BlogColonial Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

It’s back to Texas and the Crowne Plaza.  A bit of a change, this year it comes the week before the Byron Nelson, in a way the date hurts the event because we just came off a three week stretch of marquee events.  Still the field wasn’t hurt that much, only 16 top-50 players compared to last year with 20.  Still the golfing world is very crowded this week as the BMW PGA Championship and the PGA Seniors is also happening, so a lot of choices for folks.

As we have said before Colonial is one of golf’s treasured layouts that just can’t keep up with technology.  The course sits next to the Trinty River on the north and houses on the East, South and West of it so there is no way to add any yardage.  So the course is at the mercy of mother nature, if it gets windy the course will play tough, but if not it’s easy.  We go more into detail on this later.

The big marquee name playing is Jordan Spieth, who has captured the golfing world  He has played a lot of golf of late, I know he is only 21 but still everyone including Tiger and Rory need some time to rejuvenate the batteries and I just don’t think one week off was enough.

Hard to believe:

In just 30 days will be the start of the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay.  In just 60 days will be the British open and gosh just 85 days from now we will know who won the last major of the year.  Time really flies by fast doesn’t it?

Things you need to know about the The Crowne Plaza Invitational and Colonial:

The 67th year of The Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial. Commonly referred to as the Colonial National, it’s not the oldest event on the PGA Tour in longevity records as Augusta National and the Masters can claim to have been played on the same course longer on the PGA Tour.  The club does have one distinction it’s the only one in America that has hosted the U.S. Open (1941), the Players Championship (1975) and the U.S. Women’s Open (1991).

The tournament got started in 1946 when it was obvious that the USGA wasn’t going to make Colonial an annual stop.  The event was the inspiration of John Marvin Leonard, who operated a store in downtown Fort Worth and wanted to see the best golfers in the world play on his course.  Having Ben Hogan win its first two events gave the event and the course the recognition that it needed.

Hogan went on to win five times at Colonial and the course got the name “Hogan’s Alley”.  At one time, Hogan practically held every record of the tournament.  In the 21 times Hogan played at Colonial, his highest finish was a T-56th in his last appearance in 1970 at the age of 58.  Over Hogan’s career, he won 54 tournaments, with the last victory coming in the 1959 Colonial.  One of Hogan’s most enduring records at Colonial was the 65 he shot in the 3rd round in 1948.  It took seven years for someone to tie the record when Chandler Harper did it in 1955, and it took 22 years for someone to beat the record when Dale Douglass did it with his 63 in 1970.  Hogan loved Colonial and became a dues paying member of the club.  It was only fitting that the greatest of Ben Hogan’s life and golf career is celebrated in the Hogan Room with an audio-visual presentation of his career and some memorable of his career including clubs and replicas of all the trophies and medals.

Now the history of Ben Hogan and Colonial didn’t start with his win in 1946.  It was started in the early 1930s when a young Ben Hogan decided to play on the PGA Tour,  he received financial backing from Marvin Leonard, the man who built Colonial.  Hogan wasn’t a big success, many times were forced to drop off tour and take a job just to earn enough money to rejoin the tour.  But as soon as Hogan began making money on the tour he offered to settle his account with Leonard, who told him to forget about the money.  But in the 1950s Hogan was able to pay back Leonard in an even bigger way.  After Hogan launched the Ben Hogan golf equipment company he offered Leonard the opportunity to purchase 50 percent of the company.  Leonard seized the opportunity and along with Hogan made a handsome profit when the company was sold to AMF in 1960.

The Colonial Country Club was the vision of Leonard, a native of Fort Worth.  He was considered a “workaholic” in the 1920s when his doctor told him he needed to slow down his pace.  Leonard turned to golf and joined Glen Garden Golf Club and Rivercrest Country Club, the best courses of the time in Fort Worth. As Leonards interest in golf grew he became more interested in all aspects of the course, including the types of grass.  In the south, Bent grass was thought to be impossible to grow so all of the courses in Texas were bermuda, which tended to be bumpy.  Leonard thought it would be a good idea to have bent grass and in trying to get Rivercrest to change the club president got tired of the requests and told him, Marvin if you’re so sold on bent grass, why don’t you go build your own golf course and put it in that course?”  So in 1934 Leonard did just that.

He acquired 157 acres in Southwest Fort Worth and hired golf architect John Bredemus to build him a championship course.  On January 29, 1936 the course was opened, and many thought it could be one of the greatest courses in the world. In the late 30s, Leonard also felt that Colonial was the best and lobbied the USGA to hold the Open at Colonial.  Even though the U.S. Open was never played in the South, when Leonard offered $25,000 to hold the event at Colonial it was given the 1941 Open.  Just to make sure that the course withstood the challenge of the best players in the world in 1940 he called in Perry Maxwell to redo holes 3, 4 & 5.

Even with the rain that hampered the Open it was a big success and plans to start a yearly tournament at Colonial were talked about but plans were put on hold because of World War II.  When the war ended, the club decided to hold the Colonial National Invitational and to add some prestige offered a purse of $15,000, the third largest sum on the PGA Tour.  With a first place check of $3,000 awaiting the winner, a field of 32 players teed off with Ben Hogan winning.  Since then 67 Colonial’s have been held with the course pretty much the same as it was in 1941, with some minor revisions that were implemented in 1969 when several holes along the Trinity river were damaged by flooding.

