Quite how we got here I'm not exactly sure, but the Houston Open is this week, the Masters is next week, and that at least feels a little bit normal. Yes, it's November, and the forecast for the Masters is currently quite bleak, but for now the sun should shine on Texas and we can all pretend it's springtime, and not the back-in-lockdown kind of springtime, but the golf-is-getting-serious kind. The normal kind.
Of course, plenty of serious golf has taken place since June, not least at the PGA Championship and US Open. Yet there was something anti-climactic or at least unsatisfying about both, a feeling I suspect is deeply personal. I can't quite put my finger on it, but a combination of the style of golf required at Harding Park and Winged Foot, the absence of fans, perhaps even two winners who felt and seemed destined to win majors and were relatively unmoved by it all... the majors so far didn't quite do what I thought they'd do.
The Masters will be different - the Masters is always different - but first we are faced with another difficult task on another new, or at least 'new', golf course. In recent weeks we've had the CJ Cup at Shadow Creek, the Zozo back at Sherwood, and an absence of tangibles which make this infuriating game a little easier. Now, we're faced with a move to Memorial Park, which last hosted this in 1963, and last year underwent a complete renovation at the hands of Tom Doak.
To take away another potential avenue of exploration, this will be Doak's first PGA Tour event, so to speak. He's had one of his courses feature on the European Tour lately, and in this pre-major slot, via The Renaissance Club in Scotland. But on the PGA Tour he has had to wait, which means it's not easy to draw lines from this tournament to others before it.
Doak's work here in Houston will be revealed in full over the course of the tournament, but it looks interesting. He's reportedly made the greens a good deal trickier than they were and brought what little water there is right into play. But it's the removal of bunkers, down from 54 to 19 (or 20, depending where you look), which will perhaps be talked about most. Consultant Brooks Koepka intimated that bunkers don't worry PGA Tour players, whereas they befuddle amateurs, so Doak did away with most of them.
With bermudagrass running throughout, this looks very different to the pre-Augusta prep that Golf Club of Houston became famous for, and that's perhaps partly why the field is not strong. Koepka was always going to be here, especially so now he needs golf. Perhaps fortunately for organisers so too does Dustin Johnson, who missed the events out west after testing positive for coronavirus, as did Adam Scott, who also plays for the first time since the US Open.
That's a heck of an absence for those two to overcome, Koepka has to prove his fitness and his ability to drive the ball on this planet, and then you're left with Hideki Matsuyama (last win 2017), Tony Finau (2016), and Tyrrell Hatton. The latter is by far the most reliable contender as a consequence and almost becomes tempting by default, which says much about the nature of the field and what we should expect.
One thing that may carry over from old venue to new is the volatility which is perhaps inherent when you're playing on the eve of golf's most iconic tournament. Champions when this was played prior to Augusta include DA Points, Jim Herman, Matt Jones, Ian Poulter (when a big price) and Johnson Wagner, the big names perhaps inclined to experiment or at least worry less about the here and now. That's another small reason to look beyond the very front of the betting.
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