Course Preview and Fits: Shriners Children’s Open

Fall golf continues with a westward swing this week, as we’ll be in Las Vegas for the Shriners and head even farther west for the Zozo in Japan next week. The dustball golf roadshow rolls on! It’s another weak field, with Tom Kim headlining as the only OWGR top-30 player, but we have a stronger middle this week, which should make things a bit different than last week’s relative dearth of talent. Still, it’s yet another event where we should have some really nice opportunities to get different. Let’s dive in.

While the Shriners Children’s Open has bounced around Vegas a bit since its inception in 1983, TPC Summerlin has played host to the event for over 10 years, and we have some solid course history to draw on. At Par 71 and 7,255 yards, it isn’t a particularly long course, and the thin desert air makes it play even shorter than its number. As such, scoring tends to be some of the lowest we see on tour each year, and the Shriners fits firmly into the “birdie fest” camp, making it perfect for the FedEx fall. TPC Summerlin is a classic desert golf course, winding its way through a neighborhood in the Vegas suburbs, with hazards mostly comprised of desert areas and neighborhood OB. Think TPC River Highlands but in the desert. The course redid all of the grass a few years ago, and most of the course is Bermuda, while the greens are bentgrass.

There’s not much to be afraid of off the tee, though the big miss will of course get you in trouble here, as it does at most places. For a desert course, though, Summerlin has some generous fairways at 35 yards wide, and driving accuracy is consistently a good bit higher than tour average, clocking in at around 65% since they widened the fairways a few years ago.