2025 Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club – Preview

After a scintillating PGA Championship that saw Scottie Scheffler win his third career major, the Tour heads south to Texas for the Charles Schwab Challenge played at the legendary Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth.

Though the event’s name has changed numerous times, Colonial CC has hosted this tournament since 1946, making it the longest-running event on the PGA Tour held at the same location. From its beginning, the tournament has seen the most illustrious names in golf among its champions, including Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, and Tom Watson. Colonial is one of those rare gems that has stood the test of time, challenging the world’s best golfers year after year.

While Colonial’s storied past speaks for itself, it underwent the most dramatic change in its history with the 2023 renovation project. The course that Marvin Leonard opened in 1936 experienced an extensive makeover as renowned architects Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner completely redeveloped the entire course. The goal was to modernize and restore it as much as possible to its original form. Hanse says the objective was getting the course back to something that looks as if it’s “been there forever.” “It will still be the revered Colonial course we are all familiar with seeing and playing, but the Hanse work will improve, update, and maximize the legendary course and routing”, said Colonial’s general manager Frank Cordeiro.

Colonial CC is a challenging, tree-lined shot-makers course with tight fairways, numerous doglegs, and small greens. It is perhaps the PGA Tour’s quintessential positional course that places a premium on accuracy off the tee and on approach. Ball-strikers with past success on “less than driver” courses, who can be creative and shape their shots, and spike with the putter on the bentgrass greens will have an advantage. Jordan Spieth, perhaps, summed up Colonial best by saying, “Fit it into tight windows, hit fairways, and control the ball on the green.”

With an average winning score of 13-under over the last dozen years, the list of recent past champions here is full of quality ball-strikers who can “roll the rock”, including Daniel Berger, Kevin Na, Justin Rose, Jordan Spieth, Chris Kirk, and Zach Johnson. More recent winners, including Sam Burns and Jason Kokrak, took a more aggressive route off the tee by hitting driver at a 72% clip as compared to the field average of 58%. One thing both have in common with the previous group – both were among the best putters on Tour. 2023’s winner, Emiliano Grillo, only hit driver 46% of the time; he followed the same approach-putting combination, gaining 4.7 strokes on approach and ranking second on the greens, gaining 7.4 strokes with his flatstick.

The Field

The week after a major notwithstanding, along with the fact that it is not a Signature Event, there is a relatively decent field at this week’s edition of the Charles Schwab Challenge, with 10 of the top 30 golfers in the Official World Golf Rankings in attendance.

Fresh off winning the PGA Tour Championship, the field is headlined by world No. 1 and local Dallas resident Scottie Scheffler. He will look to repeat his “post-Masters” performance from last year when he won the RBC Heritage the week after winning the Green Jacket. With this being a “Texas” event, chances are quite low that Scheffler withdraws before Thursday.

Colonial’s most consistent contender, and another local, Jordan Spieth, returns for the 13th consecutive year, where he has ten top-14 finishes, including a win in 2016. Hideki Matsuyama, Maverick McNealy, Tommy Fleetwood, Robert MacIntyre, Brian Harman, Daniel Berger, J.J. Spaun, Akshay Bhatia, and Aaron Rai round out the list of top players teeing it up this week. Other past champions in the field include last year’s winner, Davis Riley, Emiliano Grillo, Kevin Kisner, Zach Johnson, and Chris Kirk.

With the Charles Schwab Challenge being an invitational event, there will only be around 132 players in the field with the top-65 and ties making it through the cut-line. One of the storylines to follow is how golfers perform this week who were either in contention or who struggled at last week’s PGA Championship.

Colonial Country Club – History

Located on the south bank of the Clear Fork of the Trinity River and just to the northwest of Texas Christian University sits Colonial Country Club. Founded in 1936 by Marvin Leonard, it was created out of his stubborn resolve to prove the naysayers wrong regarding the successful establishment of bentgrass greens in Texas.

Leonard convinced two visionaries in the golf architecture world, John Bredemus and Perry Maxwell to assist and help design the layout of the course. Bredemus drew up much of the original plan with Maxwell coming in after to improve the course by adjusting the routing of the holes. Maxwell specifically focused on toughening up holes 3-5 which today make up the “Horrible Horseshoe”.

When the course opened in 1936 it was quite similar to other layouts built during the same period. Narrow tree-lined fairways and tiny greens were the norm. And yes, Leonard defied the odds as Colonial sported the first bentgrass greens in Texas. Though unspectacular in many ways, throughout the years, Colonial has become the most iconic course in Texas. It hosted the U.S. Open in 1941 and became a mainstay as an annual Tour event starting in 1946. It was nicknamed “Hogan’s Alley” because of Ben Hogan winning five different times here on his home course.

The course was partially renovated in 2008 by Keith Foster. However, many people believe that his work did not restore enough of the original Maxwell design. So as soon as the last putt dropped in the 2023 tournament, Gil Hanse and his team started their restoration of the entire course to return it to its past glory. What is typically an 18-month project was completed in 11 months just in time for the 2024 tournament.

From a broad perspective, the project addressed every aspect of the course infrastructure, including a state-of-the-art irrigation system as well as new bunkers, tees, and greens. Many trees and bunkers were removed. Colonial’s abundance of trees had often made it seem like “a dark golf course”, Hanse said. “It felt as if you were hitting into these dark corridors. Greens were shrouded in the trees.” In their place will be more rough, light enough for amateurs but thickened during tournament week.

Just about every green will be lowered and “more receptive as targets.” Most greens were lowered, and some have shifted slightly back or to either side a few yards. Also, “barrancas” were incorporated throughout the course. A barranca is a normally dry streambed that channels water during periods of heavy rain. The new barrancas will be seen on holes 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 15, 16, 17, and 18 ― making the most of the existing, natural drainage channels on the property.

The biggest changes were to holes eight and 13, both par 3s. “The par three eighth hole was shifted left into more of a north-to-south orientation, in somewhat of a mirror image of the original hole, with a creek on the left side rather than a river on the right,” a release notes. “The 13th green also moved back and left, with bunkers added in front of the hole.” Hanse called the changes on those holes “dramatic.” The fairway on No. 5 was leveled on the left side. Trees were removed on the right side so players will now be able to watch errant tee shots fly into the Trinity River. In the past, it was difficult to even know the Trinity was over there.

“I was a little nervous at the beginning because of how great Colonial is,” says Ryan Palmer, a PGA player and member who lives in nearby Colleyville. “It always stands up to the professionals. I was really skeptical.” Like Palmer, PGA Tour players were concerned when first hearing about plans for the renovation. “Don’t screw up Colonial” was a common theme. Hanse, though, asked Palmer and his former caddie, James Edmonson, a member of Colonial and club champion on more than one occasion, to be part of the process. Palmer consulted from a professional viewpoint, and Edmondson gave perspective as an amateur, walking each hole with Hanse and sitting for hours-long lunches going over every hole. “I was shocked and impressed by how much Gil listened to us and took our advice,” Palmer says. “That said a lot about him and gave me more confidence in him and what the plan is. I think it’s going to be magnificent.”

 

Finish Position and Strokes Gained History at Colonial CC (2015-2024)