BlogByron Nelson Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

The AT&T Byron Nelson still struggles to get marquee players:

The Byron Nelson is a very complicated event.  Of all the tournaments on the PGA Tour, it’s  always the top in giving money away, the Salesmanship Club which runs things does a first class job.  Every year it raises more money than any other tournament, in 2014 it raised $5.6 million (after expenses) and since the Salesmanship Club’s inception more than $139 million has gone to charities.  This year with it’s new sponsor AT&T, they have donated more than $1.7 million in technology to the Momentous Institute as part of it’s new partnership, so the event will keep it’s spot as giving away more money to their charity than any other events on the PGA Tour. Another plus, the tournament has been embraced by the local Dallas community and is always well attended.

But the dirty little secret on the tournament, despite the perfect location of TPC Four Seasons Resort and the ability to give a lot of folks good vantage points to all of the actions the players don’t like the course.  Each year it’s voted one of the most unpopular courses, it Sports Illustrated players poll last month it was tied with Torrey Pines North as the worst course on the PGA Tour.  When Byron Nelson was still alive, out of respect to him they would show up, but since his death in 2006 marquee attendance has been low and the event doesn’t get the stellar fields it use to get.  The one good thing is that since so many tour players live in the Dallas area, there are more marquee players in the field than would be if this course was anyplace else.  This year the field is better than last year as they’re is 15 top-50 ranked players compared to 11 last year.

In giving this some closure the fact is that these guys are playing for over $7 million and someone will win $1.3 million for four days work so frankly it doesn’t matter what the course is like, there is a lot of money on the line.

Change is coming, but not for a while:

The Byron Nelson will move to a new course in 2019.  The course called Trinity Forest will be in Dallas so it will move away from Irving, Texas.  The course is being built by the Coore & Crenshaw design firm and is being built on an old landfill along Loop 12, east of Interstate 45.  The new course is on the opposition end of Dallas, south of the city near Dallas Ft. Worth airport.  The golf course deal was conceived by top AT&T officials in conjunction with Southern Methodist University and the First Tee of Dallas. SMU will build a facility at the course for its golf teams, and First Tee will have the use of a small nine-hole course on the north end of the site.

The city is mandating that 25 percent of rounds at the course be available for public play. But most of these will be through charitable tournaments or similarly organized events instead of individual daily-fee tee times.

Despite all of the changes that have been made to TPC Four Season it has never done the job in appeasing players.  So with a new course, that will be tailor made with this event in mind, it will become the sweetheart of the PGA Tour.  It’s funny, that was the thinking 13 years ago at the Shell Houston Open when they built their own course and things didn’t work out that way.  The reason the event gets marquee names is the date, a week before the Masters is a big draw.  But the course never became the sweetheart of the tour.  So will this change things?  Good question, guess we will have to wait until 2019 but one thing is for sure, the design team of Crenshaw and Coore are the best and if anyone can build a course that players will like, this is the team to do it.

Things you need to know about the AT&T Byron Nelson Classic:

This will be the 62nd edition of the AT&T Byron Nelson Classic, which was formerly called the Dallas Open. The TPC at Four Seasons Resort Las Colinas has been the main site of the tournament since 1986.

The inaugural Dallas Open in 1944 was won by Byron Nelson by a whopping 12 strokes.  Three annual tournaments were staged with Nelson winning the first, then Snead winning the next followed by Hogan winning in 1946.  After that the city couldn’t find a sponsor for the tournament and after a lapse of 10 years James Ling sponsored the event beginning in 1956.  The tournament has been played every year since then with the exception of 1963 when the PGA Championship was played in Dallas and in 1965 when the tournament was switched from September to the spring.  In 1967 the Salesmanship club took over sponsorship and the following year the tournament was renamed after Byron Nelson, who was born just outside of Dallas and had a 630-acre ranch in Roanoke, Texas.  The tournament is the 9th oldest active event on the PGA Tour and along with the Arnold Palmer Invitational is the only event named after former players.

Course information:

