EDS Byron Nelson Championship: Final-Round Notebook  PGA TOUR Staff IRVING, Texas -- Dallas native Scott Verplank fired rounds of 67-68-66-66--267 in claiming his first EDS Byron Nelson Championship by one shot over third-round leader Luke Donald on Sunday.  Scott Verplank celebrated his victory with Byron Nelson's widow, Peggy Nelson. (Stan Badz/PGA TOUR/WireImage)
• Scott Verplank, who calls the EDS Byron Nelson Championship his fifth major, captured his fifth PGA TOUR title and fourth as a professional on Sunday. Verplank won the 1985 Western Open while he was still an amateur. • Verplank earns 4,500 FedExCup points for his victory and moves into 15th on the season long FedExCup points list. Vijay Singh remains atop the list with 12,802 points as the PGA TOUR's inaugural FedExCup season reaches the halfway point with the 18th out of 36 events. • After five holes in Sunday's final round, Verplank sat three shots behind overnight leader Luke Donald. He would birdie five of his next eight holes en route to taking his own three-shot lead before eventually winning by one. • Donald continues his streak of rounds in the 60s at the EDS Byron Nelson Championship this week. His past 12 rounds at the tournament have all been in the 60s, with this week's second-place finish being his best result. • Phil Mickelson's week was a tale of two sides between both courses. He managed to play the front nine in 13 under par while struggling to 3 over par on the back nine. Mickelson, who is T5 in Putting Average on the PGA TOUR this year, continued his solid play on the greens this week with an average of 1.636, third best in the field. • The relatively short 426 yard par-4 12th hole at the TPC course played to an average of 4.358 this week, making it the most difficult hole. The 12th hole also becomes the 12th-hardest par 4 on the PGA TOUR this year. The 490 yard par-4 third hole, which played as the second hardest this week, was the most difficult hole from 2003 through 2006 at TPC Las Colinas. • Defending Champion Brett Wetterich, who finished T10 this week, becomes the first defending champion since Fred Couples (T10) in 1988 to record a top-10 at the EDS Byron Nelson Championship the year following his win. • Only three players carded four rounds in the 60s: Scott Verplank (67-68-66-66), Vijay Singh (69-67-69-69) and Luke Donald (67-66-67-68). • Michael Allen has now played in 280 PGA TOUR events without claiming a title. Jay Delsing leads that daunting category with 537 starts. • Rory Sabbatini's final-round 64 (T3) allowed him to record his second straight top-five finish on the PGA TOUR (T2 at Masters). • Third-year PGA TOUR member Ryuji Imada, who finished solo ninth, made 87.5 percent of his putts from four to eight feet (T6) on the way to his third career PGA TOUR top-10 and first since the 2006 BellSouth Classic. • Jerry Kelly's final-round 64 tied for the low round of the week at the TPC course with four other players (Colt Knost, Michael Allen, Ken Duke). This marks the second consecutive event where Kelly fired the week's low round. His opening-round 63 at the Verizon Heritage was not matched the rest of the week. • The TPC Course at Las Colinas, in its final year before a major re-design, played to a weekly average of 70.219, making it the 15th-hardest course on TOUR to date in 2007. J.J. Henry, who will be a player consultant on D.A. Weibring's re-design of the TPC coure, recorded a bogey-free final round of 66, his lowest of the year. • The top five finishers this week (Scott Verplank, Luke Donald, Jerry Kelly, Rory Sabbatini and Phil Mickelson) each finished in the top-10 in Scrambling on the week. • Australian Rodney Pampling's final-round 66 allowed him to secure his second consecutive top-10 finish at the EDS Byron Nelson Championship (T10 in 2007, T8 in 2006). • Bo Van Pelt continued his solid play of late with his fourth top-25 finish in his past five tournaments. Van Pelt's final-round 66, his lowest round of that stretch, vaulted him from T28 to T13. • Mike Weir was the only player to record multiple eagles this week. The 2003 Masters champion eagled the par-5 16th on Friday and the par-5 7th on Sunday, both at the TPC course. Copyright 2007 PGATOUR.com. All rights reserved. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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