By STUART HALL Chip Watson hasn’t tired of listening to praise golfers have for Lonnie Poole Golf Course. At times, though, the general manager of the North Carolina State University layout became weary of the first impressions and last words. “When you rode up here, the first thing you saw was the trailer [as…
By Kurt Dusterberg When PGA professional Doug Hodges created SwingPals four years ago he wanted to use the game of golf and all its virtues to help kids reach their potential. But he didn’t just test the tenets of the game on the sport’s usual clientele. Instead, he took golf where the values were needed…
John Inman played 14 events on Champions Tour in 2013 By DAVID DROSCHAK Two-time PGA Tour winner and former University of North Carolina men’s golf coach John Inman thought his days of competitive golf were numbered after an uneventful run on the Web.com in 2011 and an even less stellar attempt at Champions Tour Q-School…
By MARC PRUITT TYGA State Championship BUIES CREEK, Oct. 12-13 ● Eric Bae of Cary fired a 9-under 63 in the final round to capture the TYGA State Championship by eight shots at Keith Hills Country Club. Bae, a sophomore at Raleigh Athens Drive, finished with a two day total of 11-under par 133. Bae,…
By Seth Kaplan I often say to my golfers, “You go for the reward, you get the reward!” However, too often competitive juniors, collegiate players, and pros do not trust in their shotmaking abilities, especially when they have opportunities to score. For example, let’s say you are 100 yards out and the pin is in…
By STUART HALL From the front, the team-issued golf shirts looked typically routine – button, collars, logo on the chest. But emblazoned on the back were numbers, which brought a few mixed reactions from players. The symbolism, though, was not lost on Colby Jackson. This summer, Jackson, 13, was a member of River Ridge Golf Club’s…
By MARC PRUITT The daunting task of stepping into the halls of Athens Drive High School for the first time didn’t faze incoming freshman Emilia Migliaccio. “Honestly, I’m a little more nervous standing over a 5-foot, downhill, left-to-right putt for par than starting high school,” she said. “I’ve experienced plenty of pressure situations on the…
By DAVID DROSCHAK When the Pinehurst/Southern Pines/Aberdeen Area Convention and Visitors Bureau proclaimed itself the “Home of American Golf” neighboring Lee County wasn’t necessarily in the equation. After all, Sanford was once “The Brick Capital of the World” and very little high-end golf existed. But if there was ever a game changer it was Tobacco…
Campbell University course to celebrate 40th anniversary in 2014 By STUART HALL The two weathered silos standing sentinel by the eighth green of Keith Hills Golf Club’s White Course are as much a conversational design element as they are confounding. The silos, remnants of an old dairy farm that were used to store grain, have…
Former caddy for Payne Stewart shifting golf careers By DAVID DROSCHAK Mike Hicks has read thousands of left-to-right putts on the PGA Tour during his 33 years as a caddy, toted the bag for major champions Payne Stewart and Justin Leonard, traveled the globe, and witnessed professional golf’s psychological pressures up close and personal. A…