TOUR Insider: Childhood friends launch big project
By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W. Va. -- The rock in the bottom of his golf bag weighed, maybe, eight pounds, and Slugger White had unwittingly been carrying it for 18 holes.
"He started to head up the last little hill, and I said, 'Hey, Slugger, why don't you take that rock out of your bag,'" recalled Jim Justice, who just happened to be the man who had hidden it there.
"He turned his clubs upside down and fup, fup, fup, out rolls the rock. Well, I took off running because he could have beaten me like a dog."
These days, Justice isn't playing pranks like he did as a teenager growing up in Beckley, W. Va. But with the help of his good friend White, now a vice president of rules and competition for the PGA TOUR, Justice has pulled off quite a coup.
This week, just over a year after he bought one of America's most historic resorts, the millionaire businessman and philanthropist hosts the PGA TOUR's newest event, The Greenbrier Classic, on the property of the same name.
"You can't imagine really how I feel," Justice said. "...I'm the guy that's ate up with West Virginia and truly loves our state and believes in our people and think that we're a people that are caring and loving and warm.
"To be able to sit here with (Slugger) and to be able to do this to see all the greatness just unfolding, it's really an emotional time."
When White and Justice were growing up in Beckley, which is about an hour's drive through the Allegheny Mountains from White Sulphur Springs, they used to call The Greenbrier the "Emerald City." So that makes Justice, who is the CEO and president of 47 different companies, the wizard -- only just not of Oz.
White and Justice grew up playing golf, sometimes 54 holes a day, at Black Knight Country Club, site of the rock incident. They were best friends who learned to play the game by tagging along after their fathers, and their team at Woodrow Wilson High School went 218-0.
"I used to beat him like he stole something," said a smiling White, who played professionally before joining the PGA TOUR as a rules official.
"Please don't start lying," Justice protested good-naturedly, but quickly added, "... Really, I got to admit, Slugger probably got the long end of the stick in the times we played. And we played a lot.
"This is gonna be a tremendous event this week, but I'm not gonna quit until they tell me it's the best of the best."
-- Jim Justice
"There was times where I probably upset the apple cart, but Slugger was tough. He was a great player."
When White heard that his childhood friend had bought the Greenbrier, he gave Justice a call. And that conversation laid the groundwork for the $6 million event that will play out this week among the legendary Sam Snead's former haunts.
"I called and said, 'Man, what the heck are you doing?''" White remembered.
"He didn't say 'heck,'" the laughing Justice was quick to interject, and White quickly agreed. Before they hung up, though, the enthusiastic entrepreneur made his pitch.
"Slugger, I'm not going to let you go that easy,'" Justice recalled. "I've got to have a PGA (TOUR) event here. He said, 'Jimmy, that's a really tough nut to crack.' I said, tough nut to crack? I mean, jiminy, give me a break. Look what we've already done.'"
So White introduced Justice to Rick George, executive vice president and COO for the TOUR and the wheels were set in motion. And when Buick dropped its sponsorship of the tournament in Warwick Hills, Mich., Justice and The Greenbrier were there to step in.
"To go from where we were to this is just -- it's unbelievable,''" White said.
The first site visit George and White made to resort focused on The Greenbrier course that has hosted a Ryder Cup, Solheim Cup and three Champions Tour events in the 1980s. During the second visit, the group took a quick trip out to look at the Old White Course, designed in 1910 by Charles Macdonald and updated in 1924 by Seth Raynor.
"Forty five minutes later, Slugger and everybody is calling me saying, Whoa, whoa, whoa -- this is where we wanted to be," Justice said. "... Then all the attention bowed to the Old White."
"I saw golf out there," White explained. "I saw it the way we kind of grew up. Little course that Jimmy and I grew up on, a little nine hole golf course, it was right just there in front of you. I think we drove down three or four fairways (at the Old White) and said, boy, this is it right here. This is what it's all about.
"It just had a feel to it."
Over the last 16 months, Justice has spruced up the resort, which is a National Historic Landmark, and added a casino that opened last month with celebrities like Shaquille O'Neal, Jessica Simpson and Ben Affleck in attendance. In addition to the golf, there are more than 50 other recreational activities, including horseback riding, fishing, skeet shooting and indoor and outdoor tennis. And don't forget the 40,000 square-foot spa.
"West Virginia is beautiful,'" said Carl Pettersson, last week's winner at the RBC Canadian Open who drove up from his home in Raleigh, N.C., on Tuesday.
"Then we turned into the Greenbrier and it's stunning, beautiful. Feels like you're going back to the '50s or something when you pull in. The resort is beautiful. ... The golf course is a throwback, I think. This is a hidden gem."
Justice has big plans for the tournament and the resort, too. He knows the Old White, at 7,031 yards from the blue tees, probably needs more length to stand up to the talented players and well-nuanced equipment of the modern game. He's willing to do whatever it takes for The Greenbrier Classic to grow, though -- and he'd like nothing better than to also be talking about hosting events like The Presidents Cup in the future.
"I've told the PGA TOUR people this, and I mean it," Justice said. "This is gonna be a tremendous event this week, but I'm not gonna quit until they tell me it's the best of the best. And so you just have a tough guy to deal with for a while."
Larger than life in stature as well as personality, White speaks with the zeal of a pastor exhorting his parishioners to those heavenly heights. He's totally invested in The Greenbrier Classic and what it can do for the community and the state he loves so much.
"I'm a west-by-God-stand-up-and-shout," White said. "It's where my roots are. But (Jimmy) lives and breathes it."
"What I really hope they take away from the whole thing is just the little touch of happiness and a little touch of joy,'" Justice said. "Not necessarily that I got Davis Love's autograph or that I saw Jim Furyk make a long putt -- I want them to get a little bit of the magic of the Greenbrier and West Virginia."
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