Tiger missing but the Shark to play at Byron Nelson
BY Bruce Young | US PGA Tour | 2003 EDS Byron Nelson Championship | Preview | 13 May 2003
The USPGA Tour hits Texas this week for the EDS Byron Nelson Championship. The event is the first week of a two tournament Texas’swing’ although this year the following event, the Bank of America Colonial in Fort Worth, has just that little extra spice with the participation of Annika Sorenstam.
The Byron Nelson has since 1944, when originally know as the Dallas Open, been one of the mainstays of the PGA Tour. Interestingly enough, it was at this event back in 1956 where Peter Thomson won his only PGA Tour event in the US when he won a playoff over Cary Middlecoff and Gene Littler. It had several venues early on but in 1958 the tournament moved to Oak Hill where it stayed until 1968 when it moved to the Preston Trail Golf Club and became known as the Byron Nelson Golf Classic.
Then in 1983 Texan, Ben Crenshaw, won the event when it was played for the first time at the TPC Four Seasons at Los Colinas and it has stayed there since although the Cottonwood Valley course, part of the same complex, became a joint venue in 1994. What that means therefore is that the first two rounds are alternated between the TPC and Cottonwood Valley courses with the weekend rounds on the TPC course only.
The TPC course was built in 1985 and was a joint consultation between Jay Morrish, Ben Crenshaw and Byron Nelson. Morrish would go on to great success as a designer with courses such as the Troon North Monument course in Scottsdale and the Loch Lomond course in Scotland both done in consultation with Tom Weiskopf. It underwent further and significant changes in 1999 under the design of Morrish. Both courses have bentgrass greens oversown with rye grass and Bermuda 419 fairways. The TPC course measures 7017 yards. In 1999 the course underwent considerable remodelling under the supervision and design of Jay Morrish.
The Cottonwood Valley course is shorter at 6846 yards and is essentially a hybrid design between Robert Trent Jones Jnr and again Jay Morrish. It opened in 1988 but a further nine holes were blended into the original course in 1985. It also has undergone changes, more especially to its bunkering, in 2002.
Recent winners of the event have included Shigeki Maruyama, Robert Damron, Jesper Parnevik, Loren Roberts and John Cook.
That Byron Nelson is so instrumental in the success of the event has many of the PGA Tour’s leading players making this event almost an annual pilgrimage. The respect in which this five-time major winner and eighteen-time winner in one season (1945) on the PGA Tour is held, is reflected by the support this event has had over the years.
This year there will be no Tiger Woods, the winner in 1997, as he is in Germany for the Deutsche Bank – SAP Open but 2003 Masters champion Mike Weir, Vijay Singh, David Toms, Phil Mickelson, Jim Furyk, Charles Howell and Sergio Garcia will be.
Also entered at this stage are Australasians, Steve Alker, Robert Allenby, Aaron Baddeley, Michael Campbell, Greg Chalmers, Mathew Goggin, Scott Laycock, Peter Lonard, James McLean, Greg Norman, Anthony Painter, Rod Pampling, Craig Parry, Craig Perks, John Senden, and Phil Tataurangi.
At $US5.6 million prizemoney there is plenty of reason to be in Texas this week.
