Does Byron Nelson event need a 'Tier 1' course?
Despite renovations, TPC Craig Ranch was at the mercy of players in this past week's CJ Cup Byron Nelson. Rex Hoggard and Ryan Lavner discuss if a better test is needed for the Nelson to be among the Tier 1 events moving forward.
Video Transcript
We've danced around the golf course at TPC Craig Ranch a couple of times.
Again, this was, the first year since 31 under par one, Scottie Scheffler going absolutely nuclear last year.
A $25 million renovation led, by Hall of Famer Lanny Wadkins.
What did you make of the new and improved TPC Craig Ranch test tracks?
The greens were a little more interesting.
I think in the past you really saw- Yeah the worst of Texas greens at this particular venue, and I think 31 under is an indication of why that is.
They were just pretty They were flat, they were big.
Didn't give those setting up the golf course many opportunities to actually try to put some sort of teeth into this course.
They, they're PGA Tour events, so you're not looking at what we had last week at Aronimink.
You're not looking for nine under to be the winning score.
But certainly once you get to 30 under par, you start trying to find ways to put teeth into a golf course, and you just couldn't do that before this redesign.
I think tour players are really tough to please, especially at a course where they've been to year in and year out, so you always sort of have to tiptoe around this.
I think Davis Love III ran into that this year, and he'll admit, 'cause he had been tasked with, I don't think even redoing is the way I would say Harbortown.
I mean, he needed to put a little bit more Pete Dye back into a golf course that maybe had been softened over the decades.
I mean, golf courses just kind of grow that way.
And I will say the ultimate compliment was most players didn't have anything to say about it.
They, they were completely fine with whatever it is he did.
That's the ultimate compliment you're gonna get from a player.
If they just g- are indifferent towards the work that you've done, you should be like, "Great.
Good stuff.
I pulled that one off."
And in this particular case, you didn't hear a lot of complaint, which I think is a win for Lanny Wadkins.
And no one's They're not gonna bend over backwards and say, "Yeah, the 18 green complex is great."
And 18 is about the only hole that I really saw a difference, 'cause it was a par five.
Turning it into a par four certainly impacted Si Woo Kim, Si Woo Kim's quest for a 59, but you also saw it over the course of the week.
It was a demanding finish.
I think it's a much more entertaining finish.
You're never going to end up with a difficult test there.
I don't know how many times I've covered that event going back, going back decades, and they've just never really found a good fit for that golf course.
And there's so many good golf courses in Dallas, but it's a, it's the same conversation that I'm not getting into now, but it's an infrastructure conversation.
Oh, boy.
You do not- No.
No you do not wanna double down on that conversation.
Not, not happening.
That was, that was very smart of you to, to bow out at this point.
And look, I, I know the quote is making the rounds now of Lanny Wadkins talking about the founding partners of the golf club.
He said, "Look, we don't want 31 under par to win this tournament anymore.
That's why he was taking on the renovation.
That's why it was gonna be more difficult."
And he said, quote, "Don't worry.
We're not gonna have a winner at this golf tournament be that deep under par."
That's right.
And what does Wyndham Clark do?
He shots 60, and shoots 30 under par, to win by three.
And look, there were pretty wholesale changes, right?
Like, there was a lot of bunkers, added, a lot of reshaping.
they reshaped all the greens.
But it was an ideal weather week if you're a PGA Tour player who was looking to make a lot of birdies.
It was really soft.
It was really wet.
They had lift, clean, and place conditions, in place for the first, three rounds.
TPC Craig Ranch, you had virtually no rough, at the golf course.
And I think the biggest factor, Rex, was there was almost no wind.
What, what would they have?
A max of like 10 mile an hour gusts- Yeah throughout the course of the week.
They had zoysia around the greens, which made chipping really easy if the players did miss some of the oversized greens.
Like, guys are gonna tear up places like that regardless if those are the conditions.
If it's soft, and it's wet, and there's a little rough, and there's no wind.
Like, that's a, that's a recipe for guys shooting 25, 30 under par regardless o- of the golf course, and that's exactly what happened this week at the Nelson.
And it resulted in the most birdies and eagles through 54 holes in a PGA Tour event, so far this season.
And of course, Wyndham Clark shooting 60, on Sunday.
That only furthers my belief that this is not a proper test for a Tier One tournament on the PGA Tour.
And again, if you're the PGA Tour, we're gonna get into this for our Love or Lavin segment, after the break, of what sort of What, what should be What, what we should characterize those tournaments as, and what sort of tests are we looking at.
TPC Craig Ranch has proven over and over again, even after this renovation, even after sort of this weather-aided, blitzkrieg that we had, over the weekend at Dallas, it's just not hard enough to test the players.
I know the greens were reshaped.
I know there's an emphasis now on being more precise with your approach shots because the, the pins can be hit up on these little shelves and behind these ridges and slopes.
It's, it's just not hard enough for these guys.
We now have ample proof.
No, and I'm not going to bat for that.
Like I said, it, it seems like they've been looking for a venue in Dallas for years, since I w- started covering golf way back in the day at Golf Week in 1999, and they've never really found the one spot that really hits.
And it's always gonna suffer by comparison.
I'm getting on a plane tomorrow to go to Fort Worth 'cause Colonial is such a classic golf course.
And it's fun because I, I immediately went to my weather app, and there are, there is gonna be wind next week at Colonial.
It's the one place you probably don't want wind, 'cause that golf course is plenty hard enough without getting those sort of dry, hot, Texas-style winds.
Also worth pointing out lift, clean, and place certainly helps these players.
Yeah.
If, if the way they can get the ball in hand, if you get the, the brand new fairways with the way they were bouncing, so you're hitting it far.
It was hot.
Yeah.
They're, they're gonna take advantage of that every single time.
I don't particularly have a problem with it.
I know we're gonna get into pace of play a little bit later in the show because that, that is a bit of an issue.
I argue all the time.
It's not an under par one last week at the PGA Championship.
That was a different type of test.
I found that entertaining.
I enjoyed that.
This is a completely different test.
And look, there's a reason why Baskin-Robbins has 31 flavors.
Not everyone loves vanilla.
In this particular case, I think it was still a fun test because I like seeing the best players go out and perform.
That means making birdies and eagles, and there was plenty of those.
Correct.
Tier One tournaments will be the best markets- the best venues, the best courses on the PGA Tour.
And Dallas is.
And, and Dallas, as Dallas certainly is.
I think you can lump Fort Worth in there and Colonial and be quite satisfied with that as a Tier One tournament.
