Shell Houston Open: John Merrick aims his first top-25 finish of the season – Golf News
The United States’ John Merrick, who has made his ninth start on the 2012 PGA Tour season at the Shell Houston Open, is aiming to register his first top-25 finish of the season.
Among the eight starts earlier, he only managed to make three cuts in total. Moreover, his best finish came in the Farmers Insurance Open, where he tied for the 33rd place on the leaderboard.
Overall, he has been unimpressive throughout the first quarter of the 2012 golf season.
He appeared in the Houston Open in 2010 when he tied for the 59th position. However, he is now confident to improve his record with a good finish at the Redstone Golf Club Tournament Course in Humble, Texas.
If his current stats are analysed, he had a reasonable ball striking average with the 42nd position in the rankings table.
On the other hand, he is ranked 168th in overall putting, which is a serious matter for him. It is observed that he gets to the greens very comfortably.
Yet, he fails to convert them into birdies because of the poor putting technique he possesses. He tends to miss easy putts by huge distances, which he really needs to work on.
Nevertheless, he had a pretty good start to his first round in the Houston Open, as he carded birdies on the 10th and 11th holes. Another birdie on the 15th hole took him to three-under par for the round.
However, a double-bogey on the par-four 18th disturbed his scorecard. Still, he managed to bounce back with a birdie on the very next hole at the par-four first.
Afterwards, he scored eight straight par shots, which enabled him to register a two-under par 70, to tie for the 28th on the leaderboard.
Merrick said that he would have done better if he had managed to avoid the double-bogey that he made to end his front nine.
According to him, his overall performance on the course was impressive as compared to the ones in his last appearances this year.
He will now try to stay in momentum and will play his natural game to register a good finish on Sunday.
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