We head to the third coast this week for the tournament formerly known as the Shell Houston Open. In what is little more than a final tune-up before the Masters for the top players, for most of the field, the Houston Open is a chance to earn the final spot into the most exclusive field at Augusta National in two decades. There isn’t much reason to be hyped for this week unless Ernie or Westy do their best Jesus on Easter impression to keep their winless at the Masters streaks alive. But I’m going to watch it closely anyway, because I’d rather do anything besides work the next two days and love having an excuse to sit on the couch all weekend.
The main reason I’ll be watching though is that all four of the Baylor boys will be playing this weekend, with Luke coming off a memorable WGC Match Play, and Harris and Keith with top 5 finishes in Punta Cana. Luke came in third last year here and Harris has yet to miss a cut in Houston. Even though they neither have played the Houston Open before, Jaeger and Keith both have a shot to turn it on any given week. The Masters is in danger of having no Baylor representative at the Masters besides the numerous rich asshole patrons who are probably members there.
It seems like every semi memorable player from the early to mid 2000’s is playing this week as well. Poulter is begging to be let back in Augusta after an official falsely told him he was in last week at the WGC. K.J. Choi, Retief Goosen, Geoff Ogilvy, and Padraig Harrington are putting their names in the winner-take-all Houston Death Pool (not intended as a Hurricane Harvey joke I swear. It just came out then I realized what I had done). Martin Flores, D.A. Points, Steve Stricker, and the Howie Dorough of the Golf Boys, Hunter Mahan, are also trying to steal that last spot from someone much more deserving.
Along with the semi-known golfers of a couple years ago, we have a lot of CPO favorites playing this week. Bowdo isn’t playing but the Wooly Willy version of him where all the hair fell to the bottom besides the eyebrows is.
We also have Dom Bozzelli, Jonas Blixt, my favorite name Bronson Burgoon, #BeerForBirdies Tom Hoge, John Holmes, Kokrak, Loupe, and fellow blogger Peter Malnati.
As far as who I like to win this week, I’m going back to the original CPO pick of the week with Harris English. But since I already burned him for my one-and-done pick earlier this year, I’m playing Luke List.
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