By Christopher Powers
The PGA Tour is back in Texas this week for the Houston Open, played at Golf Club of Houston in Humble, Texas, home to to event since 2006. The tournament serves as one final tune-up prior to the season’s first major, and the winner earns the last spot in the Masters field, provided he isn’t in already.

The 2018 field is a strong one, featuring names like Phil Mickelson, Henrik Stenson, Justin Rose and Rickie Fowler. But all eyes remain on Jordan Spieth, whose putting struggles were on display once again last week during his early exit at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. As he’s proved in the past, sooner or later it should turn in Spieth’s favor, especially considering he ranks inside the top 30 in every major strokes-gained category except putting, where he ranks a lowly 172nd. Perhaps he can flip the script in his home state this week at an event where he finished runner-up in his breakout 2015 season.

TV Coverage
In the UAE, OSN Sports 3HD will carry live coverage from 9pm from Thursday to Sunday.

Thursday Tee Times (all times ET). NOTE: UAE time is 8 hours ahead of ET.
Tee No. 1
8:20 a.m.(4.20pm UAE time) — Bud Cauley, Dominic Bozzelli, Keith Mitchell
8:30 a.m. — Chad Campbell, Kelly Kraft, Sam Saunders
8:40 a.m. — Scott Piercy, Ben Crane, Tom Hoge
8:50 a.m. — D.A. Points, Russell Knox, Smylie Kaufman
9:00 a.m. — Mackenzie Hughes, James Hahn, Charles Howell III
9:10 a.m. — Brian Stuard, Chris Kirk, Matt Every
9:20 a.m. — Rod Pampling, Greg Chalmers, Bill Haas
9:30 a.m. — Jonathan Byrd, C.T. Pan, Brandon Harkins
9:40 a.m. — Alex Cejka, Bob Estes, Cameron Tringale
9:50 a.m. — Michael Thompson, Keegan Bradley, Sean O’Hair
10:00 a.m. — Abraham Ancer, Adam Schenk, Bobby Gates
10:10 a.m. — Brett Stegmaier, Denny McCarthy, Ryan Baca
1:10 p.m. — Danny Lee, Jason Kokrak, Ryan Blaum
1:20 p.m. — Shawn Stefani, Rafa Cabrera Bello, Dylan Frittelli
1:30 p.m. — Nick Taylor, Kevin Streelman, Jon Curran
1:40 p.m. — Jason Dufner, Nick Watney, Ernie Els
1:50 p.m. — Daniel Berger, Matt Kuchar, Steve Stricker
2:00 p.m. — Phil Mickelson, Justin Rose, Russell Henley
2:10 p.m. — Matt Jones, Chez Reavie, Luke List
2:20 p.m. — Geoff Ogilvy, Ian Poulter, Richy Werenski
2:30 p.m. — Robert Streb, Johnson Wagner, Sung Kang
2:40 p.m. — Lanto Griffin, Sam Ryder, Yuta Ikeda
2:50 p.m. — Ben Silverman, Xinjun Zhang, Paul Dunne
3:00 p.m. — Bronson Burgoon, Stephan Jaeger, Zach Cabra

Tee No. 10
8:20 a.m. (4.20pm UAE time) — Ryan Palmer, Tyrone Van Aswegen, Harold Varner III
8:30 a.m. — Hunter Mahan, Lucas Glover, Robert Garrigus
8:40 a.m. — Scott Brown, Thomas Pieters, Martin Piller
8:50 a.m. — Brice Garnett, Cody Gribble, Tony Finau
9:00 a.m. — Chris Stroud, Jhonattan Vegas, Jordan Spieth
9:10 a.m. — Henrik Stenson, Rickie Fowler, Martin Kaymer
9:20 a.m. — Jonas Blixt, Emiliano Grillo, Padraig Harrington
9:30 a.m. — Jamie Lovemark, Kevin Tway, Michael Kim
9:40 a.m. — Scott Stallings, Derek Fathauer, Aaron Wise
9:50 a.m. — Joel Dahmen, Talor Gooch, Julian Suri
10:00 a.m. — Rob Oppenheim, Ethan Tracy, Shubhankar Sharma
10:10 a.m. — Seamus Power, Nicholas Lindheim, Dawie van der Walt
1:10 p.m. — Martin Flores, Byeong Hun An, Blayne Barber
1:20 p.m. — J.J. Henry, Camilo Villegas, Patrick Rodgers
1:30 p.m. — Harris English, Retief Goosen, Peter Uihlein
1:40 p.m. — Ryan Armour, William McGirt, K.J. Choi
1:50 p.m. — Grayson Murray, Fabian Gomez, Peter Malnati
2:00 p.m. — Aaron Baddeley, Brandt Snedeker, Shane Lowry
2:10 p.m. — Troy Merritt, Whee Kim, Andrew Loupe
2:20 p.m. — Chesson Hadley, Lee Westwood, Beau Hossler
2:30 p.m. — J.B. Holmes, John Huh, Rory Sabbatini
2:40 p.m. — Jonathan Randolph, Tyler Duncan, Nate Lashley
2:50 p.m. — Andrew Putnam, Tom Lovelady, Seungsu Han
3:00 p.m. — Corey Conners, Roberto Diaz, JJ Wood

The post 2018 Houston Open tee times, viewer’s guide appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The extent of the damage caused by Hurricane Harvey won’t be understood for awhile and is likely to expand in the days ahead after the storm hit the Texas gulf coast over the weekend and continues to dump rain on the region.

