Thomas motivated to keep last year’s momentum going in 2020

Details on that meeting with Tiger Woods, player remarks on the playoff format and more from East Lake Golf Club.

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In conjunction with the 75th anniversary of Byron Nelson’s historic 1945 season, PGATOUR.COM’s writers responded to a couple of pertinent questions. Feel free to chime in via the message board at the bottom of this file. THE IMPACT OF BYRON NELSON During what would’ve been AT&T Byron Nelson week, PGATOUR.COM is celebrating the tournament’s legendary namesake and his impact on golf with a series of stories, including: • His impact on my life and career, by Tom Watson • His impact on the modern golf swing • His impact on winners of his event • His impact on charity with the Salesmanship Club • 11 things to know about Nelson’s 11 consecutive wins What’s more unbreakable: 11 consecutive wins or 18 in one season? BEN EVERILL: I’d say both might stand forever, but the 11 consecutive certainly will never be broken. The depth of fields these days and forever more will just make this downright impossible. Winning three in a row now is an incredible achievement. Anything more than that in today’s game is other worldly. JIM McCABE: Neither will be touched. But the one-in-a-million chance it could happen would probably be 18 total wins. Winning 11 straight is never-in-a-million. CAMERON MORFIT: Given that no one has come even remotely close since – Snead won 11 times in 1950 – I don’t think anyone will ever match 18 wins in one season. That number is so outrageous it seems like a typo. HELEN ROSS: I don’t see either being broken, to be honest. The most Tiger ever won in a single season was nine while Jack’s best was seven — and I’m hard-pressed to see that kind of talent and dominance anywhere on the horizon. But I’ll choose the 11 consecutive wins because that requires a steely mental focus to cast aside the distractions, as well as the abundant talent to get the job done. SEAN MARTIN: Can I say both? Neither can be broken and neither will be. MIKE McALLISTER: Initially, I was thinking 11 straight wins is the more daunting task. But I’ve reversed course. A dominant player could theoretically pick and choose his optimum schedule based on form and health, as well as the courses that fit his game – and remember, the record book is based on starts regardless of the season (hence, Tiger’s seven spread over two years). From that perspective, 11 straight over a longer stretch seems slightly more doable than 18 wins in a single season. And consider this: According to ShotLink, of the 937 players who have won at least one PGA TOUR event, just 49 have won 18 for their careers. To achieve that in just one season boggles the mind. Is Nelson’s 1945 performance the greatest single season in golf? BEN EVERILL: Statistically of course it is — 18 wins in 30 starts, 30 of 30 top-10s with seven runner-ups to go with the wins. Incredible. But the world is increasingly biased towards modern history and things we remember or have seen. My parents were still 10 years away from being born in 1945 and with the greatest amount of respect to Lord Byron, I’m not sure the events he played had the depth of competition we have today. For mine – the 2000 Tiger Woods season is the greatest. Nine wins, 17 of 20 top 10s, 20 of 20 top 25s. Won the last three majors of the year as part of his nine wins and outside of those was on winning Presidents Cup and World Cup teams. But if Nelson’s season got the majority nod, I wouldn’t be disappointed. JIM McCABE: Yes. He established not one, but three records that will never be sniffed – 11 straight wins, 18 in all, 30-for-30 in top 10s. I know about the depth-of-competition argument, but here’s what never gets treated properly: Travel was way more difficult, money was absurdly petty, and the character it took to survive was off the charts. As always, when wisdom is required, I turn to the greatest sage of ‘em all, Jack Burke Jr., who said of Nelson’s 1945 season: “I don’t care if he was playing against orangutans, winning 11 straight (and 18 in all) is amazing.