Tour 18 - Houston

Review of Tour 18 in Houston

Imagine yourself playing some of the challenging holes that the legends of golf have played in major tournaments like the U.S. Open, The Masters, The Tour Championship and the PGA Championship. Tour 18, owned and managed by Palmer Golf Management, has replicated 18 of the best holes, some of which you may be familiar with from watching tournaments on the tube: #6 at Bay Hill, #3 at Pinehurst, Amens Corner at Augusta National (#11, #12, and #13), the infamous #17 island green at Sawgrass, Pebble Beach #14, and Doral #18. Each of the holes have a marker at the tee box with some history and you get to try and see how you play the hole compared to the pros. For example:

• on Bay Hill's #6, a par 5 horseshoe around water to a small well protected green let's "you bite off as much as you can chew" and John Daly went for it a few too many times and once scored an 18 – I bogeyed it and felt great!
• Augusta National's #12 is one of the toughest on the tour and Tom Wieskof, while leading the Masters in 1982 got a 13 – it's a short par 3 at 155 yards but you need to carry the water and avoid 3 bunkers protecting a small narrow oblong green – I beat Tom!
• The ninth hole is a replica of Sawgrass's 17th island green – a short 140 yard par three known as the "easiest par 5 on the course" and during the 1992 Players Championship swallowed 64 balls – I added two more!
• on the Disney #6, I landed in the left ear of the well known bunker shaped like Mickey Mouse
• I now have an appreciation for the famous "church pew bunkers" on the 3rd hole at Oakmont Country Club – easy to hit, hard to get out of

If you follow golf, you'll love playing this course. It's fun to try and beat the champs and relive what you watched during the tournaments. When we played in August, the course was well manicured and landscaped and in very good condition. The fairways were in good shape and most were forgiving off the tee box. Some of the rough was cut thin and on some holes the rough was deep and tough. The bunkers had soft fluffy sand and all are strategically placed right where your ball wants to land. The greens seemed very small with mostly gentle slope, in very good condition, true, and a little slow.