Chris Couch won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans in 2006, but this week he'll be a hundred or so miles down the road in Lafayette for the Chitimacha Louisiana Open presented by Dynamic Industries. Couch has not played on the PGA TOUR this season due to a shoulder injury and will be making a rehab start this week on the Nationwide Tour.
While Chris Couch will be in Lafayette this week, former Chitimacha Louisiana Open winner Johnson Wagner (2006) will be in New Orleans competing in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. When Greg Kraft won the Puerto Rico Open presented by Banco Popular last week, he became the 100th different Nationwide Tour alum to win on the PGA TOUR. Overall, former Nationwide Tour players have won 224 TOUR titles.
This year's tournament will mark the 17th consecutive year the event has been held at Le Triomphe CC, the only course the tournament has ever known. Only two other tournaments on the Tour have been played on the same course for a longer period of time -- the Price Cutter Charity Championship presented by Dr. Pepper and the Albertsons Boise Open presented by First Health.
Eleven of 16 winners of the Chitimacha Louisiana Open made the victory in Lafayette their first career win, including Johnson Wagner, who did it most recently in 2006.
A Nationwide Tour record of 81 players made the cut at the 2007 Chitimacha Louisiana Open.
The last hole-in-one at the Chitimacha Louisiana Open came during the third round in 2005 when Sean O'Hair aced the sixth hole. O'Hair, who recently won the PGA TOUR's PODS Championship and finished third at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard, went on to finish runner-up to Ryan Hietala that year.
A victory in Lafayette doesn't always guarantee a PGA TOUR card. During the previous 16 events at Le Triomphe, the winner of the tournament has gone on to graduate from the Nationwide Tour five times, including Johnson Wagner (2006), Jimmy Walker (2004), Steven Alker (2002), Matt Gogel (1999) and Joe Daley (1997).