After two years of weather setbacks, disappointing attendance and declining financial results, the PGA Tour has decided that the 2020 AT&T Byron Nelson in May will be the last one held at Trinity Forest Golf Club.

The Tour’s decision to pull the plug on Trinity Forest, which is just south of downtown Dallas, will end an innovative initiative by the Florida-based professional golfers’ touring organization, the Salesmanship Club of Dallas and the private golf club to use the Tour’s annual event as a magnet for economic development in the southern sector.

Officials of the Salesmanship Club and Trinity Forest gave exclusive interviews to The Dallas Morning News, and the formal announcement will be made Sunday morning.

Trinity Forest was built in 2014 over a toxic landfill. The 18-hole, 72-par course was designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw of Coore & Crenshaw Inc. as an environmentally sensitive, rugged and natural, links-style championship course.

The city of Dallas owns the land, and the Trinity Golf Club leases it. The Salesmanship Club, through its charitable golf organization, hosts the event wherever and whenever the Tour decides to play it.

Dallas is not a party in the agreements with the Tour but was briefed about the change late last week. The meeting was described by Salesmanship officials as amicable.

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said: “We are disappointed to hear the AT&T Byron Nelson will no longer be held at the Trinity Forest Golf Course after this year, but the tournament’s departure opens up other potential opportunities to offer more recreational activities to our city’s residents and visitors at this southern Dallas asset. We look forward to discussing the course’s future with our partners there.”

AT&T, which took over the tournament’s title sponsorship in 2015, used its clout to get the Tour to move the event to Dallas’ southern sector in 2018, leaving the TPC Four Seasons Resort Dallas at Las Colinas, where it had been held for 35 years.

The Tour hasn’t decided where the 2021 Nelson will be, but a likely contender is the TPC Four Seasons. PGA Frisco — two championship courses being built by the PGA of America (a separate entity from the Tour), Omni Stillwater Woods and the city of Frisco — won’t be finished for three years.

The Tour is exploring other options around North Texas, said Tyler Dennis, chief of operations at PGA Tour. “As the necessary footprint to grow the event continues to expand, collectively, we will be evaluating other facilities in the Dallas area for 2021 to ensure a premium fan experience and allow the Salesmanship Club to continue to do great things through its support of the Momentous Institute.”

Momentous Institute is pictured on Friday, Jan. 10, 2020 in Dallas. (Ryan Michalesko/The Dallas Morning News) (Ryan Michalesko / Staff Photographer)

Protecting Momentous

Everyone seems to agree that the move is necessary because the substantial loss of revenue has hurt the Salesmanship Club’s Momentous Institute, the sole beneficiary of the tournament’s net proceeds.

Founded by the club in 1920, the widely lauded nonprofit provides innovative education and therapeutic services for 5,500 children and family members each year. That’s more than 100,000 served since its inception.

The Nelson has raised more than $163 million for Momentous in the last 51 years, making it the most successful charity event on the PGA Tour.

But tournament expenses went up and ticket and sponsorship revenue declined sharply after the move to Trinity Forest. Net contributions to Momentous peaked at more than $6 million at the Nelson’s final Four Seasons event. The 2019 Nelson netted less than half that amount, the club said.

That meant budget cutbacks at Momentous for this academic year.

And that’s not acceptable to anyone.

“We all thought this was going to be something that would actually increase revenues,” said Mike McKinley, chairman of Salesmanship Charitable Golf of Dallas Inc., which oversees the upcoming 2020 tournament that begins May 4. “The fact that it’s gone in a different direction has disappointed everybody involved and is the primary concern.

“The Salesmanship Club’s only focus is the Momentous Institute. Our ability to change the odds for kids in the Dallas area and transform the lives of kids and families — most of whom that we serve live in southern Dallas — is more meaningful to us than anything else. That drives everything that we do.”

Jonas Woods, co-founder of Trinity Forest, echoed those sentiments: “Most important to all of us is the amazing work of Momentous. We understand the need for this change. We must pivot to continue supporting the services needed by these children and families in our southern sector.”

Jessica Trudeau, executive director of Momentous, said she’s had to cut expenses while maintaining programs for some of Dallas’ most underserved.

Executive director Jessica Trudeau of the Momentous Institute is shown Friday. (Ryan Michalesko/The Dallas Morning News) (Ryan Michalesko / Staff Photographer)

“I’m so grateful that the Salesmanship Club and the PGA Tour are thinking about the long-term sustainability and viability of Momentous Institute,” she said. “My understanding is that our welfare was a significant factor in forming this decision.”

Byron would approve

The legendary Byron Nelson was an integral part of the tournament from the time it was created until he died in 2006.

In 1945, Nelson went on an incredible winning streak that will likely stand forever: 18 victories, including 11 straight. The Byron Nelson Championship was the first PGA Tour event to be named for a professional golfer.

“Byron once said that helping people was the best thing that happened to him in golf — better than winning the Masters or the U.S. Open or even 11 in a row,” said his widow, Peggy Nelson Jaros. “He dearly loved the game of golf, but he loved the work of Momentous Institute even more. I know he’d support any decision made for the sake of the children and families this amazing charity serves.”

Mike McKinley of the Salesmanship Club is shown with Peggy Nelson at the opening ceremonies at TPC Four Seasons at Las Colinas on Tuesday, May 14, 2013. (Mark Humphries)

McKinley said the club still supports Trinity Forest.

