2015 AT&T Byron Nelson Discussion Thread

[mvmac]

The 2015 AT&T; Byron Nelson will be played at the TPC Four Seasons in Irving, Texas. Last year, Brendon Todd picked up his first PGA Tour win at the Byron Nelson, where he finished 14-under par.

POWER RANKINGS: AT&T; BYRON NELSON CHAMPIONSHIP

RANK		PLAYER	COMMENT
1 Jason Day Collected first PGA TOUR title here in 2010. Chased it with solo fifth (2011), T9 (2012) and T27 (2013). Co-leads TOUR in both par-3 and par-4 scoring.
2 Marc Leishman Settled for a T27 at Colonial with a pair of 70s on the weekend. Five top-12 finishes in six appearances at TPC Four Seasons; T3s in 2012 and 2014.
3 Dustin Johnson First start since THE PLAYERS (T69). Top 20s in last four trips to TPC Four Seasons (T7, 2014) with an actual scoring average of 68.375.
4 Gary Woodland Focus of converging trends. Runner-up at Match Play and T4 at Quail Hollow. Five straight paydays at TPC Four Seasons; personal-best T7 last year.
5 Jordan Spieth Fifth appearance and still in pursuit of first top 15 in his hometown event. But two wins and three seconds in his last eight starts this season.
6 Justin Thomas Making his debut. Top 25s in his last four starts, including a T7 in his most recent at Quail Hollow. Ranks fourth in the all-around.
7 Charley Hoffman He's finished a respective T11, T11 and T10 in the three stops in Texas this season. Led Colonial in strokes gained: tee-to-green. T8 here last year.
8 Ian Poulter Hasn't played here since 2009, but ended a four-year hiatus at Colonial with a T5 where he ranked fourth in strokes gained: putting.
9 Brandt Snedeker Connected four sub-70s for a T2 at Colonial, easily his best finish since winning at Pebble Beach. Putting was on point last week.
10 Matt Kuchar Always a threat, but truly a horse for a course. Top 15s in three of the last four editions. Currently fifth in scrambling and T3 in par-4 scoring.
11 Jerry Kelly Top 25s in his last four starts, capped by a T10 at Colonial. T1 in par-3 scoring, fourth in scrambling, 29th in strokes gained: putting. T21 here last year.
12 Zach Johnson First appearance at TPC Four Seasons in 10 years. Continues to grind through putting woes. Top 20s in six of his last seven starts.
13 Keegan Bradley Followed an early exit at the Match Play with a missed cut at TPC Sawgrass, but won here in 2011 and finished second in 2013.
14 Brendon Todd Defending champ placed T17 the year prior, so he was already trending. Scuffling lately but he shines where TPC Four Seasons rewards.
15 John Huh Rode an eight-birdie 64 on Sunday at Colonial to 18th place. Placed T8 here in 2013 and T16 in 2014. Ranks 23rd in strokes gained: putting.

[Gunther]

Who compiles the power rankings? Surprised Spieth is 5th. He should be the favorite, no? I'll be attending on Saturday. Fun event, not as many big names since the great man passed but always a rockin time at The Pavilion.

[FaldosEgo]

I've never been, but I'm considering going this year.

[Mr. Desmond]

From the Dallas Morning News - Wednesday May 27

Thursday - partly sunny today and the clouds are not a friendly shade of white

Featured holes at www.pgatour.com

IRVING — Hallelujah. The sun finally emerged Wednesday, though not enough to dry out the TPC Four Seasons Las Colinas or burn off the gloom on the eve of the AT&T; Byron Nelson.

By midmorning the tournament had lost three world-ranked players, No. 8 Jason Day, No. 24 Ian Poulter and No. 31 Louis Oosthuizen, though 10 of the top 33 remain.

After Wednesday’s pro-am, in which the par-4 14th was shortened to a 100-yard par 3 to give the fairway more drying out time, several players said the course is the wettest they’ve ever played.

“There’s a couple of fairways that are still really, really bad,” said world No. 12 Jimmy Walker, though adding that the greens, which have been mowed daily, are rolling fairly fast. “It’s tough. It’s wet. There’s no two ways about it.”

Weather permitting, the tournament will commence Thursday morning with players hitting to fairways that haven’t been mowed since last Wednesday.

Wednesday’s sunshine improved conditions, offering hope that the fairways could be mowed. Shortly before 4 p.m., however, Four Seasons director of golf Paul Earnest said it had been decided that mowing still posed too great a risk of damaging the fairways.

For past Nelsons, fairways have been mowed every day for a week leading into the tournament. Last Wednesday they were mowed at 45-hundredths of an inch. That also was when the rough was last cut, with workers using hover mowers.

Earnest declined to speculate how tall the fairway grass will be for Thursday’s first round, but if the course doesn’t get much more rain and mowing is able to occur after the first round, the mowing height will be half an inch.

Rain is in the forecast each of the next four days, but the chances are lower (40-50 percent each day) than they were during last week’s Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial.

“We’d prefer it not to rain, obviously,” Earnest said. “We don’t fear being unplayable. It’s only a matter of how great of an experience it could be.”

Fortunately, Earnest said, the wet early spring gave the course excellent grass coverage and density, which offered a better foundation for overcoming the rain that’s continued through May.

