasant players on the Tour?

Maybe Katie Couric at $15 million a year is a bargain for CBS News, after all?

Hank Haney has done some really good work in helping Tiger Woods modify his swing plane over the past several years. But what he has done in helping Charles Barkley fix his golf swing is nothing short of miraculous.