By Kurt Dusterberg Emily Brooks would like to become a household name in golf circles. In the meantime, she has the most famous silhouette in the sport. Brooks is a senior at Elon University, and much to her surprise, her image adorns the 2016 United States Golf Association rule book. “My dad and my grandfather…
By BRAD KING Despite having already captured two previous Rex Hospital Opens, Kyle Thompson admitted he was a desperate man fighting for survival as he headed into last year’s Web.com Tour event at Raleigh’s TPC Wakefield Plantation. Thompson entered the 2015 tournament on a past champion’s exemption. His name was nowhere to be found on…
By DAVID DROSCHAK Dan Brooks chuckles some when asked about his early days as Duke’s women’s golf coach. “I actually came into this not wanting to be a coach, I wanted to be a teacher, and my ego was huge and I wanted to be THE teacher,” said Brooks, who has now coached the ultra…
By DAVID DROSCHAK With more than 300 private clubs scattered across the world – and its fair share in the Triangle and the state of North Carolina (and still growing each year) – tackling a story on the far-reaching affect of ClubCorp’s network can be a bit overwhelming. Sure, the firm has golf clubs in…
North Carolina’s juniors won bragging rights over their rivals from South Carolina and Georgia in the 8th annual Carolinas-Georgia Junior Championship. The event features the top 20 boys and top 10 girls from each of the three states, and is annually played in mid-January at Mount Vintage Plantation Golf Club in North Augusta, S.C. A…
By STUART HALL Last summer, as Jordan Spieth turned his attention toward preparation for the Open Championship, the third leg of his Grand Slam pursuit, his approach raised a few eyebrows. Though Spieth had played St. Andrews’ Old Course only once — in 2011 prior to the Walker Cup as an amateur — he chose not to…
Part 1 of 2 part series on the Carolinas PGA By DAVID DROSCHAK Golf has a way of pulling you back in. Ron Schmid, a former golf pro at Duke University Golf Club for more than a decade, believed the game was in his rear view mirror heading into the 1990s. He was sailing along…
By BRAD KING When he was contemplating converting the green complexes at historic Pine Needles resort in Southern Pines from bentgrass to an ultra-dwarf strand of bermudagrass, Kelly Miller didn’t have to look far for a good sampling — just across Midland Road, in fact, to the Mid Pines Inn & Golf Club. Miller, the longtime…
Part 2 of 2 part series on the Carolinas PGA By Kurt Dusterberg Jeff Abbot began his working life in a conventional way. Upon college graduation from Notre Dame, he moved to Cincinnati and went to work for Deloitte & Touche, embracing the life of a CPA. “But I realized I didn’t want to be…
By STUART HALL Scott Verner and Ed Ibarguen first met through mutual friends at the University of North Carolina in the early 1970s, and quickly formed a friendship, each with a passion for playing music. Over a holiday weekend in Ibarguen’s room on the 7th floor of UNC’s Morrison Dorm, the new friends met…