Mr. Leondard’s Second Act
“Sir, would you please remove your hat?”
It only made sense when I was asked. I tore it off immediately, embarrassed that I’d broken what’s become an otherwise outdated rule in clubhouses – No hats allowed.
“Sorry man,” Travis Heim, owner of the famous Heim BBQ in Fort Worth and friend of RDGC, said. “I forgot to tell you.”
That was the name of the game at Shady Oaks Country Club in the hills of Fort Worth. If Colonial CC is the muscle car of Cowtown, SOCC is the classic Jag with wood finish and the analog clock in the dash.
The pre-Shady history is well known if you know your Fort Worth trivia – Mr. Marvin Leonard left the Glen Garden Country Club on the south side to make his own course which would include his beloved bent grass greens that he’d experienced abroad. He’d ultimately open Colonial in 1936 with 100 members, poaching two caddies from GGCC in the process – Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson.
Colonial was built for the spotlight. It’s sprawling, challenging, and 80 years later still grades as one of the toughest courses the PGA TOUR visits each year.
But Mr. Leonard wanted more - and became restless. After selling Colonial back to the members, he set his sights on 1,220 acres in Westover Hills, seven miles west of downtown.
Legend has it that Mr. Leonard brought Hogan out to walk the land with him before signing the papers. Mr. Hogan begged him not to sign, citing extreme hilly, rugged terrain in which carving a quality golf course out of would be a struggle, if not impossible.
Mr. Leonard thankfully didn’t listen, and after bringing in the renowned Robert Trent Jones, founded the highest class country club in Fort Worth when the dust settled. It was a heel turn from Colonial in every way, with the focus being the business crowd and the utmost privacy. A tightly controlled membership number even allows the course to not even have tee times, and a gate and security guard patrol the entry to a 6,800 yard racetrack with what some call the best greens in Texas.
“The greens are fast,” Heim told me as we teed off. “Everyone likes to hype them up, and the hype is real.”
Travis joined during a renovation that would see the course reopen in fall of 2020. Once the excitement died down, the course settled into the stride it was created for; Business plans while battling a nearly impossible fourth hole where the green shoots into the sky off a dogleg right, and deals being hashed out sitting in the clubhouse surrounded by Mr. Hogan’s trophies and old experimental clubs.
“There’s stuff in here from [Hogan] everywhere,” Travis would later say during a tour of the clubhouse. “Even our club tournament is a trophy of Hogan’s hands. It’s really cool how much of him is here.”
The course itself is a grinding, knee-buckling test. 2011 Individual NCAA Champion John Peterson, who’s also a member and RDGC friend, cautioned us of that before we ever stepped foot on the property. His warning was everyone’s – prepare for the greens.
“Shady Oaks has the best,” he told us after discussing a round at another famous course in Texas. “You just can’t beat them.”
He was certainly right, as ball marks were scarce and the roll was true on each and every green. It’s an unrelenting breakdown of everything a player feels good about in his game, and going low is an accomplishment to which few can lay claim.
It’s certainly no shock to anyone that Shady Oaks is RDGC-approved as one of the best courses you could possibly talk your way onto, but after being there once, it couldn’t carry a higher recommendation.
Hats off to you, Mr. Leonard. Literally.
My Yankee Stadium
They say to never meet your heroes. I disagree.
“I can tell you as much or little as you want about this place, so feel free to cut me off if I’m over-sharing.”
Standing on the first tee box of my Yankee Stadium, Mr. Leito, a dear family friend and C.O.O. of the Schwab Invitational at Colonial, was worried he would bore me with stories about the course.
“The exact opposite,” I said through my ear-to-ear smile. “You can’t tell me enough. Any and every detail, I want it.”
Two weeks prior, Dad had called to say that Mr. Leito invited us to play my dream course. What followed was two weeks of equal parts optimism and despair. I critiqued every inch of my swing, and studied for shots I’d never make on a course I’d never conquer. I had more preparation than I’ll ever have for another round in my life, hoping I’d figure out a way to take my handicap from -12 to scratch in fourteen days.
None of it worked, and none of that mattered. A fairway-splitting tee shot off the first was the height of my game at Colonial, but the overwhelming euphoria lasted 4 hours and 10 minutes.
Some kids dream about striking out the last batter in the World Series or throwing the game-winning touchdown pass in the Super Bowl. I had those dreams as well, but among them was draining the putt on the 18th green with Ben Hogan’s statue smiling down on me, then slipping on the plaid jacket.
Sure, there are plenty of bigger tournaments and greener jackets, but Dad had been taking me to Colonial for their Invitational since I could remember. It might as well be the U.S. Open for me.
My favorite part of the course is that it wasn’t supposed to exist, much like I should’ve never been able to play it.
In the 1920’s, golfer and traveling salesman Marvin Leonard fell in love with bentgrass greens while abroad, loving their receptive response and the consistently true rolls. He set his sights on bringing them to his home club, the now-defunct Glen Garden Country Club in Fort Worth. An ironic aside, eventual five-time Colonial winner Ben Hogan and golf giant Byron Nelson were caddying at the club at that time as well.
