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D.A. redoes Dallas

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By Craig DeVrieze | Wednesday, April 23, 2008 6:29 PM CDT | () comments

D.A. Weibring., a three-time winner of the John Deere Classic, rebuilt the Byron Nelson course in a span of a year. Buy this Photo

Expect to hear the TPC Deere Run mentioned a time or two during television coverage of this week’s EDS Byron Nelson Classic.

The tournament is being played at a TPC Four Seasons Resort Course in Irving, Texas, that was totally revamped in the space of one year by D.A. Weibring.

Heretofore, of course, the signature course of Weibring’s Dallas-based Golf Resources Group had been Deere Run in Silvis, Ill., the host course of the John Deere Classic.

“The PGA Tour recommended us for this job because of our performance there,’’ Weibring said this week from TPC Four Seasons. “Players have received Deere Run very well.’’

Not so, the longtime Nelson host course. For years, the golf course was considered featureless and uninteresting by the top-notch players who nonetheless descended on Dallas to pay their respects to the tournament’s iconic host.

When Nelson died two years ago, however, the tournament found itself with undesirable dates and unspectacular fields.

Enter Weibring, the former Quincy, Ill., kid who was befriended by Nelson when he moved to Dallas years ago.

“He helped with my game and he helped me put my design group together,’’ Weibring said of Nelson, an early PGA Tour legend and initial investor in Golf Resources Group. “Sometimes it’s business. Other times, it’s personal. This one was very personal.’’

It also was no small undertaking.

Weibring was working for four bosses in redesigning Four Seasons — the PGA Tour, the Four Seasons Resort Group, tournament sponsor EDS and the Salesmanship Club of Dallas, which has helped the Byron Nelson tourney raise $94 million for charity since 1944.

All those groups participated in two conference calls per week as the reconstruction project moved forward, Weibring said.

A three-time winner of the John Deere Classic and now a Champions Tour stalwart, Weibring also was working with input from hundreds of other more-than-interested bystanders regarding what they wanted in a Four Seasons redesign.

“I sent surveys to every player on the Champions Tour and regular Tour,’’ he said. “I heard back from over 100 and talked to another hundred or so.’’

That is a player-input process he initiated when he began his job as player design consultant at Deere Run in 1997.

“Guys said I know what you did there — we expect this to be good,’’ he said.

Of course, Weibring and co-designer Chris Gray had almost four years to build Deere Run from scratch.

The bulldozers hit TPC Four Seasons a day after Scott Verplank won the 2007 Nelson last May, and Weibring said his group worked through the rainiest June and July on record in north-central Texas.

Every hole has been changed in some fashion, with completely rebuilt greens and tees and Deere Run-like flash-faced, white sand bunkers.

The $10 million project included retransplanting trees and resodding 75 acres.

Now it’s show time, and don’t be surprised if the CBS announce team talks a good lot about Weibring’s work this weeked, amply referencing Deere Run as they go.

Weibring said CBS golf producer Lance Barrow hosted Monday’s pro-am pairings party and lauded the revamped golf course’s redesigner as he stepped to the mic.

“Lance Barrow said one of the best golf courses on Tour is Deere Run,’’ Weibring reported. “Those were the first words out of his mouth.’’

Craig DeVrieze can be contacted at (563) 333-2610 or cdevrieze@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.