2020 Vivint Houston Open Preview

Dates: November 2-8, 2020
Where: Houston, Texas
Course: Memorial Park Golf Course (36-36—72/7,432)
Field size: 132
Defending champion: Lanto Griffin
Purse: $7,000,000 ($1,260,000/winner)
FedExCup: 500 points (winner)
Format: 72-hole stroke play

Things to Know

• Tournament to be held at recently-renovated Memorial Park Golf Course for the first time since 1963 (full history below) and adds Vivint Smart Home as title sponsor
• Brooks Koepka, who served as player consultant for the Memorial Park renovations alongside Tom Doak, will compete in the event for the first time since 2016
• World No. 1 Dustin Johnson will make his first start on TOUR since testing positive for COVID-19 prior to THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK
• 37 players in the field will compete at next week’s Masters Tournament; the winner of the event will qualify for the 2021 Masters

Notes on the field

• 15 of the top 30 in the FedxCup standings, led by No. 2 Stewart Cink
• 14 of the top 50 players in the Official World Golf Ranking (12 more than in 2019), led by No. 1 Dustin Johnson
• Four FedExCup champions: Brandt Snedeker (2012), Henrik Stenson (2013), Jordan Spieth (2015), Dustin Johnson (2020)

FedExCup and the Vivint Houston Open

• Ninth event of the 2020-21 PGA TOUR Season
• The winner of the Vivint Houston Open has qualified for the TOUR Championship in seven of the 13 seasons it has been played since the inception of the FedExCup
• No player has won the Vivint Houston Open and gone on to win the FedExCup in the same season (best result: Adam Scott/No. 12/2007)
• Following his win in 2019, Lanto Griffin went on to finish No. 18 in the FedExCup standings

Current FedExCup standings

• Players in bold are in the field:

Pos.	Player	Points	Starts	Wins	Top-10s
1	Bryson DeChambeau	675	2	1	2
2	Stewart Cink	671	4	1	2
3	Patrick Cantlay	604	4	1	2
4	Jason Kokrak	596	4	1	1
5	Matthew Wolff	585	4	0	2
6	Sergio Garcia	548	5	1	1
7	Martin Laird	532	4	1	1
8	Hudson Swafford	510	5	1	1
9	Brian Gay	500	3	1	1
10	Xander Schauffele	463	3	0	2

A look back at the 2019 Vivint Houston Open

Pos.	Name	R1	R2	R3	R4	Total
1	Lanto Griffin	66	74	65	69	274 (-14)
T2	Scott Harrington	69	67	72	67	275 (-13)
T2	Mark Hubbard	68	67	72	67	275 (-13)
T4	Five Playres	–	–	–	–	277 (-11)

• Lanto Griffin won his first PGA TOUR title, defeating Scott Harrington and Mark Hubbard by one stroke
• Griffin was the only player to finish in the top 20 in each of the first five events of the 2019-20 season
• Scott Harrington and Mark Hubbard earned career-best finishes on the PGA TOUR

Player Notes

Dustin Johnson

• Making first start since testing positive for COVID-19 prior to THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK
• Has two top-fives in five starts at the Vivint Houston Open (T4/2013, 3rd/2016)
• 2019-20 season: FedExCup champion, PGA TOUR Player of the Year; three wins, two runner-up finishes in 14 starts
• Top-10s in each of his last five starts: T2/PGA Championship, Won/THE NORTHERN TRUST, P2/BMW Championship, Won/TOUR Championship, T6/U.S. Open
• Ranks 27th all-time with 23 PGA TOUR wins; would move into a tie for 25th with Gary Player and Macdonald Smith with a victory
• Holds the No. 1 position in the Official World Golf Ranking for the 102nd week in his career, fourth-most in the OWGR era (est. 1986) and four behind No. 3 Rory McIlroy

Tyrrell Hatton

• Second-highest ranked player in the field at No. 10 in the Official World Golf Ranking
• Making Vivint Houston Open debut
• Earned first PGA TOUR victory at the 2020 Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, the final event completed before the season was suspended due to the pandemic
• T3 at THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK in October, his best result in three starts during the 2020-21 season

Brooks Koepka

• Served as player consultant on Memorial Park Golf Course renovations alongside Tom Doak
• First start at the Vivint Houston Open since 2016 (MC)
• Second start of the 2020-21 season (first: T28/THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK)
• Seven-time PGA TOUR winner (most recent: 2019 World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational)
• Finished the 2019-20 season No. 104 in the FedExCup standings; withdrew prior to the start of THE NORTHERN TRUST due to injury

Memorial Park Golf Course

• Previous years hosting the Vivint Houston Open: 1947, 1951-1963 (notable winners: Jack Burke, Jr./1952, Cary Middlecoff/1953, Arnold Palmer/1957, Burke/1959, Bobby Nichols/1962, Bob Charles/1963)
• Recently underwent $34 million renovation, which was funded by the Astros Golf Foundation and included the two-story driving range, a First Tee facility and short course, plus a STEM learning facility
• One of just two municipal courses on the PGA TOUR schedule, along with San Diego’s Torrey Pines, host of the Farmers Insurance Open

Players in the field at both the Vivint Houston Open and next week’s Masters Tournament (37)

• Conners, Corey
• Day, Jason
• Duncan, Tyler
• Finau, Tony
• Frittelli, Dylan
• Garcia, Sergio
• Glover, Lucas
• Griffin, Lanto
• Harding, Justin
• Hatton, Tyrrell
• Homa, Max
• Im, Sungjae
• Johnson, Dustin

• Johnson, Zach
• Kang, Sung
• Kim, Si Woo
• Koepka, Brooks
• Landry, Andrew
• Lashley, Nate
• Lowry, Shane
• Matsuyama, Hideki
• McDowell, Graeme
• Mickelson, Phil
• Molinari, Francesco
• Pan, C.T.
• Poston, J.T.

• Putnam, Andrew
• Scheffler, Scottie
• Schwartzel, Charl
• Scott, Adam
• Snedeker, Brandt
• Spieth, Jordan
• Stenson, Henrik
• van Rooyen, Erik
• Walker, Jimmy
• Westwood, Lee
• Willett, Danny

Tournament Records

• Low 18-hole score: 62 (Ron Streck/1981, Fred Funk/1992)
• Low 36-hole total: 128 (Sung Kang/2017)
• Low 54-hole total: 195 (Curtis Strange/1980)
• Low 72-hole total: 266 (three times; most recent: Vijay Singh/2002)
• Largest margin of victory: 6 strokes (three times; most recent: Stuart Appleby/2006)
• Playoffs: 24 (most recent: Ian Poulter def. Beau Hossler/2018)
• Wire-to-wire winners: 1 (Stuart Appleby/2006

The Vivint Houston Open Preview is via PGA TOUR