Sedgefield Country Club Profile: Wyndham Championship Makes This Classic Donald Ross Course Its Home

(CBS Baltimore) — Sedgefield Country Club, successful Greensboro, North Carolina, is location to the Wyndham Championship, the past PGA Tour lawsuit earlier the FedExCup Playoffs. Sedgefield has been a regular Tour halt since 2008. But its narration with nonrecreational golf, not to notation its affluent history, dates backmost overmuch further.

Sedgefield Country Club formed successful 1925, astir the clip famed people designer Donald Ross drew up sketches of his adjacent masterpiece. Ross’s courses usage the natural topography to assistance dictate the way of the people and play connected it. They enactment connected a benignant of risk-reward system, challenging players to beryllium a small assertive and past offering scoring opportunities if they succeed. Sedgefield was nary different. (Ross besides designed Pinehurst No. 2, Aronimink Golf Club and East Lake Golf Club, among galore others.)

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Sedgefield, which Ross created to acceptable successful with the rolling scenery of the North Carolina countryside, opened for play the pursuing year. Golf was a overmuch antithetic crippled then, with shorter courses played with little blase equipment. When Sedgefield debuted arsenic a tourney people successful 1938, it played astatine 6,680 yards.

Its archetypal pro tourney was called the Greater Greensboro Open, and was played astatine some Sedgefield and Starmount Forest Country Club. Legendary golfer Sam Snead won the event, the archetypal of 8 wins helium would person astatine the tourney implicit the adjacent 27 years.

The Greater Greensboro Open divided rounds betwixt the clubs for a clip past alternated events for awhile longer. Starmount hosted the lawsuit done the 1950s. After Snead won the 1960 tournament, helium joked astir the mediocre information of the course. His remark angered the course’s proprietor and earned him a beingness ban. As a result, the tourney was moved backmost to Sedgefield, wherever it remained done 1976.

By the aboriginal portion of the 21st century, the people had been adjusted and altered truthful overmuch that it showed small resemblance to the archetypal Ross design. The fairways had changed shape; newer bunkers made small strategical sense. Sedgefield played similar truthful galore different mean courses that had modernized with middling results.

The people undertook large renovations, closing for 10 months and spending upwards of $3 million. The extremity was to rebuild the people portion besides restoring the archetypal Ross feel. Golf designer Kris Spence, who specializes successful refurbishing classical courses, relied connected 80-year-old aerial pictures and archetypal blueprints.

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With that presumption into the past, Spence managed to callback that earlier epoch of play portion besides bringing the people up to date. He added 400 yards successful length, re-positioned bunkers and returned the greens to their archetypal size. The people reopened successful 2007. The PGA Tour soon returned to Sedgefield aft 30-plus years with the renamed Wyndham Championship.

Sedgefield, which plays astatine a par-70 measuring 7,131 yards, remains the lone Ross-designed people successful the Tour’s regular rotation. The people places a premium connected putting the shot successful the close place, meaning keeping it connected the fairway and uncovering the close space to the green. The small, undulating greens let for absorbing pin placements. The greens thin to slope forward, with immoderate falling disconnected the edges.

The course plays arsenic overmuch into the hands of ball-strikers arsenic large hitters. Distance ever helps, if it comes with accuracy. Low scores tin beryllium had, with the past 5 champions each shooting amended than 20-under par for the tournament. Brandt Snedeker, who won the lawsuit successful 2018, acceptable the people grounds that twelvemonth with a first-round 59.

With scores that low, it’s nary astonishment that scoring opportunities are prevalent and Sedgefield. The 513-yard par 5 connected the 5th spread delivers plentifulness of birdie (and adjacent eagle) chances. Long, consecutive drivers tin scope the plateau greenish successful 2 shots. Scoring volition truly beryllium connected wherever the spread is located.

The par-4 sixth spread is among the course’s much challenging, At 427 yards, it plays downhill to a creek and uphill to an undulating green. It’s a bully illustration of the risk-reward equation that Ross worked into his courses. Most players settee for par here.

The 12th spread is the astir hard of the par-3s. A watercourse bisects this fairway arsenic well. The reachable two-tiered greenish is protected by heavy bunkers connected either side. A par is erstwhile again acceptable here, with players uncovering fewer birdies successful caller years.

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Watch the Wyndham Championship, Saturday, August 14 and Sunday, August 15, 3:00 – 6:00 p.m. ET connected CBS.