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…
By Kurt Dusterberg Willie McRae sits comfortably on the veranda at Pinehurst Resort, looking out over a golf course he knows better than anyone who has ever lived. That might sound like an overstatement, until you consider that he is in his 73rd year caddying at Pinehurst No. 2. When a man’s career endures longer…
By STUART HALL Ten days is all Mike Thompson needed to receive the first return from his investment in a new SkyTrak launch monitor. Playing in a Virginia State Golf Association’s Senior Open qualifier, on a Meadowbrook Country Club course he had never seen before last year, Thompson, of Richmond, Va., fired a 67 to…
Pinecrest matches men’s team; finally breaks through with women’s title By David Droschak The comparisons are natural, since Triangle-area prep stars Jenny Chang and Gina Kim have parents of Asian descent, are high school juniors, each have multiple state championships – and each spends hours upon hours practicing ball striking, putting and their short games.…
By Eddie Southards Gina Kim is a nationally ranked junior golfer who follows a different path than many of her contemporaries. The Chapel Hill junior still enjoys playing high school golf. Kim proved it by winning the women’s 3-A state individual title for the second straight year. She shot 69-72 for a 3-under total at Longleaf…