“We were poised to have the very best conditions we’ve ever had here,” he said, adding that just a few days of dryness would have allowed proper pretournament mowing.

“We would want to wow the players and the spectators and the TV audience,” he said. “We were poised to do that. Now it’s going to be a little more difficult.”

Day, the 2010 Nelson champion, played a few holes in Wednesday’s pro-am, then withdrew, citing “extreme dizziness.” Poulter, who tied for fifth at Colonial on Sunday, tweeted that he “picked up a slight strain in the Gym on Monday, so taking precautions and not chancing it.”

Oosthuizen, the 2010 British Open champion, cited a neck injury. He also withdrew after the third round at Colonial.

Though no players have publicly cited course conditions and the threat of more rain as a reason for not playing, the Nelson as of Wednesday evening had 11 withdrawals since last Friday, forcing deep digging into the alternates list. Tournaments typically incur five or so withdrawals.

“The golf course couldn’t be more different this year than it was last year,” said Brendon Todd, who won last year’s Nelson by two strokes over Mike Weir, who finished two shots clear of third-place Charles Howell III and Marc Leishman.

Soft conditions, Todd said, generally bring more players into the mix — though he added that players like himself and Weir, who drive the ball low and rely on the short games to score well will be at a disadvantage.

[Mr. Desmond]

The Nelson course looks very green after about 13 inches of rain in May.

About 89 degrees, partly cloudy, and humid, so not exactly great weather this afternoon and not much wind.

Spieth is out on the course and on TGC.

[Mr. Desmond]

Spieth burns the hole all day, making nothing, and shoots -1.

Mother Nature did not burn the hole -- she hit it with about 5 hrs and 7 inches, yes 7! inches of rain during the night.

Let's see if they can dry out. Another front is making its way up from South Texas.

[Wally Fairway]

So today, if they play, the 14 hole will play as a 100 yard par 4

Is there a reason that don't change it to a par 3?

[rehmwa]

So today, if they play, the 14 hole will play as a 100 yard par 4

Is there a reason that don't change it to a par 3?

Who cares?  lowest score wins regardless of how each hole is labeled.

I wonder if players would attack courses differently if there wasn't any par designations at all.  (I doubt it, but I'm sure there's still a mental aspect to having the expectation put out there....)

[Mr. Desmond]

Nothing like an entire area suffering from too much water -- they were asking people to stay home this morning in the DFW area.

Might affect the Nelson gallery.

[Gunther]

So today, if they play, the 14 hole will play as a 100 yard par 4 Is there a reason that don't change it to a par 3? [URL=http://thesandtrap.com/content/type/61/id/122853/] [/URL]

I don't like it because if someone aces it, it will be considered an albatross and go in the record books as such. OTOH, not sure what else could be done as evidently they intend to use the entire hole over the weekend so I guess this is the only answer. Anyone ever heard of this happening elsewhere?

[Wally Fairway]

@NoLayingUp gives their insight in to 100 yard par 4's and ZJ

As for me, I'd like to play that hole & add another 3-putt par to my collection

[iacas]

Is there a reason that don't change it to a par 3?

I wonder if the company that pays out money to charities or whatever is happy that there will be a dramatic uptick in birdies and eagles today…?

[DutchGolf]

According to The Golf Channel, the 14th is counted as a par 3. So Woodland his ace doesn't count as a double eagle

[Chilli Dipper]

Has the PGA Tour played on a par-69 course before?

[Mr. Desmond]

Fish in the Bunker, Beer in the Fairway ... that's my kind of tournament.

From the Dallas Morning News:

After five inches of rain further drenched the TPC course overnight Thursday, causing this morning’s delay, a several-foot-high river of water ran across the 14th fairway. The 14th fairway is the closest spot on the course to a canal that runs alongside the course.

“We had a full case of beer out in the middle of the fairway that flooded out of the concession tent that was on the 11th tee,” White said. “It had to flow probably 130 yards -- full case of beer, sitting out there this morning at 5:30 when we were out there looking at it.

“If you saw it, you’d understand (why the hole had to be shortened).”

Earnest, Four Seasons superintendent Scott Abernathy and about 60 groundskeepers -- about a third of them volunteers for the tournament -- began arriving at the course at 4 a.m.

While crew members feverishly to get to TPC course into a playable condition this morning, one the many odd sights was a carp flopping in a greenside bunker on the 5th hole.

“I say it’s not typical, but this is the fourth time this month that we’ve had fish where they don’t belong,” Earnest said. “Fish don’t like it much, either.”

[colin007]

Watching the replay, some dumbass (don't know which one, was watching on mute with captions on) said after Aaron Badds airmailed a green, "trapping it obviously, lofting it at impact so it would carry that far"...sigh....

[Mr. Desmond]

DFW is getting hit with a couple of waves of rain this morning -- one arrived around 1 am and did not last long but was violent. The other hit about 30 minutes ago with winds, lightning and violence along with more water.

This may delay play although radar shows this front from the west is not wide. It is receding north of DFW Airport at the moment.

Weather is a big deal this year - usually it's hot and maybe humid, and dry. This year, with the area flooding, we are a little more excited about living in warm Seattle South. Not fun - courses are even closing for a day or so or over a nine, ranges are closed.

[Mr. Desmond]

Start of play is delayed for 3 hrs today