Course information:

Colonial Country Club

• Fort Worth, Texas
• 7,204 yards     Par 35-35–70
• The Colonial has a 75.1 rating and slope rating of 138 from the championship tees. The course is very private. The tees, Fairways and rough are BermudaGrass while the greens are Bent.  In 2014 Colonial was the 19th hardest course on the PGA Tour playing to a 70.273 average which is a quarter stroke over par.  In 2013, Colonial was the 24th hardest course playing to a 69.895 average which is just a little bit under par.
• It was designed and built by John Bredemus, with Perry Maxwell doing some touch-up work and opened in 1936.  There were some minor revisions in 1969 to some of the holes to prevent flooding from the nearby Trinity river.
• In 2000, the club completed a two year course renovation, which started in November of 1998 when they installed a new irrigation system.  The major work was done in rebuilding all 18 greens with new A-4 bentgrass.  They also redesigned and rebuilt all the 84 bunkers, giving them a new definition so that they will be seen from tees and fairways.
• All of the green and bunker work were done three weeks after the 1999 tournament ended with the membership not having the full course reopen until April 1st of 2000. Club has also planted close to hundred trees that won’t be in play but in years to come will help define the holes.
• Normally we don’t talk about technology in golf but when we talk about Colonial one of the reasons for it losing its fear factor is technology.  This course for years was feared my all the touring pros, if you look at the winning score pre-1996 you saw years in which the winner was 7, 8, 9 and 10 under.  But starting in 1997 every year but one (8 under in 1999) saw scores in the double digits for the winners showing how easy the course got.
• Couple of reasons, first the course has no room to add yardage like other classic courses have done.  Now most of the holes at Colonial are doglegs so the driver is taken out of the hands of players which means most of the holes you have to lay up meaning more players hit more fairways.  Also a lot of players are starting to balk about playing Colonial, two past champions Steve Stricker and Phil Mickelson have not played in past years because they don’t like the driver taken out of their hands. We have seen bits and pieces of the proud history of this event crumbling,  I expect that Colonial will again get torn to pieces by players, unless wind pops up.

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the Colonial:

Key stat for the winner:

Experience at Colonial seems to be an important part to winning.  Since 1996, all the champions had won a total of 189 victories so that means an average of 10.5 wins for each of the champions.  Last year’s winner Adam Scott won for the 11th time.  In 2012 Zach Johnson won for the eighth time in his career as winners range from Tom Watson with 34 wins and Nick Price with 18 to Sergio Garcia who made Colonial his first PGA Tour win in 2001.  The fact is rookies don’t win at Colonial.  Yes, Sergio Garcia got his first PGA Tour win at Colonial but he had won in Europe.  The same with the next first time winner Ian Baker-Finch in 1989, he had won in Australia.  The same with Boo Weekley in 2013.  In looking at the 66 year history of the Crowne Plaza, only eight first winners have done the deed, that tells us to look for an experienced person to win.

Other key th0ughts:

• Look at all of the champions, you will see one thing in common, they are accurate drivers of the ball, which historically has been very important in winning at Colonial.  The bottom line is wild drivers just don’t win here.  Now of course there is always an exception to the rule, in 2007 Rory Sabbatini only hit 29 fairways and ranked T60th, Mickelson hit only 32 fairways in ’08 and ranked T36th but thanks to a hot putter both overcame the driving problems.  In 2009 Steve Stricker got things back on track hitting 36 fairways, ranking T15th while in 2010 Zach Johnson hit 39 fairways and ranked T10th.  In 2011, David Toms hit 38 fairways and ranked T4th while in 2012 Zach Johnson hit 33 fairways and ranked T26th.  In 2013 Boo Weekley hit 40 fairways and ranked T-6th.  Last year Adam Scott hit 37 fairways and ranked T-8th.  Before that between 1998 and 2006 all of the winners were in the top-ten in fairway accuracy, with seven of them being in the top-five.
• An important stat to look at to gauge the champion this week is total driving.
• Look at this list of players for 2015 in total driving, I feel that one of those in the top-50 of this list will probably be the winner this week.
• What makes this course so tough of a driving course?  All of the doglegs, there are 12 of them and the fact that since the course only plays 169 yards longer than it did in 1946, players have to throttle back and hit fairway woods and irons to keep it in play.  One of the reasons that you don’t see players like Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson and J.B. Holmes here is because of that, it takes a special player to keep it in play.  So in a way strategy plays an important part in playing Colonial and length on a lot of holes are a disadvantage.
• Shot-making is almost a lost art and if you look at all of the champions in this millennium all of them were great shotmakers.
• Hitting greens will be at a premium, just like in a U.S. Open hitting lots of greens goes a long way in this event.  Look for the winner to hit globs of greens this week.  Now there is another way, if you don’t hit greens, that is scrambling.  All you have to do is look at two stats hitting greens or scrambling,  you will see the last seven champions have done well in one of them.

Winner                           Greens hit        Rank     Scrambling     Rank

2014-Adam Scott            52 of 72         T10th       14 of 20        16th

2013-Boo Weekely           54 of 72          T5th       11 of 18        40th

2012-Zach Johnson         45 of 72         T37th       21 of 27        1st

2011-David Toms             52 of 72           T4th       14 of 20       12th

2010-Zach Johnson          61 of 72           1st         10 of 11        1st

2009-Steve Stricker          56 of 72          T-6th       12 of 16      T14th

2008-Phil Mickelson         52 of 72           T5th       14 of 20       T16th

2007-Rory Sabbatini         48 of 72          T55th       19 of 24       3rd

Now I don’t want to jinx the tournament, but weather in Texas can sometimes be iffy in May.  The weather the last three weeks have been very wet so the course won’t be dry and fast.  This week the weather is not going to be very good as each day will be hot and sticky with a 60% chance of thunderstorms each day   So it may becoming challenging to get the tournament finished on Sunday afternoon.