Colonial Country Club

After weather interruptions at The Players Championship, this week the PGA Tour moves to North Texas for the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, just next to Dallas. 2011 marks Colonial’s 75th anniversary and also the 65th staging of the Invitational, the longest running PGA Tour event after the Masters continuously held at its original site. The club was founded in 1936 by local businessman Marvin Leonard, who at the same time supported and sponsored a struggling young golfer by the name of Ben Hogan starting out on his professional career. Colonial’s reputation grew quickly, and a successful US Open was staged here in 1941, paving the way for the hosting of a PGA event in 1946. Ben Hogan won the first two tournaments and went on to collect a further three victories, confirming Colonial as Hogan’s Alley. A testament of the high quality of the tournament and venue over the years is the Wall of Champions on the first tee, bristling with the names of golfing greats such as Sam Snead, Billy Casper, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus.

Colonial’s 6600m par 70 layout was created by two relatively unknown designers, John Bredemus and Perry Maxwell, and it is consistently ranked in the top 100 US golf courses. With tree-lined fairways in a beautiful parkland setting, the immaculately manicured course presents a wide array of challenges from the tees to the well-contoured greens. The round begins with good birdie opportunities at the 1st and 2nd - a 515m par 5 and a short 350m par 4 respectively - before the toughest stretch on the course.

Holes 3, 4, and 5 are collective known as The Horrible Horseshoe, a rarely-birdied 225m par 3 that has never yielded a hole-in-one in the history of the tournament, sandwiched between two really tough 440m par 4s. The 9th, a 365m par 4 with a lake protecting the front of the green, is the only hole on the outward nine where water is in play. The 580m par 5 11th is only reachable in two by the longest hitters, followed by the tightly-bunkered par 4 12th that is the toughest hole on the back nine. A difficult dogleg finishing hole with a green well protected by bunkers and water awaits those in contention, and the winner will don his tartan jacket under the watchful eye of the Ben Hogan statue that overlooks the 18th green.

Golfweather Editorial