The Blot attended his first PGA event, the Shell Houston Open at the Redstone Golf Club, Saturday with my buddy Threefron. While I had attended a few senior tour events (a.k.a. the Champions Tour) back in high school, this was the first time I had ever seen the current and future stars of the PGA live. While I’m sure most of you are wondering if watching golf live is fun, after Saturday I’d have to answer a resounding yes. The weather Saturday was amazing, and with Threefron as my guide we traveled the golf course in search of the games biggest names.
While my main goal was checking out Phil Mickelson, we ended up seeing pretty much everyone still in the tournament. While Mickelson definitely had the largest gallery, the highlight of the day was following Freddy Couples on his last three holes of the round in which he went birdie, birdie, birdie and was just a few inches away from the cup on the 9th hole from hitting a hole-in-one eagle.
While Couples had a sick third and final round of the tournament, his second win at the Shell Houston Open was not to be and he finished the tournament tied for 4th. Instead the tournament trophy went to Texas native Johnson Wagner for his first win on the PGA tour. Wagner led the Shell Houston Open from wire-to-wire and won a tournament purse of $1,008,000 and 25,000 FedEx Cup Points.
From everything I’ve read the media coverage of the event has been extremely positive and Mickelson has already been quoted as saying the tournament was so great he’ll be back next year. (link) Obviously it’s harder to follow the whole tournament when you’re walking the links, but it was pretty cool to see all the local golf enthusiasts wondering the course talking golf with complete strangers. While I couldn’t take part in much of the conversation concerning shot selection and ball placement because I was having a hard enough time tracking the ball through the air, attending the event was really fun and I’d recommend even mild golf enthusiasts to go to an event the next time a PGA tournament is in your town. Just make sure you have your own Threefron to lead you around the course and tell you who’s in the tee box and how far they just hit the ball.
