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Footjoy Prize: Juniors to play for exemption in Wyndham
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Published: June 7, 2009
GREENSBORO -- Some of the best players from the American Junior Golf Association will be at Sedgefield Country Club this week for the Footjoy Invitational.
The tournament already was one of the best on the AJGA schedule, but it added a layer of excitement last week that will be hard to beat in junior golf -- the winner will receive a sponsor's exemption into the Wyndham Championship in August.
The idea of pairing the two tournaments was well-received when Mark Brazil, the director of the Wyndham, proposed it last year.
Jonah Beck, the director of the Footjoy, says that the chance to play in the Wyndham has been a big hit and that many of the 99 golfers in the field of 13- to 18-year-olds have asked about the exemption.
"It's huge a deal," Beck said. "To actually know they can play in an AJGA event, and if they win get to play in a PGA Tour event is big. When you look at a younger kid, his dream is to play in a PGA Tour event.
"To know they have that possibility doesn't happen all the time at that age."
Justin Clement of Lexington, one of nine golfers in the field from North Carolina, says that the chance to play in the Wyndham is one reason he decided to play in the Footjoy.
"It's great to have something like that as an incentive," said Clement, a West Davidson High senior and UNC Greensboro signee. "But it's not something really you can think about while you are on the course. I'll just go out there and do the best that I can."
Clement played last year and made the cut {the low 60 and ties after the third round}.
"You have to hit a lot of greens out there," he said.
Many high-school seniors and recent graduates don't play much on the AJGA tour the summer before starting college, but Beck said that the sponsor's exemption has changed things.
Andrew Yun of Tacoma, Wash., who won the Footjoy at Forest Oaks in 2006, is back because of it, according to Beck.
The field is also much stronger -- 11 of the top 20 in the Polo Golf Rankings are entered -- and Beck credits Brazil with making the Footjoy more viable.
"Mark's always supported junior golf," Beck said.
Brazil worked with the AJGA before becoming the Wyndham director in 2001, and since then has tried to make in-roads with AJGA golfers, knowing that they're the future of the PGA Tour. He hopes that fostering those relationships now will pay dividends later.
"It's a heck of a recruiting tool," Brazil said. "I guess if you look at it, just think if Phil Mickelson or Tiger Woods were playing junior golf now, you would want them in the Footjoy. And that's what we are getting, the best junior golfers in the world."
Four of the last five winners of the Footjoy, now in its seventh year, went on to become the AJGA player of the year.
"We're very proud of this tournament," Brazil said.
Wyndham attendance jumps
The move from Forest Oaks to Sedgefield Country Club has brought bigger crowds to the Wyndham Championship.
Last year's Wyndham at Sedgefield drew an estimated 80,000 fans for the week, Brazil said. He added that the 2007 tournament at Forest Oaks drew about 40,000.
"I would think our attendance doubled," Brazil said.
Brazil said that taking the tournament back to Sedgefield, where it was played from the late 1930s until the early 1970s, and a more central location in Greensboro helped boost the attendance.
This year's Wyndham is scheduled for Aug. 20-23, and Brazil said that the early commitments include David Toms, Davis Love, Jerry Kelly, defending champion Carl Pettersson, Jerry Kelly.
It's also possible that Adam Scott will play. He tried to commit last year but missed the PGA Tour deadline. Brazil tried to give Scott a sponsor's exemption, but a tour rule prohibited that.
"When guys aren't very pleased with exactly where they are as we move into the FedEx Cup playoffs, they look at our tournament," Brazil said.
One more tweak to the FedEx Cup race is that points will continue to be awarded after the Wyndham even though it's the last regular-season tournament.
"We were going to get some big-name players who maybe haven't done what they thought they should have done through the year," Brazil said. "I think that's going to happen again."
Around the green
NCAA champion Matt Hill, a sophomore who set an N.C. State record with eight wins this season, has told Coach Richard Sykes that he will stay in school. "He's moving toward graduation like we talked about," Sykes said. Hill, a 20-year-old from Brights Grove, Ontario, also was the co-medalist at the ACC Championships and an NCAA regional champion, and he might get to play in a PGA tournament this summer. Brazil, the director of the Wyndham Championship, said he's considering Hill for a sponsor's exemption….
Heather Angel of Winston-Salem, 29 and a former UNC golfer, is again playing on the LPGA's Future's Tour, where she has played since 2003. Her best finish in three tournaments has been a tie for 76th, and she's 143rd on the money list with just less than $600 in winnings….
Webb Simpson, a PGA Tour rookie who played at Wake Forest, is the honorary chairman of the AJGA Footjoy Invitational, which will start Tuesday. Simpson, from Raleigh, played in the Footjoy from 2002 to 2004, and his best finish was a tie for second in 2002.
■ John Dell can be reached at 727-4081 or at jdell@wsjournal.com.
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