The Wyndham Championship is a professional
golf
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.
Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...
tournament in
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 28th largest and List of states and territories of the United ...
on the
PGA Tour
The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also ...
. It is played annually in
Greensboro and was originally the Greater Greensboro Open.
History
Founded in 1938 as the Greater Greensboro Open,
[ it was usually played in April or May, until a schedule change in ]2003
File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A ...
moved it toward the end of the season. At the age of 52, Sam Snead
Samuel Jackson Snead (pronounced English_phonology">sni:d.html" ;"title="English_phonology.html" ;"title="nowiki/>English phonology">sni:d">English_phonology.html" ;"title="nowiki/>English phonology">sni:d May 27, 1912 – May 23, 2002) was an ...
set PGA Tour records in 1965
Events January–February
* January 14 – The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years.
* January 20
** Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in for a full term ...
for his eighth win at an event and as the oldest winner of a tournament; both records still stand. He won his 8th title 27 years after his first win in 1938. Davis Love III, the 2015 champion at age 51, is the oldest to win in the senior tour era, which began in 1980
Events January
* January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission.
* January 6 – Global Positioning System time epoch begins at 00:00 UTC.
* January 9 – In ...
.
Charlie Sifford
Charles Luther Sifford (June 2, 1922 – February 3, 2015) was an American professional golfer who was the first African American to play on the PGA Tour. He won the Greater Hartford Open in 1967 and the Los Angeles Open in 1969. He also won the ...
competed in 1961
Events January
* January 3
** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba (Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015).
** Aero Flight 311 (K ...
, and became the first African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
permitted to play in a PGA-sponsored event in the South. He led after the first round,[ and tied for fourth.]
In 2007
File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple Inc., Apple's first iPhone (1st generation), iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakis ...
, the event was renamed the Wyndham Championship when Wyndham Hotels & Resorts
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Inc. is an American hotel company based in Parsippany, New Jersey, United States. It describes itself as the largest hotel franchisor in the world, with 9,280 locations. It has a portfolio of 20 hotel brands, including ...
took over from DaimlerChrysler
The Mercedes-Benz Group AG (previously named Daimler-Benz, DaimlerChrysler and Daimler) is a German multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is one of the world's leading car manufacture ...
as title sponsor, and dropped "Greensboro" from the title. It moved from an autumn date to mid-August and is the last PGA Tour event before the FedEx Cup
The FedEx Cup is a championship trophy for the PGA Tour. Its introduction marked the first time that men's professional golf had a playoff system. Announced in November 2005, it was first awarded in 2007. Rory McIlroy is the 2022 champion. ...
Playoffs, as one last chance to qualify for the FedEx Cup and retain their tour privileges if not already exempt.
The purse for 2015 was $5.4 million, with a winner's share of $972,000.
On August 16, 2018, during the first round, Brandt Snedeker shot a 59. It was the tenth sub-60 round in the history of the PGA Tour, and just the third with a bogey. Snedeker shot a 27 on the inward nine, burying a twenty foot putt from the fringe to make history.
The 2021 event featured a six-way playoff for first place, which was won by Kevin Kisner. This tied the PGA Tour record for largest number of participants in a sudden-death playoff. This also occurred at the 1994 GTE Byron Nelson Golf Classic and the 2001 Nissan Open.
Courses
The event has been played in the Greensboro area for its entire history. In its first four years, it was played at both Sedgefield Country Club and Starmount Forest Country Club. During World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, it shifted solely to Starmount Forest in 1942, and was not held in 1943 and 1944. Starting in 1945, it alternated between Starmount Forest and Sedgefield until 1952, when Starmount Forest hosted for consecutive years.
It returned to Sedgefield in 1953 before Starmount Forest hosted for three consecutive years, (through 1956). Sedgefield hosted in 1957 and Starmount Forest hosted for another three straight years from 1958–60, then back to Sedgefield from 1961 to 1976
Events January
* January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force.
* January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea.
* January 11 – The 1976 ...
. It shifted to Forest Oaks Country Club from 1977
Events January
* January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group.
* January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democrat ...
to 2007
File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple Inc., Apple's first iPhone (1st generation), iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakis ...
, then returned to Sedgefield in 2008
File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...
. The course at Sedgefield was designed by noted architect Donald Ross; it opened in 1926 and was restored in 2007.
Winners
''Note: Green highlight indicates scoring records.''
Sources:
Multiple winners
Ten players have won this tournament more than once, through 2020.
*8 wins
**Sam Snead
Samuel Jackson Snead (pronounced English_phonology">sni:d.html" ;"title="English_phonology.html" ;"title="nowiki/>English phonology">sni:d">English_phonology.html" ;"title="nowiki/>English phonology">sni:d May 27, 1912 – May 23, 2002) was an ...
: 1938, 1946, 1949, 1950, 1955, 1956, 1960, 1965
*3 wins
** Davis Love III: 1992, 2006, 2015
*2 wins
**Byron Nelson
John Byron Nelson Jr. (February 4, 1912 – September 26, 2006) was an American professional golfer between 1935 and 1946, widely considered one of the greatest golfers of all time.
Nelson and two other legendary champions of the time, Ben Hoga ...
: 1941, 1945
**Doug Sanders
George Douglas Sanders (July 24, 1933 – April 12, 2020) was an American professional golfer who won 20 events on the PGA Tour and had four runner-up finishes at major championships.
Early years
He was born into a poor family in Cedartown, Ge ...
: 1963, 1966
**Billy Casper
William Earl Casper Jr. (June 24, 1931 – February 7, 2015) was an American professional golfer. He was one of the most prolific tournament winners on the PGA Tour from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s.
In his youth, Casper started as a caddie a ...
: 1962, 1968
**George Archer
George William Archer (October 1, 1939 – September 25, 2005) was an American professional golfer who won 13 events on the PGA Tour, including one major championship, the Masters in 1969.
Early years
Born in San Francisco, California, Arc ...
: 1967, 1972
**Danny Edwards
Richard Dan "Danny" Edwards (born June 14, 1951) is an American professional golfer who has played on the PGA Tour, Nationwide Tour and Champions Tour. He is the older brother of former PGA Tour player David Edwards.
Edwards was born in Ketchi ...
: 1977, 1982
**Sandy Lyle
Alexander Walter Barr Lyle (born 9 February 1958) is a Scottish professional golfer. Lyle has won two major championships during his career. Along with Nick Faldo and Ian Woosnam, he became one of Britain's top golfers during the 1980s. He spe ...
: 1986, 1988
**Rocco Mediate
Rocco Anthony Mediate (born December 17, 1962) is an American professional golfer who has won six times on the PGA Tour and three times on the PGA Tour Champions. In the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines South Course, he finished runner-up after l ...
: 1993, 2002
** Brandt Snedeker: 2007, 2018
References
External links
*
Coverage on PGA Tour's official site
Sedgefield Country Club
{{PGA Tour Events
PGA Tour events
Golf in North Carolina
Sports competitions in Greensboro, North Carolina
Wyndham Destinations
Recurring sporting events established in 1938
1938 establishments in North Carolina