Greensboro Classic Faces
Big Move, New Challenges

By Shane Sharp,
Contributing Writer

GREENSBORO, NC (March 18, 2002) - For 54 years, the Greater Greensboro Chrysler Classic has been a spring ritual for Triad residents from Yadkinville to Yancyville, and this year is no exception, as the tournament will take place April 22-28 at historic Forrest Oaks Country Club.

But beginning with the fall of 2003, the GGCC will forfeit its precarious late April position behind the Masters and the immensely popular MCI Heritage of Golf in Hilton Head. The Greensboro Jaycees and Daimler Chrysler announced in March that the third oldest PGA Tour event east of the Mississippi will be played October 16-19 next season as part of a four-year extension with its title sponsor.

“It came as a shock, but there are two main areas to look at where this is going to help us tremendously,” says GGCC tournament director Mark Brazil. “That is the field, and the weather. We are going to get a stronger field because of the race for the top 30 on the money list to make the Tour Championship, the top 40 (on the money list) to see who’s invited to the Masters, and the top 125 to see who gets their tour card. And October weather is typically sunnier than late April.” However, October nights are often cold enough to run the summer Bermuda grass at Forrest Oaks into dormancy. Forrest Oaks Superintendent Dan Winters says the GGCC’s home course might take on a slightly browner hue, but that the PGA Tour players care more about true lies than they do about pretty colors.

“How the course looks is something that is geared more towards the spectators and the television audience,” Winters says. “The Bermuda will certainly be slowing up, but it will be plenty healthy. There is potential for a frost or two. There is not doubt it’s a northern looking golf course for the event now, but the bottom line is that it won’t look quite as green.”

Of more concern to the Jaycees and those economically involved with the tournament is the competition from other fall events. The GGCC was essentially the only game in town in April, but with its new October slot, the tournament will compete with a NASCAR race in Martinsville, Va., the Carolina Panthers, college and high school football, and the Major League Baseball playoffs.

It will also compete for patrons with the Senior Tour’s SAS Championship in Raleigh in late September, and potentially the RJR Championship at Tanglewood Park if a new sponsor for the tournament is procured.

“I don’t think those events will effect us at all,” Brazil says. “Tanglewood is not for sure, and I think to some extent there is a different crop of patrons for regular PGA Tour events than there is for Senior Tour events.”

The GGCC will replace the Michelob Championship on the PGA Tour schedule, and the Greensboro Jaycees hope the switch will bolster profits, which have dropped 83 percent over the last six years. The tournament will be played October 14-17 in 2004, September 29 – October 2 in 2005, and October 5-8 in 2006.

The GGCC will follow the Invensys Classic in Las Vegas and come before Disney, the Buick Challenge and the Tour Championship for the first two years of the deal. The final two years of the contract could prove to be difficult for player recruiting, says Brazil, as the GGCC will be played following the President’s Cup and the American Express Championships, both which attract the world’s best golfers.

“In the beginning, this was tough to swallow,” Brazil says. “But there are some great opportunities, and I think the fans will respond.”

Brazil says that he is expecting between 180,000 and 200,000 fans for this year’s edition of the GGCC. The total purse is set at $3.8 million, and the field includes Honda Classic champion Matt Kuchar, Sony Open Champion Jerry Kelly, Accenture Match Play champion Kevin Sutherland, as well as the red hot Scott McCarron, crowd favorite and 1992 champion Davis Love III, Andrew Magee and Kenny Perry. Brazil is also chasing Phil Mickelson, Charles Howell II, Ty Tryon and Rocco Mediate.

Brazil says that the Jaycees are warming to the news, but were essentially left with the ultimatum of re-upping with Chrysler and accepting the new date, or losing one of the PGA’s longest running and most tradition-rich events.

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