2021 AT&T Byron Nelson tee times
Texas will have three of its favorite sons on display together for the first round of the PGA Tour’s AT&T Byron Nelson.
Dallas-area residents Jordan Spieth, Scottie Scheffler and Will Zalatoris, all in their 20s and among the top 30 in the world ranking, will form the 12:33 p.m. CDT group when play begins Thursday at TPC Craig Ranch in McKinney, in the suburbs north of Dallas.
Spieth, 27, a lifelong Dallas resident, has enjoyed a career resurgence this spring. He won the Valero Texas Open last month, ending a nearly four-year winless streak, before a T-3 at the Masters. He stands No. 28 in the Official World Golf Ranking. After this week’s Nelson, Spieth will take another shot at completing the career Grand Slam when the PGA Championship returns to Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course next week. Spieth, who won the 2015 Masters, 2015 U.S. Open and 2017 British Open, needs only the Wanamaker Trophy to join golf immortality as the sixth winner of the game’s four biggest prizes.
Scheffler, 24, who like Spieth played college golf at Texas, was runner-up this spring in the WGC Match Play in Austin. Scheffler, No. 22 in the world ranking, is seeking his first victory on the PGA Tour.
Zalatoris, also 24, returns to Texas after a missed cut at the Wells Fargo Championship last week. He nearly shocked the golf world last month, finishing runner-up in the Masters. Zalatoris is No. 30 in the world.
Spain’s Jon Rahm, who is No. 3 in the world, will be the highest-ranked player in the field after No. 1 Dustin Johnson withdrew on Monday, citing a knee problem. Rahm will be paired at 12:44 p.m. CDT on the first tee with recent Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama of Japan and South Korea’s Sung Kang, the 2019 Nelson champion. Kang will be the defending champion after the 2020 Nelson was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
No. 4-ranked Bryson DeChambeau, a former NCAA champion while at SMU and a Dallas resident, returns to north Texas after a T-9 last week at the Wells Fargo. He will be paired with a couple of hot hands in fellow American Sam Burns and Australia’s Marc Leishman at 7:34 a.m. CDT on the 10th tee. Burns won the Valspar Championship two weeks ago, and Leishman teamed with countryman Cameron Smith to win the Zurich Classic team event three weeks ago.
In the last pairing of the day, going off the 10th tee at 2:12 p.m., American John Catlin will make his PGA Tour debut. Catlin, a Californian, has won three times on the European Tour in less than a year, earning a special invitation into next week’s PGA Championship. He will be playing the Nelson on a sponsor exemption and be paired with American Tom Lovelady and Canadian Michael Gligic.
TPC Craig Ranch, which played host to the Nationwide Tour Championship in 2008 and the Web.com finale in 2012, will be making its PGA Tour debut. (For tee times, click here.)
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