Wyndham Notebook

By: John Dell | COMPILED BY JOHN DELL
Published: August 14, 2008

Group sponsors outing for kids

■ Nearly 100 children and teenagers from the First Tee of the Triad program at Winston Lake will get to see a PGA tournament for the first time.

The Stanford Group is sponsoring the outing for today's first round and Friday's second round.

Deems May, a former tight end at North Carolina and former NFL player, works for The Stanford Group and helped organize the outing. Golfers in the First Tee program are between the ages of 8 and 18.

"A lot of these kids have never been to a PGA Tour event," said Anne Marie Goslak, the executive director of First Tee. "But they've arranged to have a hospitality suite for us near the 17th green, and it's all going to be kid-friendly food and drinks."

Goslak said she hopes to have some of the PGA Tour pros visit the suite after their rounds.

■ Wyndham officials are hoping that the move to Sedgefield will secure the tournament's long-term future on the PGA Tour. The current contract between Wyndham and the PGA Tour runs through 2010.

Tournament director Mark Brazil said that the board of directors will sit down with Wyndham after the tournament to discuss extending the sponsorship agreement.

"Obviously that's something we had in mind to extend this golf tournament, and we certainly want to keep Wyndham Worldwide as our title sponsor," Brazil said.

■ Arnold Palmer and Richard Petty were on hand to help get the tournament kicked off yesterday.

■ D.J. Gregory's long and winding road reaches his hometown of Greensboro this week.

Gregory, 30, has spent the season walking every round of every PGA Tour tournament, even though he has cerebral palsy and uses two canes to walk. Each week, he picks a golfer to follow during the tournament and writes about his experiences for pgatour.com.

Gregory first became interested in golf when he and his father attended the tournament at Forest Oaks about 16 years ago.

This weekend, Gregory will be following Davis Love III, a two-time winner.

■ Golfers near the 144th spot in FedEx Cup points need good showings this weekend to make the playoffs. Included in that group are: Love, Carlos Franco, Lee Janzen, Jeff Maggert, Rich Beem, Billy Andrade and Olin Browne…. Brandt Snedeker is trying to become the first repeat winner in Greensboro since Sam Snead, who won in 1955 and 1956 for two of his record eight titles…. Vijay Singh, the highest ranked golfer in the field at No. 5, is paired with Kirk Triplett and David Toms in the first two rounds and will tee off at 7:30 today. Singh and Toms have won in North Carolina before, both at the Wachovia Championship…. Joe Ogilvie, a former Duke star, won the Greensboro Open at Sedgefield in 1998; the tournament was then on the Nike Tour.