TPC Four Seasons Resort

• Irving, Texas
• 7,166 yards     Par 35-35–70
• The TPC Four Seasons Resort has a 76.0 rating and slope rating of 142 from the championship tees. The course is part of the TPC network and has members but is open to those who stay at the Four Season Resort. The tees are TifSport bermudaGrass, the fairways and round Bermudagrass while the greens are Bent.  In 2014 TPC was the 14th hardest course on the PGA Tour playing to a 70.541 average,  a half a shot over par per round.  In 2013 TPC Four Seasons was the 18th hardest course on the PGA Tour playing to a 70.413 average which was just a notch under a half a shot over par, per round.
• It was designed and built by Robert Trent Jones Jr. and opened in 1983.  The course was remodeled in 1986 by Jay Morrish, Byron Nelson and Ben Crenshaw.  The course is on 150 acres of former prairie land that was transformed into a course that can stretch up to 7,200 yards. The average green size is 6,00 square feet, which is pretty much the average on the PGA Tour.  It features 68 bunkers and water comes into play on eight of the 18 holes.
• Over the years the course has had several changes, but the biggest one came after the 2007 tournament.  D.A. Weibring was hired and his company came in and did some major renovations.  Basically he came in and redid the greens, fairways and tees.  But he didn’t do the job off the cuff. He did a lot of research by asking every player on both the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour who played the course for feedback.  He also got help from Tour players J.J. Henry and Harrison Frazar as well as architect Steve Wolfard.   Other than a couple of holes like 11, which now is a short par 4 that is driveable, the course was a lot different and took a while for many to understand all of the rolls and angles.  Still, the layout is the same so those that have done well in the past will do well again.
• One of the toughest holes is No. 3, a 528-yard, par-4 which has water nearly the entire length on the right and bunkers on the left of the fairway.  It’s one of the hardest holes to hit the fairway on the PGA Tour and in 2014 it played to a 4.35 average, ranking it the 23rd hardest hole on the PGA Tour.
• Another redesign came a couple of years later to it’s closing stretch which has made it more dramatic and included extensive tree landscaping, rebuilding the greens, bunkers and tee boxes, and included putting in a water hazard in front of 17 and the addition of a four-pond water cascade feature on No. 18.
• Still at the end of the day it doesn’t make the course better, it just makes the course harder to play.

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the  AT&T Byron Nelson:

Key stat for the winner:

• TPC at Four Season is a strategic, thinking man’s type of course. You look at some of the winners, players like Adam Scott, Vijay Singh, Jesper Parnevik, Loren Roberts, John Cook, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Scott Simpson, Nick Price and Fred Couples, and you can see what they have in common.  The course adds a lot of artificial hazard in the way of water, deep bunkers, rough and trees so you have to think your way around the course.
• Experience use to be important in winning this event and if you look at the list of the champions since Byron Nelson took over in 1968 it’s a who’s who of golf.  This started to change a bit when Neal Lancaster won in 1994, but that could be counted as a fluke since the tournament was curtailed to 36 holes due to bad weather.  After that through 2008 the event still had great winners with Ernie Els, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, John Cook, Vijay Singh, Sergio Garcia, Scott Verplank and Adam Scott winning.  But when Byron Nelson died in September of 2006, things started changing.  Marquee players didn’t show up and since 2010 four of the five winners have been first-timers and the exception to that Jason Dufner in 2012 won for the second time.  So if the trend continues, look for a first-timer to win again.
• So what is important to play well at the Byron Nelson?  It use to be hitting lot’s of greens.  Between 1998 and 2008 every champion except for two were in the top-nine in greens hit, with five of them leading that stat.  But with the redesign of the course in 2007, since 2008 only two of the seven winners have been in the top-six of greens hit with three of them outside of the top-35.  In 2014 Brendon Todd ranked T-55th in greens hit.  One trend that changed was fairways hit.  Between 2000 and 2010 the champions average rank in fairways hit was 25th.  But things changed, in 2011 Keegan Bradley ranked T-10th, in 2012 Jason Dufner was 2nd, in 2013 Sang-Moon Bae was T-39th while Brendon Todd was first in driving accuracy in 2014.  So in looking for a winner, start looking for guys that hit is straight and are still looking for that first PGA Tour win.
• You have to place yourself high up the leaderboard going into the final round.  Since 2002 seven of the 13 winners either held or had a share of the third round lead.  Two of the winners were two shots back, two were 2 shots back with Sangmoon Bae 3 shots back in 2013 and Keegan Bradley 5 shots back in 2011.  But the fact is that going into the final round you have to be close, preferably with the lead.  Here is a chart that shows how the winners did after each round of the Nelson and how they stood.

Going back to 2005 most of the winners have something in common.  Seven of the ten did not play well leading up to their Nelson wins, here is there best finishes in the five weeks before winning the Nelson:

Year-winner                        Best finishes 5 weeks before

2005-Ted Purdy                 T-28th, Shell Houston

2006-Brett Wetterich        T-4th, Zurich Classic & T-6th Shell Houston

2007-Scott Verplank         T-30th, Masters

2008-Adam Scott              T-25th, Masters

2009-Rory Sabbatini        T-2nd, Zurich Classic

2010-Jason Day                 T-22nd Heritage, Quail Hollow

2011-Keegan Bradley        T-26th, Zurich Classic

2012-Jason Dufner           Win, Zurich Classic

2013-Sangmoon Bae         T-33rd, The Players

2014-Brendon Todd          T-38th, Heritage

So what does this mean?  That players don’t have to be playing well leading into the Nelson.  Also since six of these ten won for the first time that means about half the field this week could win.

Now I don’t want to jinx the tournament, but weather in Texas has been downright terrible the last couple of weeks.  Unfortunately look for that terrible weather to plague the Nelson as forecasters are calling for only 20% chance of rain on Thursday but 60% chance of rain and thunderstorms on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  So what happened at Colonial with lot’s of stops could happen this week in Dallas.