The golf course at Houston Country Club, located at 1 Potomac Drive, in Houston, opened in 1957. The club moved to the Potomac location, on the west side of Houston, on Buffalo Bayou, from the east side of Houston, on Wayside Drive, where it had previously been since its founding in 1908.
The course was designed by Robert Trent Jones, golf course architect, who made his name in the 1950s and has a midcentury design characterized by long tee boxes, generally wide fairways and large greens. I believe the thinking at the time was that the course could be made as long or short as needed to appeal to a wide variety of players.
In 1964, Ben Hogan and Sam Snead played a televised match for a popular golf program, Shell's Wonderful World of Golf. The Houston Country Club was chosen due to Shell's presence in Houston as well as the generally good test of the course at that time. Hogan won the match, 69 to 71 that day.
In 1988, Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, a new architectural duo at the time, redesigned the greens and the bunkers of the course. As players had gotten longer, the thinking must have been to make more of a test of accuracy on the shorter shots. The major changes to the greens on 3, 6, 7, 8, 11, 15, 16 17 and 18 called for a greater premium on the second shot. In retrospect, it was a light redesign and maintained the previous character of the Jones design.
Some big tournaments have been played at the Potomac course. The Texas Amateur has been held there 3 times in 1981, won by Mark Brooks UT golf great who went to win the PGA Championship and also in 2001 (Bob Kearney) and 2008 (Kelly Kraft).
In 2014, erosion on Buffalo Bayou caused a major project which lasted 2 years to repair and hold off future damage, which costs several million dollars. As a result, number 8 was redesigned by Ben Crenshaw himself to become a long par 4 instead of the par 5 it was. Opening in 2016, the new number 8 is a very modern and challenging hole, much different from the other parts of the course. The course, previously a par 72 is now par 71.
Thirty year later, Coore and Crenshaw are now a celebrity design firm, and have done several courses are considered the best in the world. The Houston Country Club was one of their very first projects. Not many golf fans know that. It's a hidden gem in that respect.
No comments:
Post a Comment