Special Places - Sedgefield CC

Following on the heels of a weather-disrupted PGA Championship, the US PGA Tour moves down south this week for the final regular season event, before the Fedex Cup playoffs.

Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro North Carolina plays host to the Wyndham Championship, which is one of the oldest events on the Tour calendar. The championship was known as the Greater Greensboro Open when Sedgefield hosted the inaugural event in 1938, and Sam Snead came out on top. Two years later Ben Hogan collected his first Tour victory here. Sedgefield and Starmount Country Club alternated as hosts until 1960 after which Sedgefield became the permanent home of the event for the next 16 years.

In 1961 the tournament invited Charles Sifford to play, making him the first African American to compete in a PGA Tour event in the Old South. In 1965 Sam Snead won the Greensboro for a record-setting eighth time 27 years after his first victory, and at seven weeks short of his 53rd birthday he remains the oldest ever winner of an event on the regular tour. Other golfing luminaries to have won at Sedgefield include Gary Player in 1970 and Al Geiberger - the original Mr 59 - who was victorious in 1976 in the last PGA tournament to be hosted here for 31 years. The event, now the Wyndham Championship, returned to Sedgefield in 2008 after 31 years at Forest Oaks Country Club, when Carl Petersen won with a record 259 total.

Donald Ross’ layout opened for play in 1926, when the influential and prolific Scottish-born designer (whose credits include Pinehurst no2, Seminole Golf Club, and Oakland Hills) was at the peak of his powers. In 2007 a yearlong restoration project was completed which transformed the course back to its former glory and to how Ross intended it to be played. At 6600m in length and playing to a par of 70, Sedgefield features rolling fairways and mostly small undulating greens. The most challenging hole on the course is the 385m par 4 sixth, which requires a tee shot left of centre and near the creek that bisects the fairway diagonally.

Then a difficult uphill approach is needed to an undulating green in a natural amphitheatre setting. The eighteenth is a 465m par 4 that requires length and accuracy to succeed with the long uphill approach to a well-bunkered green majestically overlooked by the Tudor-style clubhouse. Sedgefield is an immaculately maintained historic classic that is still a searching examination of golfing skill and prowess in the modern era.