EDS Byron Nelson Classic

April 24 - 27, 2008
TPC Four Seasons Resort & Cottonwood Valley GC
Irving, Texas
Par: 72 / Yardage: 7,166
Purse: $6.4 million with $1,152,000 going to the winner
Defending Champion: Scott Verplank

List of Champions & Scores

Results & Scores 2007 EDS Byron Nelson

Box Score of 2007 EDS Byron Nelson

Tournament facts:

Tournament information:

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 12th oldest active event on the PGA Tour and along with the Arnold Palmer Invitational is the only event named after former players.

Course information:

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. Over the years the course has had several changes, but the biggest one came after last year's 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.

Here's a list of all the changes that were made:

• Reshaped all the greens and surrounds
  
• Reshaped all tees into square complexes and cleared landscaping to improve views and/or sight lines
• Lengthened Holes 1, 2, 15, 16, 17, only adding 200 yards in length. The course is now 7,166 yards from back tees
• Rebuilt all 67 bunkers with deeper contouring and replaced with 80,000 cubic yards of white sand
• Relocated more than 165 trees with the largest tree spade in the world - 60 feet tall - also being moved
  
• Moved 75,000 cubic yards of dirt and planted 72 acres of new sod
• Replaced irrigation system with state-of-the-art system that includes almost five miles of irrigation pipe, 1,800 sprinkler heads and 2 million linear feet of wiring

• Tilted left side of No. 1 landing area to the left in order to improve visibility from the tees. Also reworked fairway bunkers on the right, and shifted the green back into the hillside.
  
• Cleared the landscaping on the hill rising above the first and second greens and mounds softened, allowing fans to watch action on five holes
• Separated the shared green of No. 5 and 9, making a narrower target for No. 5, lowering the area in front of ninth green for bump-and-runs, and repositioned the fifth tee
• Returned No. 11 to a risk/reward, drivable par 4
• Created space for viewing boxes and larger gallery around No. 17, enhancing its reputation as the signature hole
  
• Moved the 18th tee left to direct drives into the right-to-left slope of the fairway, shifted the green left and lowered it three feet and enhanced the water along the left-hand with four cascading lakes creating a re-circulating waterfall guarded by 300 tons of rock

For a more comprehensive look at the courses, look at this Course Overview done by PGA Tour.com

The Buzz:

Over the years this tournament became big mostly because of the man Byron Nelson, not for the event or for the course itself or even the well-run Sportsmans Club. But the bottom line is that the players respected and honored Byron and major players would show it by appearing at the event. The reason they did that was not only for what Byron and the tournament meant but for what Byron did for all of the players. Until his death on September 26th, 2006 Byron spent a lot of time in corresponding with players with hand-written letters and woodwork. Little do people know that the members of the Ryder Cup team in 2006 received slivers branded with a psalm for each team member from Nelson just a month before his death. So members of the PGA Tour always respected and honored Nelson.

The dirty little secret about the event, howevere, was that even though all of the players attended, a lot of them didn't like the course and didn't like having to play two courses. With the Nelson wedged between events that had courses like Augusta National, Harbour Town, Quail Hollow, Muirfield Village and for the first time last year TPC Sawgrass, the TPC Four Seasons simply didn't stack up very well. The combination of that, plus the poor dates just two weeks after the Masters, and the death of Nelson changed the event from a must-attend to a must-stay away.

Adding to the problems was the dissatisfaction of tournament sponsor EDS, which has been a part of the tournament since the end of its heyday in 2003 and has two years left on the contract. With the advent of Nelson's death taking him away from the event last year, the poor condition of the greens and the poor dates for this year's event, EDS chief executive Ron Rittenmeyer hasn't been a very happy person. Even with the $10 million spent on course changes it isn't going over to well in the eyes of EDS that only one top-10 player (Adam Scott) is in the field. If you look back to just 2005, seven of the top-10 players and 15 of the top-25 players attended, but more importantly the field had Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia and Vijay Singh, some of the top players in the game. Just six years ago when the event was played in early May, the Byron Nelson, Colonial and the Memorial were the big events wedged in between the U.S. Open. Now the landscape has changed as Wachovia and The Players Championship have been added to the spring, making it very tough to compete for top players.

