T.J.'s Take: Has it really been a year?

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Ask any pro and he'll tell you -- no matter where you win, a win on the PGA TOUR is special. But to win at home in front of friends and family at a tournament that is the named after your mentor? That has to be right up there with hitting a game-winning home run in the seventh game of the World Series.

T.J. Auclair

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WATCH IT AGAIN

Relive Verplank emotional victory in 2007

That was Scott Verplank in 2007. The Dallas native knocked it out of the park a year ago, winning the EDS Byron Nelson Championship. And now he's back this week to defend his title at the TPC Four Seasons Resort in Las Colinas, a course less than 15 miles from where he went to high school.

Verplank is one of those players on TOUR who's impossible not to love. He's a grinder. At 5-foot-9, Verplank is never going to smoke it out there with the bombers. However, he has always made the most of what he's got. His 15th club is his heart. And his 16th club is the insulin pump he wears on his belt buckle during rounds to control his diabetes.

Verplank is a guy you genuinely feel good for when you see him do well. To watch the outpouring of emotion he evoked as that last putt dove into the 72nd hole a year ago -- dropping to his knees, tears in his eyes, looking to the heavens and saying, "thank you" -- was something else. It was all the more poignant when you consider it was the first EDS Byron Nelson Championship contested since the death of its namesake on Sept. 26, 2006.

To understand the magnitude of what that win meant to Verplank, one need not look further than what he called it -- his "fifth major."

Verplank and the legendary Lord Byron go way back.

It all started when Verplank was a teenager and received a call from Nelson, who admired the teen for the low scores he'd been posting. That call led to a meeting, which led to some coaching from the man whose record of 11 consecutive PGA TOUR wins is still the standard some 50-plus years after it was accomplished. Back in the late 1940s, Nelson was to the PGA TOUR what Tiger Woods is today, a man who could win virtually at will.

Through the years, Verplank stayed close to Nelson the way Ben Crenshaw stayed close to the late Harvey Penick. It was 1995 when Crenshaw won his second Masters the same week he served as a pallbearer, laying his mentor to rest. No one will ever forget Crenshaw's reaction to his surprise win at Augusta National, hands on his knees, face buried firmly in his hands as he wept like a baby.

The word "fate" is defined as, "something that unavoidably befalls a person."

In the case of the '95 Masters and the '07 EDS Byron Nelson Championship, it's hard to imagine that the eventual outcome wasn't predetermined. And by predetermined, we're not talking the kind that goes on with Vegas-odds makers and boxing. We're talking something divine.

Prior to last year's tournament, Verplank was struggling mightily with his game, breaking 70 in just three of his previous 18 competitive rounds. Why did everything suddenly click in Dallas for the then 43-year-old?

The irony wasn't lost on Verplank, who noted after the most self-satisfying win of his illustrious career, "Byron had a hand in this. I felt like I was living a dream."

See? Dreams do come true -- and usually when you least expect them.

Making the setting all the more hand-me-a-box-of-tissues extraordinary was the image of Nelson's widow, Peggy, awaiting Verplank as he made his way to the scorer's trailer. She put a big hug on Verplank and told him, "Byron picked the winner this week."

Indeed, he did.

Verplank's unthinkable win in Dallas was one of the prime examples of what makes sport such a beautiful thing.

Just like a year ago, Verplank enters his hometown tournament struggling with his form. He's missed the cut in four of his last six starts and his best finish in that stretch was a tie for 40th at the World Golf Championships-CA Championship.

No matter what the outcome is this time around, Verplank has already lived his dream.

Lucky for all of us, we were able to witness it.