BlogByron Nelson Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

Nelson event 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 2015 it raised $4 million (after expenses) and since the Salesmanship Club’s inception more than $143 million has gone to charities.  With it’s  sponsor AT&T, they have donated millions of dollars 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 in Sports Illustrated players poll.  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.

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.

One person that will be taking this week seriously is Bryson Dechambeau.  After playing in the Masters in which his T-21st finish got him low amateur honors, he took a chance and turned pro.  He needs to get into the top-125 in earnings or FedEx Cup points to get his PGA Tour card.  He had seven seven sponsor’s exemption to do it in, he has used three and has four left.  He is going to play in the next three events in the hopes of at least earning enough points to get to the 150th spot, which would give him temporary membership but unlimited sponsor’s exemptions.  Now he finished T-4th at the RBC Heritage and made $259,600, for this week he would be 155th on the money list and his unofficial 123 FedEx Cup points would place him 173rd on the FedEx Cup list so he really needs a top-five finish in the next three weeks.  Even though he won the U.S. Amateur last year, his exemption into the U.S. and British Open were taken away when he turned pro, so he is going to try to qualify on June 6th.  If he doesn’t get into that, he has one spot open to him and will take it at the end of June at the Quicken Loans.  But he would really like to take care of business in the next three weeks.

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 14 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 63rd 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.  Last year rain created a nightmare as the course needed to be alternated with five inches of rain on Thursday night and par was reduce to 69.  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.

Let’s take a look at key stats that are important for those playing at the TPC Four Seasons:

Last year’s AT&T Byron Nelson was a mess. Heavy rains the week before and during the tournament caused a mess as a river overflowed and made parts of the course unplayable. The course staff was able to get the course ready for the first round and it was played, but overnight rains on Thursday made the 14th hole unplayable. The problem was the fairway was completely under water so PGA Tour officials decided to play the par-4, 14th as a par-3 for the final three rounds. The yardage changed from the first round from 388 to between 104 and 124 yards for the final three rounds, so par for the course was 69. The weather was so bad that collecting shotlink data became impossible after the first round so we don’t have the wealth of data as we normally have. Also because par changed, the course was different so historically the 2015 event has two scoring averages, one from the first round, as a par 70 the course played to a average score of 70.52 and was ranked 15th toughest on tour. As for the final three rounds, when par was 69 the scoring average was 67.93 and ranked 39th toughest on tour. Over the years TPC Four Seasons has played over par and in the last six years the hardest it ever played was in 2010 when the scoring average was 70.79 and it ranked 12th.
So with no shotlink data for last year we can’t get the stats needed to do our course keys. So what we are going to do is cheat a bit and use the data from 2014. Since the weather was good and winds were up which each day seeing an average of 10 to 15 MPH it gives us a good representation of how the course played.

So this is based on the most important stats for TPC Four Seasons, based on data from the 2014 AT&T Byron Nelson, and using data from all the players in the field with stats from 2016. What we do is take their rank for each stat and then add up the four catagories.
The scoring average of the field for the 2014 AT&T Byron Nelson was 70.54, so with par being 70 that means the average score was a half a shot over par, making TPC Four Seasons the 14th hardest course to score on in 2014. We can easily say that this can’t be called a “natural” course but one that has evolved over the years. The land was basically flat ranch land when first built on and all the undulations were man-made. The same goes with the character of the course, over the last 30 years many holes has been redone and hazards added like the water hazards on the 17th and 18th holes which have been drastically altered in the last decade.
The course has a big river that splits it apart and comes into play on the 4th, 5th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 14th holes. Lakes have been built and come into play on the 3rd, 17th and 18th holes so water comes into play on nine of the holes.
Water does come into play off the tee on the 3rd, 4th, 9th, 11th and 14th holes and with lot’s of fairway bunkers that’s the reason we choose Driving Accuracy as our first category In looking at the winners, four of the last five winners have ranked in the top-16 with 2012 champion Jason Dufner ranked 2nd and 2014 winner Brendon Todd ranked first. Last year in all the wetness champion Steven Bowditch ranked T-16th, for the week in 2014 driving accuracy ranked 8th toughest on tour.
Next up is greens in regulation in which TPC Four Seasons ranked 19th on tour in 2014. 12 of the last 17 winners were in the top-ten with six of them leading that stat, the last to do it was Jason Dufner in 2012.
Our third important stat is scrambling, because the contours of the greens have shots running off them making it hard to get up and down. In 2014 scrambling ranked 19th in that stat and last year’s winner Steven Bowditch was T-38th.
Last is Par Breakers as it ranked 16th in 2014. As for Bowditch he was first last year mostly because he produced the most birdies in Byron Nelson history with 27.

*Driving Accuracy: Percentage of fairways hit, it’s important to hit fairways in order to score well

*Greens in Regulation: Stat is great barometer on how good players manage their games around TPC Four Seasons. Every year the players that hit lot’s of greens do well.

*Scrambling: The percent of time a player misses the green in regulation, but still makes par or better.

*Par Breakers: Course always seem to give up a lot of birdies and eagles, so it’s a combination of both stats

Players from this year’s field with stats from 2016:

Click any column title in the table header to sort columns.

For the rest of the players, hit this link:

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 eight 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 while Steven Bowditch was T-16th last year.  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 eight of the 14 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

2015-Steven Bowditch      T-37th, Puerto Rico Open

So what does this mean?  That players don’t have to be playing well leading into the Nelson.  Also since six of these eleven 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.  Fortunately things are better and we can see a lot of good weather with very little chance of rain, except for that isolated afternoon thunderstorms that are always around Texas in May.