I finally played all 18 holes of the redesigned Memorial Park course in Houston today. The previous two rounds ended after 15 holes due to darkness. Played from the white tees which measure 6553 yards.
First hole is a par 5, 512 yards. Striped my driver down the center of the fairway about 275 yards. A lot of times I will lay up par 5s even when I have the “right” club in the bag for the second shot, but this time I decided to go for it. Pulled my 3 wood from the bag and hit a perfect arcing draw onto the green. Of course, I followed it up with a 3-putt par (blech). Still a good start to the round.
Ended up carding a 47-45 with one birdie on the par 5 14th. I actually reached that one in 2 also (480 yards from the tee) and two putted from about 40 feet.
The new course is very different from the old course. Previously there were over 50 bunkers on the course - now there are less than 20. There’s only one large body of water on the course, which comes into play on the right side of the fairway on 16 and 17. The green side bunkers are much, much deeper than they used to be. It also seems like every green is elevated with sharp slopes on all sides where going short or long is really punished. The greens are playing quite slow right now.
A year or so ago I was a 25 handicap. Right now I’m at 16. Besides plenty of time at the range, the biggest thing that has helped are instructional videos on YouTube. In particular, I would recommend Rick Shiels channel. He’s got lots of great content if you haven’t checked it out before.