Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial

May 28 - 31, 2009
Colonial Country Club
Fort Worth, TX
Par: 70 / Yardage: 7,054
Purse: $6.2 million with $1,116,000 going to the winner
Defending Champions: Phil Mickelson

List of Champions & Scores

Results & Scores 2008 Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial

Box Score of 2008 Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial

Tournament facts:

Tournament information:

Courses that have held a PGA Tour the longest:
Tournament	Course	Year
Masters	Augusta National	1934
Crowne Plaza Colonial	Colonial C.C.	1946
AT&T Pebble Beach	Pebble Beach G.L.	1947
Sony Open in Hawaii	Waialae C.C.	1965

In addition the club is 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 Leoanrd, 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 it's first two events gave the event and the course the recognition that it needed.

Photo: © Colonial Marvin Leonard giving Ben Hogan the trophy in 1946.

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 appeareance in 1970 at the age of 58. Over the course of 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 playing 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 really 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 and he received financial backing from Marvin Leonard, the man who built Colonial. Hogan wasn't a big success and many times was 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 a even bigger way. After Hogan launched the Ben Hogan golf equipement 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.

Course information:

Photo: © Al Messerschmidt/WireImage A statue of Ben Hogan is right off the 1st tee.

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 he call in Perry Maxwell in 1940 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 50 Colonials had 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.

Photo: © Scott Halleran/Getty Images People watching the action at the 18th green at theThe Colonial Country Club.

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 new difinition 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. With regards to specifics, the Par 70 course plays rather short at 7,054 yards. It has a course rating of 74.7 and a slope of 133. Its trademark bent grass greens and Bermuda fairways line an open course that allows players to attack fairways and pins alike. The course has received much recognition during its lifetime. It has been ranked as high as 73 on Golf Digest's list of The 100 Greatest American Golf Courses. It also received special recognition for one hole in particular. The fifth hole, with the Trinity River running through it, is often mentioned as one of the best, most difficult holes to play in the country.

Now to try and bring scores up, Colonial underwent a small renovation after last year's event, adding 150 yards which will bring into play several of the fairway bunkers that in the last couple of years didn’t come into play. Now what makes this stat of adding 150 yards so incredible is that since the first year of the tournament in 1946, only 19 yards was added to the course between 1946 and 2008.

For more on Colonial, check out this page on PGA Tour.Com

The Buzz:

First bad news came last month when it was leaked that Crowne Plaza was going to use it's option to get out of the remaining two years of it's contract that went from 2007 through 2012. So after next year's event the folks of Colonial will be looking for another sponsor. The other bad news came last week when Amy Mickelson was diagnosed with breast cancer and Phil, the defending champion withdrew. Now both of these are small items but still tough news for a tournament that was making great progress.

Just three years ago the Colonial had numerous problems, first they couldn't get marquee players to attend the event anymore. In the old days this was a very prestige event to play in and each year players knocked down the doors to play in this Ft. Worth event.

Some of it was due to the schedule, being wedged inbetween the Wachoiva/Players and Memorial gave players excuses not to play. Adding to the problems, before the Colonial was played the same week as the BMW PGA Championship, the biggest event in Europe and that attracted a lot of players away.

But the main reason was the course itself. It was the case that the grand old dame had gotten old and had a face full of wrinkles. Many felt that the course lost it's bite over the years with technology taking it's toll. The greens were renovated a couple of years ago but still the scoring was low.

Remember, this on a course that in it's first 30 years was considered one of the hardest on tour as 12 of the 30 years showed scores of either even par or over par, but things have changed.

Starting in 1976 Lee Trevino won with a seven under score, the next year the winning score was eight under, then Trevino won again at 12 under.