Bentgrass needs a cooler surface temperature (below 85 degrees is ideal) to survive, and are signature on ocean-front courses due to the winds and moderate weather. In Texas, which doubles as a microwave oven from late April through September, the bumpy Bermuda greens were king due to their tolerance of the extreme heat and surface temps.
He proposed to Glen Garden a remodel with him footing the bill for the greens, and they all but laughed in his face. The rest is history.
Mr. Leonard would set out to open his own club, Colonial Country Club, in 1936. The bentgrass worked while demanding constant maintenance, but it quickly became worth it. The U.S. Open would take on the course in 1941, beginning the long relationship between professional events and the hallowed course.
The maintenance to keep the greens pure looks a little different nowadays. During the Schwab Challenge you’ll see crews spritzing the surface between pairings, providing just enough water to keep the temperature down. During non-tournament play, massive industrial fans mounted in strategic places around the greens blow the Texas heat across the turf to keep the surface cool and reduce watering to a few times a day.
I never thought I’d play golf on these holy grounds, much like no one ever believed Mr. Leonard could make those pure greens work. The engraved names of Hogan, Palmer, Trevino, Snead, and countless other legends on the Wall Of Champions say otherwise.
Those engraved names tell stories of an almost century of golf at Colonial, most of which I admittedly don’t know. The course itself has trillions more, and plenty that I own and cherish.
My earliest memory was in the late 90’s when I was 7 or 8 years old, standing left of the 3rd green with Dad. Phil Mickelson strolled up with his classic smile, and was the first big-time golfer I recognized from TV. I was hooked immediately, and could still show you exactly where we were standing.
Attending “Colonial,” as it’s simply called in Fort Worth regardless of the title sponsor, is the tradition I look forward to most each year. To be able to play it with someone like Mr. Leito was the best gift my golf-loving heart could have ever received.
As we made our way through the course with a few more strokes than I’d hoped, he told me about the club hiring Mr. Gil Hanse for the impending renovations in 2022, beginning immediately after the last putt of Schwab.
The first change was pointed out on No. 2, a 389-yard dogleg right around the biggest Pecan tree I’ve ever seen. I’m a longer hitter than most weekend slappers due to a baseball background, and I cut the corner to the far side of the fairway, about 65 yards short of the green.
When we got to my ball, Mr. Leito pointed back to a fairway bunker behind us, explaining how they were going to move that bunker up to around where my ball landed.
“Most of the bunker locations out here punish everyday players,” Mr. Leito said. “They’re an afterthought for the pro’s when they come through here because they just hit over them, but it makes for a long afternoon for guys like us.”
Later, we came to the famous No. 13. One of the biggest party holes on the PGA Tour. It’s a towering 190-yard Par 3 that has nothing but water separating the tees from the green. If you miss left, twin bunkers have you hitting back towards the water hazard with any pin placement.
During Schwab weekend, it’s backstopped by a three-story grandstand full of patrons drinking Miller Lite and screaming at the caddies to touch the green before the others, as gambling on the Caddy Races is the name of the game back in the bowl.
I’d been dreading that shot over the water every minute of the last two weeks, and Mr. Leito threw us a curveball before we even made it out of our carts.
“I want you guys to hit from this tee over here,” he said, pointing to a lonely, unmarked box back up the hill that brought the entire pond into play. “They never have the pro’s hit from this one, and rarely have it in play at all, but it’s such a cool shot.”
That shot is what embodies Colonial – A simple iron to a receptive, yet skinny, green. The course demands you hit your shot, and you’re rewarded for the execution. But just when you’ve settled in and have it all figured out, they have you hit from a tee box you didn’t even know existed, changing the hole completely and raising the difficulty.
But miss? Just don’t. By design, a miss is going to cost you two strokes – One to correct the error, another to get back on track. If you somehow dodge the pesky bunkers, you’re almost certainly behind a tree or buried in wedge-destroying, soul-crushing rough that even Mickelson will struggle with.
We continued on and came to No. 18, which slopes left toward the water in its entirety as soon as you step off the tee box. And I did miss my par-saving putt, even though I’d drained it billions of times in my head for the last 30 years.
The beating I took at Colonial was the best I’ve ever received, and put in perspective the top level of golf and course that exists in so few places in the world.
Such a beautiful track becomes a menace when you have the club in your hands, and the breathtaking scenery morphs into wall after wall that separates you from the pin.
They say to never meet your heroes, but I disagree. Standing face-to-face with (and being humbled by) #1 on my bucket list was the highlight of my life. Feeling my skin crawl as I imagined so many golf gods walking the same steps I was walking was second-to-none.
And if you ever get the chance to play those same holes, don’t worry about the first tee shot.
Focus on draining that putt on No. 18 in front of Mr. Hogan. That’s the one that matters.
A very special thank you to Mr. Leito and Colonial Country Club for the invitation.
