Local Icon: Tourney honors Purvis Ferree

Jim Ferree makes sure of one thing when he plans his busy schedule.

"I will always be there for the Purvis Ferree Cup," Jim said about his late father, who was the golf pro at Old Town Club from 1942 until 1965.

Jim, 78, who lives in Hilton Head, S.C., can remember when Old Town was his playground where he learned to play the game and took instructions from his father, who died in 1979.

Jim Ferree, one of the original members of the Champions Tour, had a very successful pro-golf career after graduating from Reynolds High School in 1949 and North Carolina in 1953.

"It's a very bid deal," Ferree said about the Purvis Ferree Cup, which will begin on Friday.

This is the 17th year of the four-ball tournament.

This is the 20th anniversary of Purvis' death, and Jim said that his father loved Old Town.

"After he retired he still came to the course just about every day," Jim said. "They made him an honorary member, and he was there for a long time but never made any enemies. He taught me a lot, and he taught a lot of others as well."

Most of the regulars at Old Town called him "Purv" and he was very popular within the Carolinas PGA Section. He was one of the first inductees into the Carolinas PGA Golf Hall of Fame in 1983.

Jim said that in 1942, the family moved to Winston-Salem from the Pinehurst area.

"I was about 11 or 12 when we moved to Winston," Jim said last week from his home in Hilton Head. "Every time I play Old Town, the memories come flooding back."

Dunlop White III, who along with Uly Grisette, are the three-time defending champions, said that the Purvis Ferree Cup is different than most member-guests. Professional players are eligible to compete.

"The club wanted to honor an era of outstanding golfers in our area, and by all accounts, our longtime professional, Purvis Ferree, was the head of that class," said White, who has been the tournament chairman since 1998.

There will be 36 two-man teams in the field.

Because Grisette will be playing in the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship in Kiawah Island, S.C., White will have a new partner, Joe Dillon, who teamed with Richard Malloy Jr., to win the first Purvis Ferree Cup in 1992.

Jim Ferree won the tournament in 1994 and '95, teaming with John Aber. Jim Kluttz, who teamed with Todd Lynch to win it in 2001, was the founder of the Purvis Ferree Cup and was the tournament chairman in the early years.

"It's great that Old Town does this," Ferree said. "I mean, a lot of the guys playing in the tournament were really young when my dad was around, but I think it says a lot about the club wanting to remember him."

There's also a bridge named in honor of Purvis on the course.

After the first day of play the tournament is flighted, and there's also a senior championship, with that cup named after the late Buck Adams, a Winston-Salem native and the former pro at the Country Club of North Carolina.

Ferree, who will play with Bob Leaver, said his goal is to win the senior division. "I want that Buck Adams cup," Ferree said.

Pete Parker, one of the top senior amateurs in the state, will play with John Faidley, the head pro at Forsyth Country Club. Parker's son, Chris, will play with Walter Hall, who is winding down his outstanding career on the Champions Tour.

Lynch, a former All-America at Wake Forest, and Thomas Parker, who is an agent for several PGA Tour players, will team up to play. They were teammates at Wake Forest in the early 1990s.

Jerry Haas, the golf coach at Wake Forest, who has won it four times with partner Logan Jackson, will play with Joe Young this year. Jackson has the most victories in the history of the tournament with five, but he is not playing this year.

At the dinner on Saturday night Curtis Strange, a former Wake Forest golfer and two-time U.S. Open winner, will be the guest speaker.

"Old Town was such a big part of everything that went on in my life," Ferree said. "It's going to be a lot of fun."

Around the green

Lanny Wadkins, a former Wake Forest star who will be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in November, hasn't started working on his speech just yet. "There's a time limit and it's televised by the Golf Channel so you only have 10 or 15 minutes," Wadkins said. "By the time I acknowledge everybody who has been a big part of my career that will be pretty much it."…

Optimism is high about continuing the Greater Hickory Classic at Rock Barn, according to sources. Since the tournament ended on Sept. 20 there have been several meetings with the Champions Tour "and they have all been positive," a source said. Don Beaver, the owner of Rock Barn, has an option for one more year but hasn't decided if he wants to sign it….

Kenny Perry was honored last week to win the Payne Stewart Award, which is given to a player who shows a commitment to charity, his conduct on and off the course and in sharing Stewart's respect for traditions. "Payne personified all the virtues the game of golf can teach us, so being recognized as a person who is worthy of an award created in his memory is incredibly humbling," Perry said.

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