â€� CAMERON MORFIT: Hard to judge two eras 55 years apart, and I’m no historian, but I’ll say Tiger Woods’ 2000 season was the best. His non-adjusted scoring average of 68.17 beat Nelson’s unofficial mark of 68.33. Woods also joined Hogan in ’53 as the only men to win three professional majors in a single season. Woods won tournaments by 15 (U.S. Open) and 11 strokes (WGC-NEC Invitational), which is insane. Yes, Nelson won more, 18 times to Tiger’s nine, but he also had 30 starts to Tiger’s 20, and golf was more of a global game, with a roster of more stars from more places, when Tiger had his magical season. HELEN ROSS: The only other season that would merit consideration is Tiger in 2000, and frankly, it seems like heresy to pick one over the other. It’s hard to compare strength and depth of field, but for purposes of the debate, I’ll go with Nelson, who played 30 times and won 18 of those while finishing second on seven other occasions. His unadjusted scoring average was 68.3, which certainly compares favorably to Wood’s 68.17 in 2000. That streak of 11 straight wins also strengthens the argument, although for many, Tiger’s three majors are the trump card, and I can’t disagree. SEAN MARTIN: I’m biased toward Tiger’s 2000 season. Three majors, including a 15-stroke win at the U.S. Open and 8-stroke margin at The Open Championship. Maybe it’s the bias of youth. He won nine times in 20 starts that year and finished outside the top 3 just six times. MIKE McALLISTER: Using Tiger’s three major wins in 2000 as the deciding factor is a bit unfair, considering only one major was played in 1945 – the PGA Championship, which Nelson won while playing 204 (yes, 204!) holes in the old format. The other three majors, canceled due to World War II, would’ve been played during Nelson’s 11-win streak. Same for lack of wartime competition – Hogan and Snead did make a combined 44 starts in 1945, so it wasn’t like Nelson was bereft of significant rivals. I actually think the most interesting comparison involves unadjusted scoring averages. Of the top 10 recorded scoring averages in TOUR history, nine belong to players in the last 20 years. The outlier is Nelson in 1945. To me, that’s pivotal in the argument of the better season. Yes, Tiger’s average was slightly lower, but Nelson’s was the more impressive in its era. You may argue the set-ups were harder, the courses longer in 2000; I’ll respond that the equipment was much better, the courses better manicured, the travel more demanding. Give me Nelson’s season as the best.

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When Mike Stiller was a teenager, he used to go to the AT&T Byron Nelson and follow Justin Leonard or one of the other PGA TOUR pros who played out of the Vaquero Club where he worked as a caddie. After he graduated from James Madison and scored a job with the Northern Texas PGA Section, Stiller could sometimes be found working as the calligrapher at the scoreboard outside the pavilion at TPC Four Seasons, which was hosting the tournament at the time. This week, Stiller is back at the AT&T Byron Nelson for the first time since joining the TOUR rules staff in 2015. He’s the advance man, which means Stiller arrives the previous week and interfaces with the on-site tournament staff as well as the course superintendent, assuring everything is ready for the event. “This is something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time,” says Stiller, who is sharing duties with the retiring Brad Fabel this week. “… This is a pretty special event for me, no doubt.” Working with Stiller this week are two other former employees of the Northern Texas PGA Section – Jordan Harris and Mike Peterson. Harris will set up the front nine at the new host venue, TPC Craig Ranch, while Peterson handles the final nine holes. Like Stiller, both are working the Byron Nelson for the first time since leaving the NTPGA and joining the TOUR – Peterson in 2005 and Harris in 2017. “It’s kind of neat to see us come through the ranks like that and get to this level,” Peterson admits. And there are actually two other TOUR rules officials who have NTPGA ties: Drew Miller is a former intern while Harold Geyer, a tournament director on the Korn Ferry Tour, worked there for 12 years. Peterson started the pipeline, so to speak. He went to New Mexico State and earned a degree in business administration in a program that specialized in golf management. Internships with the Southern California and Colorado PGA sections, as well as the PGA of America, stoked Peterson’s interest in running golf tournaments. “It’s always different,” he says. “You’re always going to different places, new golf courses, new cities or states. … And I was never a good enough player to compete at any sort of high level like that. But it was a way for me to be involved at the highest level, tournament-wise.” There was another pull for Peterson, who took a job at the NTPGA as director of tournament operations right out of college. “I fell in love with the Rules of Golf,” Peterson says. “It was kind of like a puzzle to me. You had questions that people would ask you — the juniors would ask you questions, the parents, that sort of stuff and it just was neat to try and figure out