At the start of the roaring 1920s, Jack O’Brien, a sports editor for the San Antonio Evening News, had an idea.
That idea has overcome various obstacles and morphed into what we now know as the Valero Texas Open — the PGA Tour’s third-oldest tournament, the world’s sixth-oldest golf tournament and the longest event contested in the same city.
O’Brien wanted to bring tourists from the Northeast and Midwest to San Antonio during the winter and thought a golf tournament would be a perfect attraction, so he convinced the San Antonio Junior Chamber of Commerce and other benefactors to cough up $5,000 for the tournament — what would be more than $75,000 today.