Even though the course didn't change the players and technology changed and Colonial became nothing more than just another tour stop in which the players were able to shot low scores. Since Ben Crenshaw won with an 8 under par total in 1990, 14 of the 18 winning scores were double digit, thus making it just a run of a mill tour stop. In 2003 and '05 Kenny Perry won with a 19 under par total, while in 2007 and last year Rory Sabbatini and Phil Mickelson won with a 14 under total which probably gave Ben Hogan a jolt in his grave as being way too low.

The first thing that could help is the restoration program that has taken place in the last year as greens were redone, with bunkers being reshaped to make them harder. An additional 150 yards has been added as approaches to the fairways and greens have been narrowed, placing a premium on tee and approach shots. With these changes the chances of the winner being in double digits under par is slim, but we will have to wait and see. I see the winning score being around 6 to 8 under.

Despite Phil Mickelson not playing the field is still very strong with 12 top-25 players including four top-ten's (Paul Casey, Geoff Ogilvy, Kenny Perry and Vijay Singh)

Here are some things to look for this week:

Photo: © Al Messerschmidt/Wire Images The Colonial Country Club features beautiful, accessible holes like this one, the beautiful 16th green..

Experience at Colonial seems to be an important part to winning. Since 1996 if you count the number of victories that the champions have had total 153, an average of 11.7 per winner. The winners range from Tom Watson and Phil Mickelson with 34 wins to Nick Price with 18 to Sergio Garcia who had one. The fact is rookies don't win at Colonial. Yes Sergio Garcia got his first PGA Tour win at Colonial in 2001 but he had won in Europe. The same with the next first time winner Ian Baker-Finch in 1989, he had won in Australia. In looking at the 60 year history of the Crown Plaza, only eight first winners have done the deed which tells us to look for an experience person to win

• Key stat for the winner:
  Look at all of the champions and 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 exception to the rules, last year Rory Sabbatini only hit 29 fairways and ranked T60th but thanks to a hot putter he overcame the driving problems. The previous year Tim Herron was also George of the Jungle as he hit only 30 fairways and ranked T46th. In looking at the last ten winners, all of them except for the last two winners Rory Sabbatini and Tim Herron were in the top-ten in driving accuracy for the week and the last six of eight were in the top-four.
• An important stat to look at to gauge the champion this week is total driving. Look at this list of players in 2009 that are in the top-25 of this list and you will probably see this week's winner.
• What makes this course so tough of a driving course?.
  All of the doglegs, there are 12 of them and there is major changes to the course as it will be 150 yards longer than last year. In the past players hit lot's of fairway woods and irons to make sure drives didn't run through the fairway, be interesting to see if with the added length more drivers are used. Strategy off the tee and judgemeant on what club to hit is important and one of the keys in victory.
• There is a great weather report for the week with hot dry weather everyday. With the lack of rain look for a hard, dry course that could really be tough with afternoon breezes
• Shot-making is almost a lost art and if you look at the last none champions all of them except for Olin Browne are 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. But in looking at the stats, past champions tend to putt well as the late five and six of the last seven champions were in the top-15 in number of putts. A player like David Toms could be a good pick since he putts well on flat greens.
• Because of the firmness of the greens, balls tend to roll off the back and sides. So scramblers always do well at Colonial, no too ways about it you always are stuck a lot chipping at Colonial. Look at how all of the champions except for Tim Herron have done great in scrambling:
  

  How the winners have scrambled in past seven years:
  Year	Player	Scrambling stat/rank
  2008	Phil Mickelson	14 of 20 (70.00%) ranked T16th
  2007	Rory Sabbatini	19 of 24 (79.17%) ranked 3rd
  2006	Tim Herron	15 of 22 (68.2%%) ranked T26th
  2005	Kenny Perry	14 of 16 (87.5%) ranked 1st
  2004	Steve Flesch	20 of 26 (76.9%) ranked T2nd
  2003	Kenny Perry	7 of 9 (77.8%) ranked 6th
  2002	Nick Price	20 of 28 (71.4%) ranked T9th
  2001	Sergio Garcia	212 of 17 (70.6%) ranked 10th

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