It will be a difficult task to regain the popularity that the event had in the beginning of the century, but in redoing the course, especially after last year's debacle with the poor conditions of the course, it's a step in the right direction. One problem that the event has never had is attendance. The folks from Dallas have always been kind in their support and with some changes to its big tent, things should be even better. Still, the bottom line is that this event used to be big and powerful and isn't anymore.

Switching to the players, we haven't looked at the injury reports in a couple of weeks so here it is:

First, Duffy Waldorf is having knee surgery and will be out for most of the year.
Mark Calcavecchia has been sick since the Masters with the flu and withdrew from the Verizon. He is scheduled to play this week, but may still be feeling some after-effects.
Unfortunately for the event, Boo Weekley was in the field, but withdrew after his Verizon win, robbing the event a very popular player.
Englishman Nick Dougherty was supposed to play, but had to fly home to be with his ailing mother.
John Daly was given a sponsor's exemption, but after having surgery on his stomach last week, he also will not play. Look for Daly to be out of action on the PGA Tour for a bit as he will play in May on the European Tour.
Another player hurt is Justin Rose, who withdrew last Friday from the Verizon because of a lingering bad back. It's not known when he will return to action.
Another person we aren't sure about is Arron Oberholser. The last we saw him was at the Masters he said that he has had hand and shoulder injuries for a while now and was taking at least two months off. Oberholser had surgery last October to correct a recurring problem in his left hand. But he thinks he might have come back too soon because the area right where he grips the golf club still hurts with every swing. He doesn't plan to even touch a club for two months, and hopes that will help because more surgery is not an option.
Last but not least, unless you have been in a cave the last week, everyone knows about Tiger Woods' knee surgery and that he will probably not be back until at least the Memorial and it may be as long as the U.S. Open until with see him again.

Here are some things to look for this week:

Photo: © Scott Halleran/Getty Images Fans and players are looking at the action at the 17th green at the TPC Las Colinas.

The course has been completely renovated with new greens and new bunkering. Other than a couple of holes like 11, which now is a short par 4 that is driveable, the course will be a lot different and will take 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 aspect that has been taken away: since 1995 one round has been played across the street at the Cottonwood Valley course but that has been dropped as all four rounds will be played at the TPC Four Seasons.

• 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 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.
• Experience has always been a key to winning, since the tournament has been played at the TPC at Four Seasons. Ted Purdy, Neal Lancaster, Robert Damron and Brett Wetterich are the only players that won for the first time. We can call the Lancaster win a fluke since the tournament was curtailed to 36 holes due to rain, but can't explain the Purdy, Damron and Wetterich wins other than to say they were playing great at the right time. Still, experience on a renovated course isn't much help so the chances are even greater that a first-timer or someone not experienced at winning could prevail this week.
• Now I don't want to jinx the tournament, but weather in Texas is normally stormy this time of year. But not this week as right now forecasters are calling for a perfect week of weather with every day in the low 80s with low humidity. Players should enjoy this good run of weather.
• Except for John Cook, Loren Roberts and Shigeki Maruyama, all the winners since the tournament added one round at Cottonwood Valley in 1995 have been long hitters. That is because both courses tend to favor length and a player can get away with errant shots, especially at Cottonwood Valley. The question is with Cottonwood Valley dropping out, will length still be important?
• Very important to note that to play well at the EDS Byron Nelson you have to go low. Since 1995 there have been 2,678 rounds in the 60s at of 8,169 rounds played, a 48.2%. That is the most of any course holding a four-round event, which means that you have to go low to play well. So in looking for that special winner this week look at this list of players that have shot the most rounds in the 60s in 2007:
  19 Boo Weekley
  19 **Briny Baird
  18 **John Senden
  17 **John Merrick
  16 **Chad Campbell
  16 Jim Furyk
  16 **Justin Leonard
  16 **Kevin Na
  16 Robert Allenby
  16 **Steve Marino
  16 **Tim Wilkinson
  

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