The PGA Tour returns this week with the Charles Schwab Challenge at the iconic Colonial Country Club, where Ben Hogan won five times and where Roberto De Vicenzo also triumphed. 

The Charles Schwab Challenge marks the resumption of the PGA Tour season after nearly three months of inactivity due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The last official round was March 12: the opening round of the Players Championship, which was subsequently canceled.

At Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, many of the great stars will compete in what is the best field in the tournament's 74-year history. The top five in the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) are competing in this first post-pandemic event: Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Justin Thomas, and Dustin Johnson.

Rory, the world number one, is playing at Colonial for the first time. The Northern Irishman finished in the top five in his last seven tournaments played between the PGA Tour and European Tour, including a victory at the WGC HSBC Champions.

Rory plays at Colonial Country Club for the first time.

There are many measures the PGA Tour has put in place for the return to competition. For now, there will be no fans at these first tournaments. The Memorial Tournament will be the first event with a crowd (July 16 to 19), with a maximum capacity of eight thousand spectators (about 20 percent of their usual attendance).

Players had to undergo medical testing before traveling to Fort Worth and did the same upon arriving in the city. The PGA Tour mandated these controls as compulsory to compete. People involved in the tournament, such as club and tournament staff, were also tested.

Social distancing is one of the measures the PGA Tour has taken in the return to competition. 

Latin Americans

Six players from the region are participating at Colonial: Abraham Ancer, Juan Sebastián Muñoz, Joaquín Niemann, Emiliano Grillo, Carlos Ortiz, and Jhonattan Vegas.

Two years ago, Grillo came very close to victory. He finished in third place, four shots behind winner Justin Rose. Brooks Koepka finished second.

Emiliano Grillo is one of the six Latin American representatives in Fort Worth. 

Colonial Country Club

There are not many courses on the PGA Tour with the characteristics of Colonial Country Club: narrow fairways, small greens, most holes being doglegs in both directions, and barely exceeding 7,000 yards. Perhaps the only one with these similarities is Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head.

It is a Marvin Leonard design opened in 1936. In its early years, it was called Colonial Golf Club and was the first golf course with Bentgrass greens in the state of Texas.

After a negotiation with the United States Golf Association, Leonard succeeded in having Colonial host the 1941 U.S. Open. The winner was Craig Wood (who also won the Masters that year).

Leonard offered to sell the club to its own members in 1942. The first offer was rejected. He persisted and, on the second attempt, achieved the goal. He believed that if the club members owned it, they would have a sense of belonging to the place, which would ensure long-term success. At that point, it was renamed Colonial Country Club.

The tournament is the longest-running on the Tour, with the exception of the Majors. The list of winners includes players such as Ben Hogan, Roberto De Vicenzo, Ben Crenshaw, Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus, Nick Price, Phil Mickelson, Sergio García, Adam Scott, Jordan Spieth, and Justin Rose, among others.

Ben Hogan

There are three places in the world referred to as “Hogan’s Alley”. Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles (he won three times in 18 months), the par 5 6th hole at Carnoustie (he left his drive all four rounds between the center fairway bunkers and the out-of-bounds, winning that 1953 Open), and Colonial Country Club.

Hogan is the winningest player in the history of the current Charles Schwab Challenge with five victories. He is even the only one to win in consecutive years, and he did it twice. His last victory on Tour was here in 1959, at age 47.

Ben Hogan achieved his last PGA Tour victory at Colonial, at the age of 47. 

Roberto De Vicenzo

De Vicenzo is the professional player with the most wins in history (over 230). However, he achieved eight victories on the PGA Tour. This is because, at the time he competed, the Tour did not have tournaments every week as it does today. That explains why he didn't win more there. One of his triumphs was, precisely, at Colonial Country Club in 1957.

Roberto De Vicenzo achieved one of his eight Tour titles at Colonial.

That week it rained heavily in Fort Worth and on Sunday they had to play 36 holes. In the morning, he played really well with a score of 68, but he was still four behind Dick Mayer. In the afternoon, during the final round, he shot a 34 on the front nine to catch the leader. A 36 on the back was enough to win by one.

The prize was a five-thousand-dollar check and a 600-dollar bonus to spend at Macy’s. “I went shopping for my wife Delia. I think it was the best gift I could have given her. With that amount of money you could buy many things -and quality ones- in the 1950s,” Roberto said.

Hopefully, one of our representatives can follow Roberto's path and take the victory this week at Colonial. For some (Grillo, Ortiz, and Vegas are not qualified), it would mean access to participate in the Masters in November.