what the answer was. “It could be complicated at times, but it just was a big puzzle to me and I kind of liked the way it worked. So that just got me really interested in it.” Stiller and Harris have similar backgrounds. Stiller’s first job was picking range balls so he could practice at the club where his swing coach worked. When his family moved from New Jersey to the Dallas area, he became a fixture at Vaquero, caddying and working odd jobs there. Stiller interned at the NTPGA and did so well he was offered a job before the second semester of his senior year at James Madison. He started two weeks after he graduated in 2008. “Working for the Northern Texas section really was an honor because it’s … known for being one of the very prestigious sections not just because of the quality of the tournaments and the programs that they’ve put on and conducted and run, but because of the people and, and the history of the people that have worked there,” Stiller says. Peterson had already left to work for the TOUR by the time Stiller went to work at the NTPGA. But he remembers when Peterson would stop by the office to say hello and talk golf with his former co-workers. “I always kind of looked up to him like, oh, this is really cool,” Stiller says. “It’s a PGA TOUR referee coming to just to say hello — like, how cool is that? And so, him just kind of being around kind of got me thinking maybe someday down the road, this could happen.” Harris studied professional golf management at Methodist University in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He learned after his first internship at a small private club in Indiana that he didn’t want to sell shirts and give lessons for the rest of his life. He was drawn to the operational side of the competition, though. “My director asked me what I liked about the internship, and I said, hey, it was a great golf professional that I worked for,” Harris recalls. “He got me involved in tournaments. I did scoreboards and picking hole locations and all that stuff. I really enjoyed that. “And he said, well, you need to go and try a section of the PGA of America and see what you think about that. At the time I had no idea what a section was. … And I just flat out asked him, I said, well, if I’m going to try this, I’d like to go to the best one. So, what’s that? Where’s the best section?” Harris’ advisor suggested the NTPGA, which is known for a junior golf tour that helped nurture the likes of Jordan Spieth, Scottie Scheffler and Will Zalatoris – Thursday’s Featured Group at TPC Craig Ranch – as well as an extensive roster of other events, including stages of the TOUR’s qualifying school and various Monday qualifiers. Harris was hired as an intern in 2008 to work with Stiller and Geyer, who would leave to work for the TOUR in ’10. “We worked together that summer and I fell in love with it,” says Harris, who was later invited back to do a seven-month internship and hired full-time. “I loved, loved everything about tournaments and got really involved with the rules and wanting to learn more.” “It was us traveling and working together an entire summer, whether it was going out to Midland to run a section championship or all the tournaments we ran here in Dallas,” Stiller recalls. “It was basically the three of us. …. “But that was a cool summer. I mean, looking back on it, it was really neat just to have all of us doing the same thing together and sure enough, just years later, we’re all out here doing it again.” Peterson, Stiller and Harris give the NTPGA’s executive director, Mark Harrison, a lot of credit for helping them grow as referees and tournament officials. “Mark’s got a wonderful golf mind and … he did a really good job of just pushing us and always thinking about how we can do things better,” Harris says. “And he really mirrored our set-up philosophy around the PGA TOUR’s set-up philosophy.” Stiller also appreciated the way Harrison put his employees in a position to succeed. “What Mark has really done, I think personally, at that section is really given the staff there that works for him the platform to really take off and do whatever they want to do,” Stiller says. “I respect Mark completely and wholly, but one particular reason that I really, really appreciate about him is that if somebody expressed him what they wanted, if they wanted to leave the organization one day and move on to something different or something bigger, he had their back 100%. “So, when I told him that this is something that I wanted to do he did everything in his power to make that happen and support me 110 percent. And that’s something I would never forget.”

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