Moments after Scottie Scheffler tied the PGA Tour scoring record on TPC Craig Ranch last year, they started tearing up the course.
That’s only a slight exaggeration. Former pro golfer Lanny Wadkins was tagged to lead a two-year renovation that took a brief pause when the course hosted the CJ Cup Byron Nelson last May. Scheffler breezed through Craig Ranch and shot a 31-under-par 253 to win by eight strokes, then the real work began.
“(The course’s parent company) basically said they didn’t want 30 under winning the thing anymore,” Wadkins told Golfweek. “And I told them, ‘Don’t worry.'”
A new and hopefully more challenging TPC Craig Ranch makes its PGA Tour return this week when the CJ Cup Byron Nelson tees off Thursday in McKinney, Texas.
Since the course took over the longtime tour stop in 2021, the winning score has never been worse than 23 under par. Scheffler and his peers who’ve seen the course have felt it will be tougher than what it had been.
“I think tee to green it is definitely better than what it was before,” Scheffler said. “I think it’s a more interesting test. The greens have added a significant amount of slope to them, and some are a bit aggressive, but overall I think (Wadkins) did a really good job of creating some nice pin locations, and you definitely have to think your way around this place a lot more than you did before. I think the test has definitely improved around this golf course.”
That should catch golf fans’ attention after the discourse throughout last week’s PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Course outside Philadelphia. The consensus was that pin locations were diabolical and hard to reach on Thursday and Friday, and Englishman Aaron Rai went on to win with a score of 9 under, while nobody else went lower than 6 under.
“It’s really changed with all the new greens,” South Korea’s Si Woo Kim said. “Excited to play. I have to kind of worry about where I have to miss.”
As players recuperate from the PGA Championship, the only three players ranked top-50 in the world who are playing this week are Scheffler, Kim and Jordan Spieth. Rai was meant to play but withdrew.
The tournament has become as Korean as it is Texan since CJ Group’s title sponsorship began with the 2024 tournament. Some of South Korea’s best golfers make Dallas their American home base. Kim, Sungjae Im, two-time champion K.H. Lee and Tom Kim are among those competing this week.
“We’re very thankful for CJ’s support of this event,” Scheffler said “They stepped in when we needed them to. I really love the vibes of this tournament now. Like I said, we have great food in dining. It’s one of my favorite weeks of the year in terms of the food. We get a lot of young Korean players that come and play in this tournament, and I’m looking forward to getting out and competing with those guys again.”
No player from South Korea has won on tour since October 2023, but Si Woo Kim is ninth in the FedEx Cup race, with four top-fives, six top-10s and no missed cuts in 14 starts this year.
Then there’s Brooks Koepka, who is playing where he can in his first season back from LIV Golf, within restrictions set by the PGA Tour. Koepka, Scheffler and Si Woo Kim will form the marquee grouping for the first two rounds.
“I’m enjoying the grind. I’m enjoying battling it out here,” said Koepka, who is changing putters this week amid struggles on the greens. “Yeah, it’s just a newfound love, a newfound passion for the game, and something that I’m really, really enjoying being back on the road and grinding it out and trying to find it in the dirt. I think there’s something to be said about that. Each week is becoming more and more fun.”
–Field Level Media
