With three of the top-10 players in the Official World Golf Ranking raised in Dallas and still calling “Big D” home, AT&T Byron Nelson tournament director John Drago should have a leg up on securing a field of big names to TPC Craig Ranch in McKinney, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, that brings the locals rushing to secure tickets to one of the city’s most popular rites of spring.
But that was before No. 9 Will Zalatoris had season-ending back surgery last month and No. 10 Jordan Spieth withdrew on Monday citing a wrist injury. That leaves Scottie Scheffler, who slipped to No. 2 in the world when he draped a Green Jacket on Spain’s Jon Rahm last month, to take top billing all by himself on the tournament marquee this week.
But Scheffler’s broad shoulders are prepared to carry the load.
Scottie Scheffler and his caddie Ted Scott talk on the second tee during the first round of the 2022 AT&T Byron Nelson at TPC Craig Ranch. (Photo: Raymond Carlin III-USA TODAY Sports)
“It’s definitely a bit different that when I came here in high school,” cracked Scheffler, who made his PGA Tour debut as a 17-year-old in this tournament in 2014 and finished T-22, during his pre-tournament press conference on Wednesday. “I’m fortunate to be able to support a tournament that supported me from a young age. I’m looking forward to play in front of the home crowd and hopefully make some birdies.”
Scheffler’s family became Texas strong when he was 8, relocating to Dallas after his mother, Diane, the breadwinner in the family, landed a COO job at the Dallas law firm Thompson & Knight. On his first visit to Royal Oaks Country Club, a private club where he shaped his game under the watchful eye of Randy Smith, who had coached Justin Leonard to a British Open title in 1997, Scheffler and his father struck up an unlikely friendship.
On the far side of the practice tee they met Rocky Hambric, a golf agent whose first client, Larry Nelson, ended up in the World Golf Hall of Fame, and more recently represented the likes of major winners Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka. One Sunday later, the Hambrics and Schefflers bumped into each other again at church and went to lunch afterwards.
“Basically, for the next 10 years or so we ended up spending most of every Sunday together having lunch and watching the golf and really got pretty close with the whole family,” Hambric said.
When it came time for Scheffler to be confirmed in the Catholic church, he chose Hambric…
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