Lanny Wadkins says Texas PGA Tour course he renovated isn't a pushover

Lanny Wadkins has spent plenty of time at TPC Craig Ranch since it debuted in 2004. The course, which sits on the northeast edge of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, was the host when Wadkins' son Travis went through Q-School, and that marks just one of many trips the 21-time PGA Tour winner has made to the property since it opened for play.

And while most golf course architects insist they're not concerned with what PGA Tour players shoot on the courses they build or renovate, the straightforward Wadkins is frank about one of his goals in reworking the property that was originally designed by Tom Weiskopf. TPC Craig Ranch has hosted the CJ Cup Byron Nelson for each of the last five years since the event moved from nearby Trinity Forest.

After Scottie Scheffler tied the Tour's 72-hole scoring mark of 31-under 253 this year, executives from Invited — formerly known as ClubCorp — enlisted Wadkins' help to revitalize the course and put some teeth into it. The course is now reopened for play and will have a new look when the Tour comes back to town in May.

"Invited basically said they didn't want 30 under winning the thing anymore," Wadkins said. "And I told them, don't worry.

"I would say that I did think about the Tour, particularly with the length and the bunkering. We've got one, two, three holes or so that play downwind and the bunkers don't even start until 315 or 320 yards. So, you know, that's definitely with the Tour in mind. If I'd put them where they normally would have gone, they'd have blown them over, never even seen them.

"I did think about the fairway bunkers as far as tightening the property up somewhat. Craig Ranch is a big piece of property. So we did four waste bunkers on holes 3, 5, 10 and 16, that when the plantings that we did with the native grasses and the Texas sage and stuff grows in, it's going to make it look a lot more intimate and really have a lot more character. It's going to be a lot more intimidating from the tee."

That was important to the course owners, who had seen the scores get lower and lower. All five years the event has been played at TPC Craig Ranch, the winning scores have been at 23 under or lower. Prior to 2018, on 10 different course, the winning score had never reached as low as 20 under.

But the renovated Craig Ranch should play firm and fast. Since the grass is sturdier, greenkeepers should be able to keep it longer for member play, but cut it down before the tournament, causing for a more difficult round.

And more importantly, Wadkins refigured all the bunkering and green complexes.

"Most of the bunkers at Craig Ranch before were not really right against the putting surfaces. They were set back, which is really more of a hindrance to the guys who don't play as well. So, you're hurting the members," Wadkins said. "Our bunkering is right up against the greens for the most part, at least around the greens. The greens have a lot more movement in them than they did before.

"We've got a green that emulates No. 14 of Augusta on No. 11. So, it's a big false front you've got to carry up over, but there's plenty of room back there. So, the one thing we did was most of the locations where the holes are going to be placed, they're only 1 or 2 percent. So, they're very, very puttable and very fair, but there is movement in the rest of the greens. So, I think that's going to be the biggest thing they're going to notice. The bunkers will be deeper."

Although Craig Ranch is fairly flat, it's not short, as the private club has previously played to 7,414 yards with a par of 72 for the Tour. The distance didn't radically change, but the waste bunkers and tighter fairways should give pros more of a challenge.

"My basic premise with the Tour pros, I want them to step on the tee and think a little bit. I don't want them to step there and say, 'Hey, I'm just going to hit it as far as I can and chase it and hit it again.' That's not going to work out there. So they've they've got it if they hit it they in the fairway, they can play all they want to. But I wanted them to play with a purpose."

"With some of the shorter holes, we really made that happen. They've got to think. You can't just stand there and let it go."

David Pillsbury, the CEO of Invited and a former executive vice president of the PGA Tour's Tournament Business Affairs, said the goal with the renovation was to create something that can stand the test of time.

"It was really two-fold, what we wanted to do. It was time for a refresh. Tom’s design was a very good design, but while the golf course was contemporary at the time, and it’s a beautiful piece of land and a wide open golf course, we needed a refresh," Pillsbury said. "My objective was to make it timeless. Unique and timeless and to put some teeth back into the golf course.

"It was a bomb-and-gauge, and the pros could hit a wedge from anywhere. They won’t be able to do that out there. They're going to have to think on every shot."

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Lanny Wadkins says PGA Tour course TPC Craig Ranch will play tougher