This is Shell Houston Open week, and this year’s tournament is a particularly interesting edition of the venerable local stop on the PGA Tour.
As noted in this earlier post, the SHO is still recovering from a series of dubious decisions and unfortunate circumstances that have combined to place the tournament well out of the elite, non-major events on the PGA Tour. In an attempt to elevate the tournament’s stature, the Houston Golf Association — the local organization that manages the event — is putting on the tournament for the first time at its new home — the Rees Jones-designed Tournament Course at Redstone Golf Club. Moreover, next season, the tournament moves to a new date on the PGA Tour schedule in the slot on the Tour schedule the weekend before the Masters Tournament, which the HGA believes will be a superior date to the current one, which is plagued by the best players taking time off after the run-up to the Masters and before the U.S. Open in June.
The field this year certainly validates the HGA’s concern over the current date of the tournament. Only two players with top 10 World Golf rankings are playing — defending champ Vijay Singh (No. 3) and David Toms (No. 7) — and only ten others in the top 60 in the World Rankings are showing up: 2005 tournament runner-up John Daly (No. 50), No. 17 Darren Clarke, No. 30 Padraig Harrington, 1999 champion Stuart Appleby (No. 32), No. 38 Mike Weir, No. 42 K.J. Choi of The Woodlands, No. 44 Brandt Jobe, No. 47 Justin Leonard, No. 49 Greg Owen and No. 52 Lucas Glover.
Moreover, Chad Campbell (No. 14), the best Texas player on the PGA Tour this year, is not playing in his home state this week, and local favorites Steve Elkington and Fred Couples are not playing this week, Elk because of injury and Couples because, well, the SHO is not currently worth troubling with two weeks after the Masters. So, the HGA certainly has its work cut out for it over the next several years in attempting to sell the new course and the new tournament date to a currently skeptical bunch of top PGA Tour members. Although I have my doubts that the SHO will be as successful at Redstone as the HGA desires, I hope I’m wrong because Houston is a wonderful golfing community that deserves a top-flight PGA Tour event.
The following links will provide you with useful information on this year’s SHO tournament, which will be televised next weekend in the afternoon by CBS and on Thursday and Friday afternoons on USA Network:

My review of the Tournament Players Course at Redstone, including a my FilmLoop photo loop and this Chonicle/Doug Pike review of the new course.

The Shell Houston Open website where you can buy and print passes to the tournament.
A good friend who will be particularly missed during this year’s tournament.
The consequences of bad decisions regarding the SHO and the impact of next year’s new date for the tournament.
And what would golf be in Texas without a little of Clear Thinkers favorite, Dan Jenkins.