By David Droschak Much like the late Arnold Palmer did for so many years, Scotch Hall Preserve is extending a handshake to all golfers. Known as much for its bite as its beauty on bluffs overlooking the expansive Albemarle Sound, the management and ownership team at the Palmer signature design have undertaken a softening of…
Durham golfer in his 90s still going strong By Kurt Dusterberg Ray Hardy is living the good life. He’s retired, in good health and playing a lot of golf. On a good day, he breaks 80 at Umstead Pines Golf Club in Durham. Hardy plays with a group of regulars, so he never has trouble…
Coach’s son wins individual title By David Droschak It’s difficult to say which made Pinecrest High School men’s golf coach Lynne Beechler prouder – winning a third straight 4-A prep championship or seeing her son mobbed by teammates on the 18th green following his individual championship. “I have been so fortunate to have been…
By Eddie Southards Dalton Mauldin came to the last hole of his high school golf career with a chance to win the state high school 3-A individual title. But a wayward approach shot proved costly for the Lee County senior, who finished in a tie for second place. Mauldin shot 73-72 for a 1-over 145…
By Brad King No need to squint to find something or someone discussing the decline of golf. Rounds are down, they say. Courses are closing. The game can’t attract millennials because it’s slow and takes too long. Everywhere you look it’s doom-and-gloom. Tiger Woods is now raising young kids and yet again nursing a bad…
By John Brasier Most players with Viraj Garewal’s credentials would have waded through stacks of college offers and committed to a top-flight golf program long before the spring of their second year of high school. But not Garewal, who had a stellar 2016 record despite winning only once. The senior at Panther Creek High had…
By David Droschak If you’re around Richard Sykes for five minutes and don’t crack a smile or double over laughing then you probably don’t have a pulse. It’s open for debate whether Sykes saw more one-putts or fired off more one-liners in his 46 years as men’s golf coach at North Carolina State. What is…
By Steve Huffman Katherine Perry Hamski remembers trying to play tournament golf as a young girl and finding it painfully obvious the directors had no idea what to do with the handful of females who signed on. There were tournaments galore for junior boys. But for junior girls? Uh, no. Do we pair the girls…
By Stuart Hall When Peggy Kirk Bell first met golf at age 17, how the wondrous, intertwining 78-year journey would unfold must have been unfathomable. In 1938, the idea of a young woman becoming a golf instructor or a touring professional or even a savvy business negotiator was likely as much wishful thinking as practical because…
–By David Droschak Paul Simson will turn 66 years old in May yet shows no signs of hanging the golf clubs in the garage quite yet. The Raleigh native accepted his eighth Senior Men’s Player of the Year award in February from the Carolinas Golf Association after winning two CGA championships in 2016 to push…