By D.A. Weibring
The last few weeks have been extremely interesting and very exciting for all of us at D.A. Weibring/ Resources Group, Inc. With the ground breaking for the renovation of the TPC Four Seasons scheduled for mid-May, my staff and I spent virtually every hour during the EDS Byron Nelson Championship week meeting with PGA Tour players, PGA Tour officials, the Four Seasons owners, Salesmanship Club representatives, EDS executives and others preparing for the big day.
The renovation of this 30-year old golf course has been in the planning stages for many months now, and since our firm was selected for this major renovation, I have taken my job as architect very seriously. An important part of that job is to solicited input from PGA Tour players as well as many of the other people who are involved with the tournament, and to do so makes for a hectic schedule. During this year's tournament, I was involved in numerous meeting and press conferences along with Steve Wolford, our golf course architect, J. J. Henry and Harrison Frazer, the two PGA Tour consultants who will be involved with us on this project. It's all part of our plan to reach out to all parties and build a sense of ownership and pride in the new TPC Four Seasons.
As you might imagine, we have been anxiously looking forward to this project and feel very confident that we will be able to improve the golf course dramatically.
Then, it's off to my other job, playing golf. And, as soon as the last meeting was over, I departed Dallas for Austin and the FedEx/Kinko's Classic at the Hills of Lakeway. It's one of my favorite golf courses on Tour. As a matter of fact, our own Steve Wolford was hired by Jack Nicklaus to be Hills' first golf course superintendent. Always a great judge of talent, Jack then hired Steve as one of his first design associates back in the early 80s. Steve joined the D.A. Weibring/Golf Resources team in the mid-90s and we feel lucky to have someone with his talent and experience now working on our team.
If you watch the Golf Channel, you know that I played well this past week in difficult, windy conditions. I was 3 shots back going into Sunday's round and made four birdies in a row on the front side and was able to cut the deficit to one stroke, but to Scott Hoch's credit, he holed out from a greenside bunker turning a potential bogey into a birdie.
However, I was still close going into the 16th hole and was able to make a birdie to a very difficult pin placement cutting the deficit to 2 strokes but I was unable to get any closer. I played well, but Scott played a little better and won by 2 shots. However, my second place finished was my best so far in 2007.
All in all, it's been a fun two weeks. I always enjoy the anticipation of renovating of a golf course as well as the excitement of playing well in a Tournament. I'm blessed to be able to do both.
I'm looking forward to kicking off the TPC project and I'll do my best to keep you informed. Hopefully, I'll continue to play well in next week's Regions Bank Classic in Birmingham, where I won two years ago. So, I'm hanging on to those good memories.
