Houston Open 2020: All the stats for this week's event in Texas

After a wait of almost six decades, Memorial Park will once again host the Vivint-sponsored Houston Open.

This highly-rated municipal course, which opened for business during the mid-1930s, has staged the tournament 14 times, most recently in 1963.

Located three miles west of downtown Houston, and approximately 35 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, the venue was renovated in the mid-1990s at a cost of $7m.

Check out the latest betting ahead of this week's Vivint Houston Open

Covering an area of 250 acres, Memorial Park is a parkland layout with Bermuda grass fairways and putting surfaces which are slightly larger than the PGA Tour average.

Water comes into play on five holes, all but one of these arriving late in the round.

Big names on show

With one week to go until November's US Masters, a handful of big names will be teeing-up in Houston.

These include world No 1 Dustin Johnson and four-time major winner Brooks Koepka.

Johnson hasn't competed for seven weeks, having had to withdraw from a number of tournaments after testing positive for Covid.

Koepka, meanwhile, has played just once since mid-August because of injury. The 30-year-old assisted architect Tom Doak who was commissioned to upgrade the layout in 2019 ahead of this week's event.

Another infrequent player over recent months is Francesco Molinari who has teed-up once since lockdown was imposed back in March.

The Italian is among the entries this week, and will seemingly head to Augusta undercooked.

Check out the latest betting ahead of the forthcoming Masters

This time last year Molinari stood 12th in the world but is currently at No 87.

Among a solid European contingent is in-form Tyrrell Hatton, while the consistent duo of Tony Finau and Hideki Matsuyama are using Memorial Park to fine-tune their skills ahead of Augusta National.

Further down the food chain

Defending champion from last year's event at Redstone, Lanto Griffin, arrives in Houston on the back of a brace of top-20 finishes in Nevada and California.

Among in-form players further down the World Ranking is No 61 Russell Henley.

The 31-year-old from Charleston in South Carolina is on a good run right now, ending last season strongly and starting the new one in similar fashion. His last six outings over a three-month period reads: 4-3-27-25-8-9.

The most recent of his three PGA Tour titles came in Houston just over three and a half years ago.

Texas Top-20s

Twitter: Andy Swales@GolfStatsAlive

Note: List Contains Leading Reserves