PGA Tour: Monday thoughts from the Houston Open

Another week on the PGA Tour is in the books. Here are some Monday thoughts and highlights following the Houston Open.

We had another first-time winner this week on the PGA Tour. Lanto Griffin at -14, was able to take the win over the rest of the field at the Houston Open, and at 45/1 no less. In case you don’t know much about Lanto Griffin, you should make sure to read all about his incredible journey.

What makes it more surprising when you see his name at the top of the leaderboard is seeing how poorly he played in round two. Two birdies offset two bogeys, but a disastrous double-bogey on the 18th gave him a 74 for the day. Luckily, it was surrounded by an opening day 66, and a nice 65 on Saturday.

Lanto would be able to hold off Scott Harrington and Mark Hubbard, both of whom shot -13 for the tournament, finishing T-2nd.

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It looked like the tournament might have to flirt with finishing up late on Sunday or possibly Monday after the suspension of play on Friday due to thunder and lightning. Luckily for all, it was short-lived, and everyone was able to get back to it.

Austin Cook got things started Thursday with a 64. Unfortunately for him, he shot even-par over the next 54 holes and finished T-17th. Talor Gooch shot 64 as well and climbed into the top five with a closing round of 69.

Michael Kim started off on the complete opposite spectrum of Cook and Gooch. He had a terrible back nine, shooting 44, and would finish 81 on the day. His round two was looking more promising. -1 through 15 holes, Kim would withdraw from the event.

If you thought 81 would be the worst score of the tournament, someone would match it on Friday, and two would best it. Bo Van Pelt shot 81, Martin Trainer shot 83, and Zach Sucher took the cake with a 86. He had very few clean holes, finishing with two doubles and ten bogeys. Truth be told, that looks more like a scorecard I would finish with.

Since the season started, a common talking point has been the lack of depth and high visibility talent at these tournaments. It makes sense from the top player’s point of view, as they want to be healthy and ready to go for the tournaments that matter the most to them. They trust themselves to get enough points to make a strong FedEx Cup run, so they don’t come to these smaller events.

Are they missing out though by skipping these fall PGA Tour events? If this were a full-field event, Lanto would have been much lower on the odds-to-win page. Somewhere around 200/1, if not lower. Instead, he is able to get 500 FedEx Cup points, $1.35 million, and a handful of exemptions. The win alone will likely get him into the opening round of the FedEx Cup playoffs at the end of this PGA Tour season.

Wouldn’t it make sense for one of the top golfers in the world to come here and try and get an “easy” win? I understand that they are looking ahead to the CJ Cup this week, but they could be missing out on a golden opportunity in Houston. There is only a $2 million difference in the total purse and all the point allocations are the same.

If anyone is happy to see all of those top golfers not in Houston, it was definitely Lanto Griffin. His life has changed dramatically, and for all intents and purposes, it has changed for the better. He has come a long way to get to where he is today and had a tougher journey than most. It doesn’t matter if it’s an event with the top 50 in the world or none of them. Lanto Griffin is now a PGA Tour Champion.