news-record.com

GREENSBORO (AP) - Brandt Snedeker had questions about the Wyndham Championship's new home course, so he turned to a North Carolina native.

He wound up selling the defending champion on the layout at Sedgefield Country Club.

"I talked to (Davis Love III and) he told me how great the golf course was," Snedeker said Thursday. "That's how it spreads."

Tournament organizers are hoping that chatty pro golfers during the next few years will talk each other into playing North Carolina's oldest annual PGA tournament, the only regular stop to feature an original Donald Ross-designed course.

Naturally, the par-70, 7,117-yard layout includes the tricky greens that are the staples of a Ross design.

"It's exciting to me to see a golf course like this, with the greens complex the way they are, in great shape," said Snedeker, whose two-shot victory last year was the first of his career.

"In two or three years, you're going to see a great field show up here because the golf course is that good."

The recognizable names already have started to trickle in: David Duval became the latest commitment.

The one-time top-ranked player in the world and 2001 British Open winner is joining a crowded field that already was expected to include Vijay Singh, the world's 10th-ranked player, and Rocco Mediate, the U.S. Open runner-up who took Tiger Woods to a 19th playoff hole.

The tournament moved to Sedgefield after three decades across town at Forest Oaks Country Club, where Snedeker claimed a two-stroke victory over Tim Petrovic, Billy Mayfair and Jeff Overton.

The victory came in the final weekend before the FedEx Cup playoffs and it vaulted him 17 spots on the points list.

"I'm a little bittersweet, seeing how I won last year, (I) hope I can transfer some of those breaks and bounces over here," Snedeker said.
"Any time you come back to an area where you had success ... we're 15 minutes away from where I won.

"I'm still a defending champion, it's still a tournament that I won last year, it's still a great golf course - nothing negative.

"The only time I'd be upset is if we went to a terrible course. ... This place is phenomenal. It's going to be a better field, better tournament."