By Lauren Deason Let's channel Clarence the angel from It's a Wonderful Life for a minute and imagine what the world might be like if North Carolina had never existed. There'd have been no sand dunes at Kitty Hawk for the Wright Brothers' first flight, no Mayberry for Sheriff Andy Taylor and Deputy Barney Fife to protect, and no Pepsi created in New Bern. The numbers 23 and 3 might have less meaning without N.C. heroes Michael Jordan, who was raised in Wilmington, and Dale Earnhardt Sr., born in Kannapolis, sporting them while making history. And a big hole would exist in the golf world too, minus the likes of Pinehurst No. 2, Quail Hollow Club, Raymond Floyd, Mark O'Meara and Davis Love III, to name a few. In fact, there would have been a few big holes in the professional golf schedule over the past two weeks, without two Champions Tour events and one PGA TOUR event being set in the Tar Heel State. It's a state rich in golf tradition and one that has played host to many tournaments over the years, including this week's PGA TOUR tournament, the Chrysler Classic of Greensboro, and the Champions Tour's SAS Championship. All that separates the two Tours this week is about an hour and a half's worth of driving down I-40 and I-85. Speaking of golf tradition and history, the Chrysler Classic of Greensboro has taken place at Forest Oaks Country Club since 1977 and has been in the city of Greensboro since 1938, when Sam Snead won the inaugural event. Snead must have liked the city, setting two PGA TOUR records there when he won the tournament an unprecedented eight times and, upon winning his last one in 1965, he became the oldest winner on the PGA TOUR. While the Greensboro event has lasted all these years, a few other PGA TOUR tournaments didn't stay quite as long in North Carolina. The Kemper Open, now the Booz Allen Classic, was staged at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte for 10 years from 1969-79. Quail Hollow is now home to the Wachovia Championship, though, which is quickly becoming a popular TOUR event. Charlotte may be the largest city, but it's the much smaller village of Pinehurst that gets the most golf attention in the state. Several major championships have been contested there, including the 1936 PGA Championship, the 1999 U.S. Open and the 2005 U.S. Open. The Ryder Cup was held at the resort in 1951 and, some 40 years later, the 1991 and 1992 TOUR Championships were as well.
Several notables have won on the hallowed grounds of Pinehurst,
including a teenage Tiger Woods at the
Insurance Youth Golf Classic, and On the Champions Tour, the Old North State has played host to a number of tournaments, including the PaineWebber Invitational and the Vantage Championship at Tanglewood Golf Club in Clemmons, N.C. Tanglewood also hosted the 1974 PGA Championship. Now there's the SAS Championship, being contested this week near the capital city of Raleigh, N.C. and its western North Carolina neighbor, last week's Greater Hickory Classic at Rock Barn in Conover. With his victory at the Greater Hickory Classic at Rock Barn, golfer Andy Bean got his first win on the Champions Tour and his third one in the state, having finished first at the Kemper Open in 1978 and at the Greater Greensboro Open in 1984. Even the Nationwide Tour has an event there, held in late May and early June in Raleigh. Brenden Pappas won The Rex Hospital Open at TPC Wakefield Plantation this year. So, if it weren't for North Carolina, Bean's trophy case would be a little emptier, barbeque wouldn't taste quite as good without an Eastern North Carolina-based vinegar sauce and NCAA basketball would lack its heated Tobacco Road rivalries. So, as they say, "nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina ...." |
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