Texas Open’s new home is at TPC San Antonio
Some PGA Tour courses have instantly identifiable signatures — the lighthouse at Harbour Town, the island green 17th at TPC Sawgrass, the rocky Pacific Ocean off the 18th hole at Pebble Beach.
For 15 years at the Valero Texas Open, the most recognizable feature was the roller coaster above the seventh green at La Cantera Golf Course. The towering structure, part of a Six Flags amusement park, was an appropriate symbol for a course built on a rock quarry and once voted by players the worst on tour.
But 2010 finds the Texas Open at a new site. The Oaks Course at TPC San Antonio was designed by Greg Norman to “incorporate the distinct nuances and indigenous flora of the natural Hill Country topography,” according to its Web site.
And a departure from Six Flags’ Der Rollschuhcoaster.
Leave it to Anthony Kim to give La Cantera the ultimate backhanded complement.
“I don’t know why people complain about the course,” Kim said last year. “Sure, there’s some funky holes, but at the same time, that’s the way golf should be.”
At 6,881 yards, La Cantera was one of the shortest courses on tour and produced light-hitting champions such as Justin Leonard (2000, ’01, ’07) and Zach Johnson (’08, ’09). But TPC San Antonio will clock in at a beefy 7,435 yards, much more appropriate for the Texas Open.
“This is long, but it doesn’t play that long,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday. “I think the emphasis is gonna be on approach shots to the greens because they’re quadrant-like, sectioned off. Sometimes there are three; sometimes there are six.”
Coming after the Players Championship and a month before the U.S. Open, the tournament has scheduling challenges. This year, TPC San Antonio has drawn only two of the tour’s top-20 money winners.
Two-time defending champion Johnson, however, sounds happy to be in San Antonio.
“It’s a new tournament, and that’s exciting, especially for Valero because they can make it what they want,” Johnson said. “Golf San Antonio and Valero can cultivate the tournament to their liking.”
