Memorial Park? Oh no!
Regarding “PGA OKs Crane’s sponsorship proposal” (Page C1, Tuesday), my hat is off to Jim Crane for saving the Houston Open. Unfortunately the parting shot of the article was the misguided plan to ultimately move the tournament to Memorial Park.
Memorial Park is a public, municipal course. It is highly utilized by the citizens of Houston. The course hosts 60,000 rounds a year, one of the highest-use public courses in the country. Memorial is a great local course, but it is far from being anything close to what the pro tour requires. It has no locker rooms, no big clubhouse and nonexistent parking. The entire course would have to be completely rebuilt to bring it up to pro tour standards. This kind of rework would end up closing the course for at least a year.
The intended purpose of Memorial Park golf course is to provide recreation for Houston-area golfers. Taking away 60,000 rounds from our local golfers purely for the benefit of the PGA is not aligned with that purpose.
Memorial Park has reasonable green fees now, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the green fees double to help pay for the PGA course upgrades.
The current location at The Golf Club of Houston is setup to accommodate the PGA Tour with no modifications. It has locker rooms, big club house and parking on site. There are multiple other venues around Houston that all have the required course specifications and infrastructure for a much better, easier fit than Memorial.
We need to leave Memorial Park and our local golfers alone and keep the PGA tour in the suburbs. Steve Schuller, Spring Valley