Sedgefield Country Club, the newly named venue of the PGA TOUR’s Wyndham Championship, will also play host to 99 of the best junior boys in the world during the FootJoy Invitational June 9-13, 2008, the American Junior Golf Association announced Thursday. Now in its seventh year, the FootJoy Invitational has had four of its champions go on to win Rolex Junior Player of the Year honors in the same year.
Sedgefield Country Club now joins Redstone Golf Club’s Tournament Course, Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course, Grayhawk Golf Club, Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Club & Lodge, TPC Southwind, TPC Sawgrass - THE PLAYERS Stadium Course and El Camaleón Golf Club as PGA TOUR venues that also host an AJGA Tournament in 2008.
“This is an exciting opportunity for the FootJoy Invitational,” Mark Brazil, tournament director for the Wyndham Championship and tournament chairman for the FootJoy Invitational, said. “These talented young men will now have access to a recently restored 1926 Donald Ross design and PGA TOUR venue when they come to Greensboro in June.”
In 2007, Sedgefield Country Club underwent a $2.7 million restoration process under the guidance of North Carolina architect and Donald Ross Design restoration expert Kris Spence.
Like the Wyndham Championship, the FootJoy Invitational was previously held at Forest Oaks Country Club. The FootJoy Invitational moved to Forest Oaks in 2004 after spending its first two years at The Cardinal Golf and Country Club, also in Greensboro.
With its move to Sedgefield Country Club, players will now have easier access to the event’s host for player and parent accommodations – the Grandover Resort and Conference Center, which backs up to the golf course facility.
“This move creates one of the best set-ups on the PGA TOUR and now the American Junior Golf Association schedule,” Brazil continued. “From a player’s perspective, you’re talking less than two miles door-to-door.”
The FootJoy Invitational is one of 81 events the AJGA will conduct in 2008, including one of 12 invitation-only tournaments.
Last year, Peter Uihlein won the event shooting a 73-66-70-70–279 tournament total at Forest Oaks, a 7,280-yard, par 72 facility. He would go on to win Rolex Junior Player of the Year for the second time, becoming the fifth boy in the award’s 30-year history to win more than once. Only Tracy Phillips (1979-80), Mickelson (1986-88), Woods (1991-92) and Brian Harman (2003-04) can boast such an accomplishment.