Birthplace of Champions How the Wyndham Championship came to symbolize the revival of a region
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By Lee Pace
Historical Photographs from Carol W. Martin/Greensboro Historical Museum Collection
cour the PGA Tour schedule and you’ll find sexier landscapes than Greensboro (the seals baying in the distance at Pebble Beach or the candystriped lighthouse at Hilton Head). Admittedly, there’s more knuckle-clenching drama elsewhere (the island green 17th at Sawgrass or the “Monster” 16th at Firestone) and more world-famous hosts (Jack Nicklaus at the Memorial and Arnold Palmer at Bay Hill). But only at our own Wyndham Championship can you find a classic, strategically nuanced course from the fertile design mind of the Scotsman Donald J. Ross. Only here will you find a champions board running from Snead to Hogan to Seve, the place where Byron Nelson won at the peak of his 11-win streak in 1945, and area college heroes Lanny Wadkins from Wake Forest and Davis Love III from Chapel Hill have prevailed. Only the tournaments in Phoenix, San Antonio, Los Angeles and Pebble Beach among United States non-majors have more longevity than North Carolina’s oldest PGA event, which was founded in 1938 and hasn’t missed a beat since — making this a birthplace of champions. Ballesteros won here in 1978 before anyone could pronounce his name. Sandy Lyle and Bob Goalby first won on American soil in Greensboro before going on to capture the Masters. At a time when golf appears to be enjoying a rebirth with fresh young faces winning majors (McIlroy, Schwartzel, McDowell, Kaymer et al.), this venerable event has figured prominently in the winner’s circle debuts of Ryan Moore (the U.S. Amateur and U.S. Public Links champion) and Brandt Snedeker (2007 Tour Rookie of the Year). The championship, known for decades as the Greater Greensboro Open, was a rite of spring punctuated with suds, sundresses and the roar of the galleries at Sedgefield or Starmount Forest or Forest Oaks. It hiccupped at times with bad dates and a sponsorship merry-go-round, but Greensboro’s pro golf event has persevered and survived — much like a city and region that lost major textile, furniture and manufacturing interests. Both the competition and the community are on the upswing today. In many respects, the tournament has become the perfect symbol for a revitalized Triad region. “It wasn’t so much about saving a tournament, it was more about uniting a region,” says Bobby Long, the Greensboro golfer and businessman who helped usher the tournament into its modern iteration with a Sedgefield home, a Wyndham sponsorship and August dates that lead the PGA Tour into its fall playoff season. Perhaps no one among us still has the breadth of perspective and intimate knowledge of the tournament’s ebbing and flowing than Jim Melvin, currently the president and CEO of the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation and a participant in GGO/Wyndham administration for half a century. “You could talk to seventy-some GGO chairmen and presidents of the Jaycees and get a thousand wonderful stories,” Melvin says one morning in the board room of the Bryan Foundation, which he has led since his retirement from the banking industry in 1996. To his right, mounted on an easel, is a black and white photograph of the foundation’s benefactor, Joe Bryan, the insurance and broadcasting magnate, presenting a check for $1,200 to Sam Snead upon Snead’s triumph in the inaugural Greater Greensboro Open golf tournament in 1938. Melvin found the picture in an attic at Sedgefield Country Club several years ago and resurrected it, thinking it would be an appropriate accoutrement for the offices of a foundation so steeped in Greensboro history. “Mr. Bryan personally guaranteed the original $5,000 purse,” Melvin says. “It turns out
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
August/September 2011
O.Henry 49