“This is not over yet,” Steve Timms, president and CEO of the Houston Golf Association, said. “This storm got caught between two high pressure systems. They’re usually out of here, but this one camped over south Texas. It’s now backed up, and they’re projecting that by tonight it’ll be back in Gulf of Mexico, which could have further strengthening. We could be in for a forecast of 15 to 20 inches of additional rainfall.”

The association’s offices are adjacent to the Golf Club of Houston, site of the PGA Tour event formerly known as the Shell Houston Open. The tournament course there is bisected by the Greens Bayou, which carries water from north of Houston down to Galveston Bay and into the Gulf of Mexico.

https://twitter.com/TimmsSteve/status/901933403381137409

“It’s been out of its banks since probably yesterday [Sunday] at about 9 a.m.,” Timms said. “We’ve had literally massive flooding. We’ve never seen anything like it.

“If it were to stop raining now, I would say we’re probably at least another day or two before we’ll see any significant receding of water. It’s a massive amount of water. We’ve received so much rain upstream of us that it’s got to come through major bayous. The longer you keep water on turf, the more silt and turf damage you’re going to have. I just can’t even start imagining how much damage there will be. Obviously, it’ll be significant. One thing we do is that greens and tees are built up out of the 100-year floodplain to protect them. But this is not a 100-year event. It’s more like a 500-year event.”

https://twitter.com/TimmsSteve/status/902199339921154049

Timms said he spoke on Monday morning with Robin Burke, wife of Champions Golf Club co-founder Jackie Burke. “Cypress Creek, which runs through their golf course, is way out of its banks. She said the 18th tee on the Cypress Creek golf course is under water, which is a pretty good distance away from Cypress Creek. It’s pretty devastating flooding for Champions.” The third and 12th greens reportedly were under water as well.

The Cypress Creek course has hosted the U.S. Open and a Ryder Cup, among other prestigious events.

This is Champions area.. pic.twitter.com/vmgur5Cegp

— Steve Elkington (@elkpga) August 27, 2017

The Woodlands Country Club north of Houston, the site of the PGA Tour Champions’ Insperity Invitational, has sustained moderate flooding, its director of golf Darrell Fuston said.

“I expect the Woodlands Country Club to be OK for the most part. The Palmer Course tends to have high water on it, but it shouldn’t be too awful. Other courses in area are not going to be as fortunate. Kingwood, the Golf Club of Houston. There’s some others I’m hearing about.”

Fuston has been unable to inspect whatever damage there is to his courses. The flooding is such that he is trapped on the street on which he lives, he said.

“So many of these courses are built in floodplains designed to be runoffs when floods happen,” Fuston said. “I guess there’s a reason they are where they are. So much water moves over the courses, but something like this is unprecedented, really.”

River Oaks Country Club, once a Houston Open and Western Open sites, is adjacent to the Buffalo Bayou was largely flooded, as seen in the Tweet below:

Prayers to all members.send us course photos: in photo: River Oaks CC: Supt: Morris Johnson https://t.co/ZyT745tHlS pic.twitter.com/sX3x9KYHQO

— South Texas GCSA, Inc. (@STGCSA) August 28, 2017

The Houston area’s newest high-profile course, Bluejack National in Montgomery, Texas, largely escaped damage, despite encountering between 15 and 20 inches of rain, general manager Casey Paulson said.

“We’re about an hour north of Houston,” he said. “We’ve had a ton of rain, but it’s not quite as bad as some of the stuff you’ve seen on TV. No serious damages here. We’ve had a couple of trees go down. That’s about the extent of it. We’ve been pretty fortunate out here.”

The Houston Golf Association, meanwhile, is renovating the municipal Gus Wortham Park Golf Course, adjacent to the Brays Bayou east of downtown Houston.

“About five holes have been grassed,” Timms said. “In the last 24 hours they’ve had 24 inches of rain on the job site. We don’t know what that will look like until we get there.

“It’ll be quite … devastating is the right word to use for these golf courses in our region. We can recover from that. But there are people in Houston really hurting. It’s a debilitating event.”

The post Flooded golf courses part of Hurricane Harvey devastation appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.