This earlier post reviewed the problems that continue to plague the Shell Houston Open Golf Tournament on the PGA Tour schedule. However, to the north of Houston, the EDS Byron Nelson Open — which begins Thursday in Dallas — is facing many of the same problems that the Shell Houston Open is experiencing.
Due to its current spot on the PGA Tour schedule a month or so after The Masters, “the Nelson” has generally enjoyed one of the stronger “non-major” tournament fields — including Tiger Woods — because most players view it as a timely tune-up for The Memorial Tournament later in the month and then the U.S. Open in June. However, Woods is not participating this year because of the death of his father last week and my sense is that Dallas — as with Houston — may not see Woods again for a very long time.
Not only did Woods’ consecutive-cut streak on the PGA Tour end at last year’s Nelson, but the Nelson is played on two mediocre courses, Cottonwood Valley (for only the first two rounds) and the TPC Four Seasons, neither of which are particularly favored tracts among PGA Tour players. Moreover, next year, when the Players Championship moves to the second week of May, the Nelson will be moved up to the final week of April, just three weeks after the Masters. Thus, the Nelson will be followed by the Wachovia Championship in Charlotte and then the Players Championship the following week.
Notwithstanding Byron Nelson’s drawing power, it’s not likely that Woods, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and other top Tour players will cut their post-Masters layoff to two weeks to play in the Nelson when many of them will be playing the pre-Players tuneup the next week at Wachovia and all of them the following week at the Players. In short, the Nelson is about to begin experiencing the type of fields that the Shell Houston Open has endured over the past several years.
With San Antonio’s Texas Open already relegated to an afterthought during football season in the fall, and Ft. Worth’s Colonial Invitational gradually losing the best players because of the tight layout that is not conducive to the floggers, the PGA Tour better sit up and take notice — its four tournaments in the one of nation’s premier golfing states are suffering from serious neglect. How much longer will the thousands of Texans who volunteer their time to run those tournaments — and the tens of thousands who fund them — continue to do so in the face the subpar fields that the PGA Tour is serving up in Texas?