This week the PGA TOUR returns to Redstone Golf Club in Houston for the Shell Houston Open, where GCSAA Certified Golf Course Superintendent Roger Goettsch, director of agronomy, credits a recent stretch of great weather with getting the golf course in excellent shape. Building on the strategy initiated last year, when the Shell Houston Open was moved to the week before the Masters, of creating a very Augusta-like feel to the golf course Goettsch has enlarged a few of the short cut areas around the greens. Depending on rain this week, his goal is to increase green speeds even more than last year.
There is water on nine holes at Redstone, and with the Augusta-like short grass around the greens, Goettsch explains that balls rolling off the greens could keep rolling into the water on those nine. He points to holes 5, 12 and 18 as key strategic points in a golfers round this week. No. 5 has a narrow landing area with water on left. No. 12 is a drivable par 4 that people tend to get in trouble with when gambling for the green. It has water all the way down the right, and a bunker in the left side of the landing area. No. 18, ranked the toughest hole of tournament, is long with water, heavy bunkering on right, and a narrow landing area that looks worse than it is from the tee.
A 2002 GCSAA/Golf Digest Environmental Leaders in Golf Award chapter winner, Goettsch is working towards Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program certification. Redstone recently installed a pump station and plans to begin purchasing effluent water for the golf course in order to reduce its ground water use.
COURSE STATISTICS
| Yardage | Par | Rating | Slope | |
| Forward | 5926 | 72 | 68.0 | 117 |
| Regular | 6569 | 72 | 71.4 | 125 |
| Championship | 7422 | 72 | 75.8 | 138 |
COURSE CHARACTERISTICS
| Primary Grasses | Height of Cut | |
| Tees | Bermudagrass overseeded with perennial ryegrass | .38' |
| Fairways | Bermudagrass overseeded with perennial ryegrass | .44' |
| Greens | Bentgrass; bermudagrass; perennial ryegrass all overseeded w/ bentgrass, poa trivialis and ryegrass | .10' |
| Rough | Bermudagrass overseeded with perennial ryegrass | 1.5' |
COURSE NUMBERS
| Stimpmeter | 13 feet | |
| Sand bunkers | 60 | |
| Water Hazards | 13 |
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