HOUSTON – The Houston Open returned to Memorial Park for the first time since 1963.
The move from its previous location in Humble was made possible thanks to $34 million worth of renovations courtesy of the Astros Golf Foundation.
Fans and golfers were excited about the new course and looked forward to playing on it in the future.
“Now that’s it’s renovated, they put all this money into it. People are going to go play it and hopefully, that golf course will become one of the premier spots,” said Lupe Lopez.
Joe Mata volunteered to work at the event and was impressed with its new look.
“The grounds are great. The greens are perfect. They’ve done a good job they spent a lot of money,” Mata said.
The city of Houston believes the move will have a big economic impact.
“These annual events are a big deal. We love big events like the Super Bowl and others that we have but those are sort of once every 10 years. So events like this that are annual in nature have a very significant impact,” said Michael Heckman, the president and CEO of Houston First.
Houston First is responsible for promoting Houston as a world-class city for business and travel. Heckman believes the new Houston location will attract the world’s best players, visitors from all parts and millions of dollars for restaurants, hotels and local businesses.
“Once you get back to maximum or near-maximum capacity, you’re going to be looking at tens of millions of dollars of economic impact,” Heckman said.
The Houston Open is only allowing 2,500 fans because of the coronavirus. But they hope that will change come next year.