2021 Houston Open: Top 10 power rankings at Memorial Park

For gamblers and daily fantasy players out there, Brooks Koepka is the classic damned if you do, damned if you don’t player. When he’s motivated at an event and plays well, it’s like you should have seen it coming. When he blows the week off and stumbles to a missed cut, you feel like that was plenty predictable, too.

This week should be a little easier to forecast than others. It starts with Koepka working with Tom Doak to revamp Memorial Park. He’ll have less of an edge than last year when most of the field was seeing it with fresh eyes.

Nonetheless, he should still have an advantage on a course that favors a good ball striker like him with length.

Koepka overcame a relatively slow start (72-70) at the 2020 Houston Open by carding back-to-back 65s on the weekend to vault to T-5th. He put a new driver in the bag that week, which explains why he needed some time to settle in.

The four-time major champion missed the cut last week at the World Wide Technology Championship. He lacks a top-10 since The Open Championship.

I’m not confident to pick BK to jump into the winner’s circle. It will still be a “get right” type of week for him by cracking the top 10.

He loved how Memorial Park played last year. Conditions were tough, and that’s how he likes it. Plus, a Floridian like him is accustomed to playing Bermuda grass courses.

“It turned out better than I could have imagined,” Koepka was transcribed by Tee Scripts. “I love the fact there’s so many different options from different tee boxes. You don’t always have to play it off the back tee of the back of the tee box, you’ve got different tee options for different pin locations. You can move holes up, you can lengthen them if you want.”