“We absolutely believe that it remains a great, noble cause. And while the Tour has determined that, for its long-term purposes, the tournament should be played elsewhere, we’ve got other programs in place there. We’re going to host other events there that aren’t directly related to the AT&T Byron Nelson.

“This isn’t the end of the story on Trinity Forest.”

Trinity Forest is the home of the SMU Mustangs men’s and women’s college golf teams. It is also the host location for the Bush Institute Warrior Open, the American Junior Golf Association’s Under Armour/Jordan Spieth Championship and a half dozen charity tournaments.

First Tee of Greater Dallas, the Tour’s outreach youth program, has its facility next to Trinity Forest’s practice complex.

AT&T’s sponsorship runs through 2021. If the communications giant is upset about uprooting the tournament, it isn’t saying so publicly.

“We were proud to answer the call and step up to help the community five years ago by becoming the sponsor of the Byron Nelson tournament because it benefits thousands of local kids and family members,” an AT&T spokesman said Friday. “Our commitment to the community and the tournament continues today.”

Mike McKenzie struggled with his umbrella while attempting to cross the 18th fairway after the AT&T Byron Nelson Hilton Anatole Pro-Am golf match was canceled at Trinity Forest last year. (Ryan Michalesko/The Dallas Morning News) (Ryan Michalesko / Staff Photographer)

Heat and mud, oh my

So what went wrong?

Severe weather for starters: a record heat wave on a shadeless course in 2018 and unrelenting, miserably cold rain in year two.

The course didn’t flood, but the area immediately surrounding it did. This created an insurmountable logistical problem because vehicles used to move supplies and to shuttle spectators were forced to share the cart paths with 50,000 spectators who were trying to watch golf.

“Having all of that co-exist on cart paths is impossible,” Woods said. “We realized last year that losing a very important artery of infrastructure because of weather creates a problem from a safety and an operations perspective. That’s just one of several problematic things that the weather pointed out.”

The road along the course boundary is in an environmental area protected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, so it can’t be raised high enough to keep it from being submerged.

The course is covered by a two-foot cap of clay to keep toxic materials from oozing out. That cap can’t be penetrated, which meant that it was much more expensive to anchor temporary venues than it was at TPC Four Seasons.

Jordan Spieth lined up a shot on the first green during round 4 of the AT&T Byron Nelson golf tournament 2019 at Trinity Forest Golf Club in Dallas. (Ashley Landis/The Dallas Morning News) (Ashley Landis / Staff Photographer)

Player holdouts

A Tour spokesman declined to say whether player resistance contributed to the decision.

But the Nelson at Trinity Forest took a beating in player and spectator social media posts for its lack of parking and shade.

Only four of the top 20 players in the world competed there in 2018 and just two last year. Both tournaments were won by first-time winners who haven’t won again. The final Nelson at the TPC Four Seasons had nine of the world’s top 20 players, including four of the top six.

One group the links-style Trinity Forest course did attract: talented international players, many of whom didn't play the event at TPC Four Seasons.

But despite a vow from Dallas resident and Trinity Forest member Jordan Spieth to do his best to recruit his friends to play in the event, the Trinity Forest-era Nelson tournaments struggled to attract high-profile American golfers.

One particularly hard knock came from fan-favorite Matt Kuchar, when he played in 2018. “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” Kuchar told The Golf Channel after his first round.

After his second round, Kuchar said, "I'm mostly disappointed with myself that I probably let my dislike of the golf course affect my performance. As a professional, if they put 18 holes in a field and tell you this is where the tournament is, you go figure out how to play it."

He did not return in 2019.

“We expected the fields to get better and they did not,” Woods conceded. But he attributes that to other factors, not the course. “The vast majority of the players — like the 90-plus percentile — thought the golf course was fantastic. But the other inconveniences with the location, the infrastructure and amenities weren’t ideal.”

In its latest rankings, Golf Digest named Trinity Forest the sixth-best course in Texas.

Changing the date of the Nelson to the week before the PGA Championship meant that some players were resting, Woods said. “The fields before the PGA Championship are always weaker than the average field on tour.”

Stemming the tide

McKinley said the club has learned to control costs but hasn’t been able to offset the continuing drain in ticket and sponsorship revenue. So far, revenue is tracking lower than last year.

“We’re trying things to turn that around,” said the co-founding partner of law firm Shackelford Bowen McKinley & Norton LLP.

For many people, watching golf at the Nelson is secondary to people watching and socializing. Attendees were used to convenient parking and the ability to finish the day with an evening meal at a hip nearby restaurant in Las Colinas.

Google eating places near Trinity Forest, and you get a handful of small restaurants offering comfort food.

So the club is paying more attention to on-course entertainment value.

The main pavilion last year was sponsored by the Katy Trail Ice House. “It was great. It was packed at all times,” McKinley said. “This year, we’re doing even more. It’s like, ‘OK, Dallas, we heard you. Here’s what’s coming next.’

“While that might further impact the bottom line this year, the Salesmanship Club is determined that this 2020 tournament will be a grand finale for Trinity Forest. Those people in Dallas who haven’t had the great experience of seeing this awesome golf course need to come out and see the tournament.”

And he’s praying for sunshine — just not too much of it.

Assistant Sports Editor Scott Bell contributed to this report.