Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial

May 24 - 27, 2007
Colonial Country Club
Fort Worth, TX
Par: 70 / Yardage: 7,054
Purse: $6.0 million with $1.08 million going to the winner
Defending Champion: David Howell

List of Champions & Scores

Results & Scores 2006 Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial

Box Score of 2006 Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial

Tournament facts:

Tournament information:

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.

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.

The Buzz:

This tournament as numerous problems, first they can't get marquee players to attend this 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 it.

That isn't the case anymore. Some say its the schedule, being wedged inbetween the Wachoiva/Players and Memorial give players excuses not to play. This is also the week of the BMW PGA Championship, the biggest event in Europe and that has attracted a lot of players away.

The main reason could be the course itself. It could be the case of a grand old dame that has gotten old and has a face full of wrinkles. Many feel that the course has 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 has been low.

Remember, this on a course that in it's first 30 years was considered one of the hardest on tour, 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 noting 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, 13 of the 17 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 which probably gave Ben Hogan a jolt in his grave as being way too low.

Even though Crowne Plaza officials are great with the players and give them all the great perks they kind of expect, look for his tournament to continue to decrease. Would be interesting to see if they could grow some rough and make the course tough again if it will attract more marquee names like Tiger Woods, who has only played here once back in 1997

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 all the champions have won an average of 10 PGA Tour events. The winners range from Tom Watson with 34 wins and 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 59 year history of the Crown Plaza, only eight first winners have done the deed with 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 Phil Mickelson isn't know for his accuracy but his win in 2000 was an exception as he only missed 13 fairways and ranked 3rd in that category. In looking at the last nine winners, all of them except for last year's winner Tim Herron were in the top-ten in driving accuracy for the week and the last six of seven 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 2007 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 the fact that since the course only plays 19 yards longer than it did in 1946, players have to throttle back and hit fairway woods and irons to keep it in play. One of the reasons that you don't see Tiger Woods here is because of that, it takes a special player to keep it in play. So in a way strategy plays an important part in playing Colonial.
• There is a bad weather report for this week. Storms are suppose to hit every day so with wet conditions look for a mudder to do well.
• Shot-making is almost a lost art and if you look at the last eight 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. 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 the last four champions and you will see they always seem to do well here:
  

  How the winners have scrambled in past six years:
  Year	Player	Scrambling stat/rank
  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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