EarthGolf

It’s not often that PGA Tour players discuss golf course architecture, let alone take up for a dead guy (as the renaissance-era golf course architects are often referred to). But a squabble has apparently broken out on tour over the host course for the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, North Carolina.

The current host course is Forest Oaks Country Club - the host course for the Greensboro tournament since 1977. The course, an Ellis Maples design, opened in 1964 and was renovated in 2002 by Davis Love III’s design firm.

The course that is being considered to replace Forest Oaks is Sedgefield Country Club - a Donald Ross design that was one of the two host courses for the Greensboro tournament from 1938 to 1961. From 1962 to 1976 it was the sole host course. Now, it’s going under the knife - restoration by architect Kris Spence is underway. The course’s website has a good number of photos documenting the construction taking place at the course.

Five years ago, the Greensboro Jaycees signed a 20-year agreement to play the tournament at Forest Oaks through 2022. But sources at Sedgefield and Forest Oaks say Greensboro businessman Bobby Long, director of the charitable foundation that runs the Wyndham, is negotiating a buyout with the Japanese company that owns Forest Oaks.

Long said last week that tournament officials are exploring every facet of improving the tournament, but would not discuss a possible move to another course.

Many of the tour players quoted in the article are supportive of the move, including a rather scathing comment by Robert Gamez of the Love redesign.

Robert Gamez said Love took out all the curves of Forest Oaks.

“It was always one of the best courses we played, but now you don’t have to maneuver the ball at all,” Gamez said. “Just hit it straight and hard and don’t worry about working the ball. Sedgefield is different. It makes you have to think.”

But according to the Forest Oaks website, Davis Love’s design associate Paul Cowley would disagree with Gamez’s take.

“The goal was to make a great course more aesthetically pleasing and also improve the nature of the strategic test,” said Cowley. “It’s really the older more traditional courses that professionals like Davis enjoy and that’s what why we went back to some of the original Maples design while incorporating some tried and tested classical elements.”

Curiously, the Greensboro News-Record did not question Davis Love’s take on the possible move. Love happens to be the defending champion of the Greensboro tournament too.

The Sedgefield press release on the restoration is a rather interesting read - but statements made in the release are sometimes confusing. Here you have them taking a shot at Augusta National:

Venerable Sedgefield is undergoing yet another makeover. But this time, unlike Augusta National and other courses rushing to keep pace with graphite drivers and long-distance balls, Sedgefield officials are turning back the calendar. A $2.7 million restoration project this year is expected to return the golf course to what Ross created in 1926.

But then a few paragraphs later:

To … address the length golfers have added to their games in recent years, the course will be stretched 214 yards to 6,951 yards. And many of Ross’ bunkers will be repositioned farther down the fairways, bringing them back into play with today’s graphite drivers and juiced balls.

“We’ll be getting the best of both worlds,” said Rocky Brooks, Sedgefield’s club pro, “a Donald Ross course designed toward today’s technology.”

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