What To Look For: 2018 Shriners Hospital for Children Open

The Tour comes back to Las Vegas for the Shriner’s Hospital for Children Open.


The course being played is TPC Summerlin which was built in 1991 and designed by Bobby Weed. I’ve played a few of Weed’s courses and really like his work. Yes, I even like TPC Tampa Bay quite a bit (I’m one of the few that I know that likes TPC Tampa Bay).

The course is a par-71 playing 7,255. However, it’s elevation is about 2,700 feet above sea level.

What’s interesting about Summerlin is that it is arguably the most difficult course on Tour in terms of hitting Short Game shots around the green, close. However, short game play has little impact in terms of performance due to it being a high GIR course. I think the big key is for players to not get frustrated if they miss a GIR and hit a poor quality pitch or bunker shot. Instead, just keep plugging along and if you hit some quality approaches and putts, you’ll move up the leaderboard nicely.

The greens at Summerlin are also bent grass. So they are fast and relatively flat so the make percentages are fairly high. It’s also very important to find the fairways on the par-5’s. I would almost guarantee that unless it’s Cameron Champ, the winner will have hit a high percentage of fairways on the par-5’s.


PROJECTED WINNING SCORE: -22


3JACK’S FAVORITES

Rickie Fowler +1,200
Jordan Spieth +1,400
Patrick Cantlay +2,000
Aaron Wise +2,000
Cameron Champ +3,300
Sam Burns +3,300


3JACK’S DARK HORSE PICKS

Martin Laird +10,000
Sam Ryder +10,000
Corey Conners +15,000
Dylan Meyer +20,000






3JACK