The PGA Tour is in Houston this week for its now-springtime stop at Memorial Park, a municipal course that was redone a few years ago by Tom Doak and where city residents can play for $38 on weekends.
That’s something Sahith Theegala, a public-golf product from Chino Hills, California, and now The Woodlands, Texas, resident, can appreciate.
“There’s a few on the [Tour’s] rota now that are public golf courses, munis, and especially this one being as affordable as it is and being so close to the center of Houston, it’s awesome,” Theegala said Tuesday prior to teeing it up in the Texas Children’s Houston Open. “It’s cool because a lot of the guys that just this week when I was practicing at [The] Woodlands [Country Club] and Champions [Golf Club], a lot of the guys were like, ‘Hey, we just played here three weeks ago, like this course is really, really hard.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s kind of how it is most weeks out here.’ Yeah, it is fun. It’s awesome that the week after this tournament that anyone can go out and play and see how hard the golf course is set up and the conditions that we play on.
“I think it’s important for the fans to see exactly what a PGA Tour test is.”
Which brings Theegala to his big idea: “There’s got to be something, like a fan challenge or – I think it would be awesome to see a scratch handicap go out and play like the Monday after a tournament, keep the same conditions and see what they would shoot just to put it into perspective how hard a PGA Tour golf course is.”
Theegala loves the thought so much that he’d even come out and watch.
“Shoot, I’d commentate on it,” Theegala added before continuing, “I have a pet peeve, sometimes when I watch golf on TV, a great example is hole 8 at Valspar last week. It’s a 230-yard par 3, the green’s 12 yards wide and someone will hit the middle of the green and, you know, they’ll be like, ‘Oh, really smart shot there.’ I’m like, ‘Well, no, he’s absolutely laced this 4-iron in the middle of the green, that’s right where he’s looking and to hit a 4-iron that straight is really, really hard.’ … Even like chipping, a lot of the stuff just looks flat on TV, but then when you get over the chip, like, oh, great, I have to land it over a mound on a downslope down grain?
“Yeah, it would be interesting to see some kind of format like that. … More stuff like that can only help the game because it brings more fans into the game and brings a slightly different crowd into the game. I’m all for it.”
Is Angelo Spagnolo available?
