Blown Wad: Players Tear Up TPC Craig Ranch (Again) After $25 Million Renovation

He came, he saw, he conquered. Lanny Wadkins, that is.

After last year’s blitzing of TPC Craig Ranch, where Scottie Scheffler won the CJ Cup Byron Nelson at 31 under, Invited Clubs tasked Wadkins with enhancing the challenge at its golf course. Twenty-five million dollars later, Wadkins answered the call. Wyndham Clark won on Sunday at a modest 30 under, a far cry from the 31 under that took home the title a year ago.

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

Uh, ok maybe Wadkins didn’t succeed quite as thoroughly as the club had hoped. Or enough to justify the $25 million spent on the renovation, an expenditure that doubled the initiation fee at the new and improved Craig Ranch from $75,000 to $150,000. Oof! Invited CEO David Pillsbury admitted the economics of the project only warranted a $10-$12 million investment, yet the club decided to double the spend to ensure the sponsor was happy. Yes, he really said that. Out loud!

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In case you somehow didn’t catch all of the action at the Nelson, here are a few highlights:

• Si Woo Kim bogeyed the 18th hole on Friday evening to shoot an 11-under 60.
• Scottie Scheffler made his first five of the tournament on the par-5 12th hole on Sunday, nearly becoming the first player in recorded PGA Tour history to complete an entire tournament without carding anything higher than four.
• Wyndham Clark fired a final-round 11-under 60, including a par on one of the three par 5s, to win the tournament.
• In one of my favorite activations so far this year, CJ Group offered a $40,000 Korean feast to the first player to ace “The Ranch,” the 135-yard par-3 17th. A $40,000 Korean feast prize at a tournament staged in Texas in honor of Byron Nelson. Sometimes you just have to step back and admire the absurdity of professional golf. Sadly, nobody took home the bibimbap this year.

Jokes aside, evaluating the renovation solely through the lens of this year’s scoring onslaught is not entirely fair to Wadkins. Conditions were mild across all four days, with hardly a breath of wind to defend the course and significant rainfall both leading into the tournament and during the first two days. Three of the four rounds were played under lift, clean, and place rules.

In Wadkins’ defense, the philosophy behind many of his changes comes from the right place. He upgraded the drainage system, added fairway bunkers at more appropriate PGA Tour driving distances, overhauled the agronomy — most notably replacing Ryegrass rough with Bermuda — repositioned multiple green sites closer to natural hazards like on Nos. 9 and 15, and spiced up many of the green complexes with more severe contouring. It is a better golf course now than it was before.

But both before and after the renovation, the most glaring issue with TPC Craig Ranch, aside from the asinine spending, remains the ease of putting. Though Wadkins added more slope to the greens, the sections intended for hole locations are extremely flat and uninteresting, an unfortunate and misguided PGA Tour stipulation. (The forgiving Zoysia fairways also mute the course’s difficulty, especially around the greens.)

“We’ve got a lot of movement on the greens, but if you go to where the hole locations are, nothing on any green is over 2 percent (of slope),” Wadkins divulged. “That means putts are outside-edge, one ball out, that’s about it.”

If I had a dollar for every time someone on the telecast said, “This putt doesn’t have a whole lot to it,” I’d probably have $5-$10 million to kickstart the next renovation at TPC Craig Ranch. Dottie Pepper noted on air that players seemed to be overreading putts throughout the week. It was a hilariously charitable and diplomatic way to say that every putt from inside 15 feet was nearly dead straight. Putts hardly broke more than a ball.

Also on the telecast, Colt Knost relayed that Si Woo Kim had recently started working with a new putting coach and “had found something.” Why yes, Colt, he found TPC Craig Ranch! Respectfully, if Si Woo Kim — annually a staple near the bottom of putting rankings on Tour — gains more than eight strokes putting in a tournament, it’s probably a sign the greens are not especially difficult to putt. Maybe the Tour should rethink its stance on slope.

Venue aside, congratulations to Wyndham Clark for re-entering the winner’s circle. Clark’s iron play has returned to form following a down year in 2025, and when his putter catches fire, as it did this past week, the 2023 U.S. Open champion remains a difficult golfer to beat.

Quail Hollow, Los Angeles Country Club (North Course), Pebble Beach, and now TPC Craig Ranch. It’s good to see Clark add hardware from another cathedral of the game.

Weekend Round-Up

Elsewhere in news, the PGA of America sent notice on Friday that, following a suspension, President Don Rea was relieved of his duties. The PGA’s messaging does not make clear whether the suspension refers to his previous role reduction — when he was removed from two PGA Tour boards and instructed to focus on non-public-facing member responsibilities — or if a new violation resulted in a previously unreported suspension. In any event, sadly, Rea’s watch has ended. Nathan Charnes has been named the acting president. I trust and pray we will hear from Rea again soon.

Blades Brown earned Special Temporary Membership on the PGA Tour following a T-14 finish at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, another impressive showing for one of the game’s most promising young talents. Brown, who turned professional at 17, celebrated his 19th birthday just this past Thursday.

At the end of last week, Sean Zak of Golf.com reported that the PGA Tour sent players a survey soliciting opinions on an equipment rollback and whether golf has a distance problem. I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised by the neutrality of the language in most of the 14 questions.

I suspect I’ll be far less surprised by the results. Let me take a wild guess: Tour players don’t believe there is a distance problem, nor do they want any changes to the equipment they use. You might as well survey rats on if there is a cheese problem!