The Shell Houston Open concluded on Sunday with the top-rated player — Adam Scott (3rd in the World Rankings) — winning the tournament (final leaderboard here) by making a par on the 72nd hole even after pulling his drive into the water. The Chronicle’s Steve Campbell’s postscript on the tournament is here, while earlier posts on the tournament are here.
After seeing how good the Tournament Course at Redstone looked on television last Thursday afternoon, my buddy Jerry Sagehorn and I visited Redstone on Friday morning to check out the tournament and the course. In so doing, we were able to get a close-up look of what ails the local tournament and why it is unlikely ever to be more than a second tier tournament on the PGA Tour (i.e., behind the majors and the first tier tournaments such as the Players and the Memorial).
Although Redstone is impressive in several respects, the facility is located next to a housing development far away from any of the Houston area’s large entertainment or commercial centers. Unlike The Woodlands — which is one of the most beautiful areas of Houston and has luxury hotels, shops, restaurants and one of the best entertainment facilities in the Houston area to offer — the area around Redstone is rather bland and has nominal commercial activity. Accordingly, if you go the SHO at Redstone, you go for the golf only and then leave. There is no ambiance to the area around the course.
But the area around Augusta National is no great shakes, either. So, if the golf course is appealing, then the best golfers might overlook the lack of ambiance and come to the tournament, anyway. Unfortunately, the Tournament Course is not — and likely will never be considered — a great golf course. That is not to suggest that the course does not have some interesting holes. The 18th hole in particular proved to be a challenging finishing hole. Moreover, the spectator viewing lines around the course are really quite good.
However, as the map below denotes, the course is really split into three separate courses. First, the 1st and 18th holes are next to each other and form a long tarmac leading to the other two parts of the course on the other side of a large and unsightly drainage ditch. Then, the 2nd through 9th holes and the 10th through 17th holes form separate loops that are not easily reached from other parts of the course. Adding to the disjointed nature of the course is that the front nine does not end at the clubhouse and the back nine does not start from the clubhouse.

Thus, the players and spectators are required to walk at least a quarter mile from the 1st green to the 2nd tee (this year, the players and caddies got a ride in a golf cart). Similarly, between the 9th green and the 10th tee, there is another long walk of at least 300 yards. And then, after trudging around the first two parts of the course, the players, caddies and spectators must trek another couple hundred yards from the 17th green to the 18th tee.
Thus, despite having some entertaining holes, good sight lines and being in top condition, the Tournament Course at Redstone is simply not an endearing golf course. That was reflected by the crowd on Friday morning, which was a fraction of the size that used to attend the tournament on Friday mornings when the tournament was played at the TPC in The Woodlands. Although the rain on Saturday morning certainly held attendance down on that day, the crowds on the weekend also did not appear on television to be as large as those that used to attend the tournament in The Woodlands. Perhaps reflecting the lower attendance, neither the HGA nor the Chronicle broadly publishes attendance figures as they used to do when the tournament was played in The Woodlands.
So, what can the SHO do to improve the experience for the players and fans? There has been some talk that Redstone is considering building a Houstonian-type resort facility on the property to attract the better golfers such as the Four Seasons Resort does in Dallas, but my sense is that the lack of surrounding amenities makes such a venture about as likely as redevelopment of the Astrodome into a resort hotel.
Can the tournament attract more than two of the top ten, eight of the top 30, and 20 of the top 60 players in the World Rankings? If Shell or Redstone pursues lucrative sponsorship deals with some of the top players in the same manner as Buick has done with Tiger Woods, then maybe those players would play the SHO in the same manner that Woods plays several Buick-sponsored tournaments. But those deals are costly and risky (some players do not stay on top for long), so I doubt that will happen. Finally, the HGA is going to have to address the knotty problem of how to move spectators and players around the long stretches of the course, which — unless resolved — is likely going to deter spectators from making return visits to the tournament.
Thus, my sense is that the SHO is firmly entrenched as a second tier PGA Tour event even after the HGA’s prodigious investment with Redstone. That’s unfortunate because Houston is a golf hotbed and has a rich golfing tradition, and the HGA is a fine charitable organization that had laid a foundation of success for the tournament over a 20 year period in The Woodands. Shell has signed on as the title sponsor of the tournament through 2012, so the next several Houston Opens are going to be key ones for the HGA. Come time to negotiate an extension of that sponsorship arrangement, will Shell have better things to do with its sponsorship dollars than to support an afterthought on the PGA Tour?