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…
Chang repeats as 4-A state champ; keeps Athens Drive streak alive DAVID DROSCHAK It didn’t take the Cardinal Gibbons Crusaders long to become the cream of the crop of 4-A women’s golf in North Carolina. Cardinal Gibbons, a thriving private Catholic school near PNC Arena in Raleigh, moved up a classification this season and quickly…
By STEVE WILLIAMS Check off a couple more boxes on Gina Kim’s to-do list. Only a couple months into her sophomore year at Chapel Hill High School, Kim had an October to remember. Early in the month, she verbally committed to Duke’s perennially potent women’s golf program and then she capped it Oct. 27 by…
By Robert Kimball Some people would argue that golfers are the easiest people to buy presents for because you can never go wrong. Sure, we like the “hole-of-the-day” desk calendar and the occasional sweater vest, but what really gets us going is new equipment. One look at the money spent by golf equipment firms on…