Shell Houston Open: Redstone Golf Club Preview

The Shell Houston Open has been the tournament prior to the Masters now for the second year running, and that means that the tournament pulls a much more popular amount of good players every year for those scrambling to make the cut for Augusta. The PGA event is held in Humble, Texas, at the Redstone Golf Club, and the course is a loooooooooooong 7500 yard course that plays to several strengths of many different players.

The thing is--although this is a relatively long course, it kind of tricks you--the first three holes are not long par 4s and are pretty wide. By holes five and six, you get a different look and it begins to be much tougher. But still--overall--40% of the par 4s at Redstone are less than 400 yards--not what you expect. The greens play flat and are able to serve as a landing pad for the longer holes.

Where the course really sets itself apart are the final three holes in terms of difficulty. You have to remember that this is an already overall longer course, so you have to have the physical stamina to step up to the 16th (200 yd par 3), the 17th (uphill 487 par 4) and a treacherous lake on 18, which plays 485. There really aren't a ton of courses that can really play the way these last three do on the tour, so I think this will make the biggest difference in terms of the winner of the tournament and how they play these three for the four rounds.

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