Houston Open Golf Tournament
Memorial Park Golf Course – a course many of us at Texas Tasty have played hundreds of times – is host to the Houston Open Golf Tournament now! And we are here for it!
Memorial Park GC is considered the crown gem of the Houston public golf courses the city owns. From 1947 to 1963, the course hosted a PGA Tour event 14 times, Arnold Palmer even won it once and this year the Houston Open is back within the boundaries of H TOWN. Located within an expansive city park of the same name, Memorial Park was born in 1923 as a nine-hole, sand-greens layout but bloomed into a fully grassed 18 in 1936.
This is the first time in more than 50 years that Memorial Park has hosted the PGA TOUR. The course, which is located in the midst of the country’s fourth-largest city, underwent a dramatic renovation before this year’s tournament. The Astros Golf Foundation (yes the same ones that won us our 2017 championship) took ownership of the tournament in 2018 with three key objectives: to ensure the PGA TOUR event remained in Houston, to bring the tournament back to its glory and into the heart of the city, and to provide much-needed resources and funds to the citizens and community of Houston through park improvements, charitable fundraising and investing in youth.
We visited Memorial Park GC on Thursday for the first round and loved every bit of it. The weather was amazing, the golf courses was in perfect condition, and the worlds best golfers were ready to take on Memorial.
The Vivint Houston Open is the first PGA TOUR event in the United States to have fans on-site since March. Two thousand tickets were sold for each round of the tournament.
“It’s great having fans back out again,” Texas native Scottie Scheffler said after shooting 67 on Thursday. “The energy was definitely a lot different than us just being out here by ourselves.”
Walking on a course familiar to us, seeing shots hit from the same areas we hit shots from, and not having to drive outside the city to see the world’s best golfers was amazing. Going to a sporting event with fans made 2020 feel semi-normal. We look forward to seeing who wins this week and to seeing the tournament grow into Memorial Golf course.
