Around the Green

Lakewood Country Club Set to Host 18th Byron Nelson Junior Championship

DALLAS– The Byron Nelson Junior Championship returns to Lakewood Country Club on June 27-29 and the Legends Junior Tour’s first major tournament features another stellar field.

Byron Nelson once said, “Winners are different. They’re a different breed of cat.” The Byron Nelson Junior Championship has seen its fair share of winners, which have gone on to great success at the collegiate and the professional level.

Three-time champion Jordan Spieth, 2008-2010, played at the University of Texas and has seen success at the highest level, winning the 2015 Masters and United States Open Championship. Cody Gribble, 2007, also went on to play collegiately at the University of Texas and won his first PGA Tour event in 2016 at the Sanderson Farms Championship.

Hunter Shattuck, 2013, helped Baylor University climb to No. 1 in the Golfweek rankings in 2017 and its first No. 1 ranking in the Big XII tournament. Chandler Phillips, 2014, is in his second year at Texas A&M and was named the program’s Most Valuable Player and Newcomer of the Year in 2016.

Other past champions include Ryan Baca, 2000-01, Justin Fraley, 2002, K.T. Livingston, 2003, Charlie Holland, 2004, Alex Moon, 2006, Benjamin Arnett, 2012, and Vincent Martino, 2011, all of which went on to play golf at the collegiate level.

Last year’s champion, Levi Valadez, just finished up his first season at Kansas State University, playing 18 rounds over six events. San Antonio’s Valadez won in a playoff in 2016, edging Parker Coody with a par on the first playoff hole. His rounds of 69-66-72 got him to 6-under overall.

In 2015, Lewisville’s Ryan Grider beat Pierceson Coody in a two-hole playoff. Grider and Coody finished the 54-hole event all square at 1-under 212 overall and needed two more holes to settle the score. Grider is competing in this year’s Byron Nelson Junior Championship, looking to become the third multi-winner of this event and the first since Jordan Spieth’s three-peat.

The 78-player field will play 54 holes of stroke play competition. After 36 holes, the field is cut to the low 30 players and ties for the final round. The tournament is World Amateur Golf, Golfweek and Junior Golf Scoreboard ranked. Numerous AJGA performance stars will be handed out to the top finishers, including “Fully Exempt” status.

Players in the field earned exemptions from previous LJT Tournaments, the North and South Texas PGA and the Houston Golf Association, which are members of the Texas Junior Golf Alliance or by their rankings.

This is the third major event in the last month that Lakewood Country Club has hosted. The club hosted the U.S. Open Sectional Qualifier on June 5 and then followed that up with the 108^th Texas Amateur Championship on June 15-18. Designed by Thomas Bendelow in 1912, Lakewood Country Club is hosting the Byron Nelson Junior Championship for the 16^th time.

“Our membership gets behind these kinds of events,” said Gilbert Freeman, Lakewood’s esteemed Director of Golf since 1994. “This club supports golf and the golf community.”

Located in the heart of Dallas, Lakewood Country Club has shown a knack for hosting great tournaments throughout the years. Byron Nelson himself won the Texas Victory Open at Lakewood Country Club in 1944, which was the start of his remarkable two-year run of 26 tournaments wins. The tournament would change names a couple of times before becoming the AT&T Byron Nelson.

The tournament will commence on Tuesday, June 27, with the second round following on Wednesday, June 28. A cut to the low 30 players and ties will be made after 36 holes and the final round will start on Thursday, June 29.

For more information about the 2017 Byron Nelson Junior Championship, click here.