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Thousands watched at Sedgefield Country Club in 1961 as burly (reporters always called him that) Mike Souchak whacked long drives to win the Greater Greensboro Open golf tournament.

Victory came 50 miles and 11 years from where Souchak had been the goat in another big-time sporting event.

A Pennsylvania native who died July 10 at 81, Souchak wasn’t rare for his day but would be an oddity today. Like some golfers of his generation, he excelled in other sports. Many remembered him as a Duke University football receiver and placekicker from 1948 to 1950. His senior year he caught 27 passes, scored two touchdowns, made 26 of 29 extra points and won conference honors.

He split plenty of uprights, but the kick that stands out is the one that didn’t get airborne. With seconds left in the 1949 Duke-Carolina game in Durham, the Blue Devils trailed 21-20. Souchak sought to make a game-winning field goal from 3 yards.

UNC sent in its lanky, speedy All-America pass receiver Art Weiner for a block attempt. In a 2003 interview, Weiner, a New Jersey native who lives in Greensboro, said the assignment proved surprisingly easy. The confused Blue Devil line failed to protect.

“I almost ran by him,’' Weiner recalled. “Souchak wound up kicking me in the backside. He said he broke his ankle. I told him that’s not what you broke on me.”

After Duke, as a golfer, Souchak won 15 PGA Tour events, played on two Ryder Cup teams and made 11 top 10 finishes in golf’s four major championships. For 46 years, his 257 score for a 72-hole tournament was a record. That averaged to just over 64 strokes a round.

But what separated Souchak and others who played the golf circuit back then was golf was only a part of their growing up.

Today, golf is so refined, with many shots to master and many talented players. Children must start taking lessons almost as toddlers.

There may be a few in this year’s Greensboro tournament, now called the Wyndham Championship, starting Thursday at Sedgefield, who fooled around with other sports.

But there won’t be a Souchak or a Sam Byrd. Byrd won the 1941 Greater Greensboro Open over Ben Hogan and enjoyed victories in four other PGA events.

He did so after playing seven years for the New York Yankees and two for the Cincinnati Reds. He often pinch-ran for the aging Babe Ruth.

Nor will the tour likely ever know another Ellsworth Vines or Frank Conner, the only two men who played in both the U.S. Open tennis and golf championships.

Vines won four of tennis’ Grand Slam events. He almost won the 1951 PGA Championship, considered one of golf’s four major tournaments. Conner lost the Hilton Head tournament in a playoff to the great Tom Watson.

There’ll never be a sweeter singer/golfer than Don Cherry. He’s the only golfer with a song in the top ten charts — “Band of Gold” in 1955 — and a top-ten finish in a golf major championship. As an amateur, he contended until the final four holes in the 1960 U.S. Open, won by Arnold Palmer. When Cherry played the Greensboro tournament, he moonlighted by singing at the old Plantation Supper Club on High Point Road.

There won’t be another Hale Irwin, a three-time U.S. Open Champion and still a threat on the PGA Champions Tour for those 50 and older.

In Greensboro, historian Loren Schweninger of UNCG, a nationally recognized slavery expert, thinks first of Irwin as a football player. Schweninger, who played running back on Colorado’s 1960 Orange Bowl team, stayed for graduate school and helped coach a football team that included Irwin.

Schweninger knew then Irwin was a pretty good college golfer but thought of him foremost as a football player.

“He was a star defensive back. I’m not sure if he made All-America, but he was highly recruited,” the professor says. (Irwin made all-Big Eight Conference twice).

Schweninger says if by chance Irwin had spent more time practicing golf than working up a sweat in the football training room, Schweninger or another coach would have chewed him out. Irwin was at Colorado to play football.

Schweninger isn’t surprised a gifted football player made millions in another sport. But he finds it sad that certain games today — especially golf and tennis — are so life consuming.

During this year’s U.S. Open golf tournament, a green-side announcer fretted that Tiger Woods might miss a tricky 18-inch putt. Chief NBC golf analyst Johnny Miller replied, “Tiger hasn’t missed a putt that long since he was a year and a half old.”

Indeed, video by Woods’ father shows Tiger playing at a young age, and playing well. In tennis, parents send children to Florida year round to attend schools that double as tennis academies.

A few players can play multiple sports well. Carolina Panther football defensive standout Julius Peppers contributed points and rebounds on UNC’s basketball team. Michael Jordan left pro basketball for a while to play minor league baseball.

Jordan also tried golf. He’s decent, but lacks the time to master skills needed to make money on the tour. Danny Ainge, a former collegiate/pro basketball star, thought he could play the tour. Then he played practice rounds with tour stars he knew. He found just as the PGA Tour logo says, “These Guys Are Good.”

Only on the Champions Tour can Irwin and others be found who played other sports and pursuits than golf. Jim Thorpe of Roxboro played football for Morgan State before winning tournaments on the PGA and Champions tours. John Brodie, third leading all-time passer in the NFL when he retired in 1973 from the San Francisco 49ers, won a Champions Tour event in 1991. Several others had military careers before joining senior pros.

That brings up another player, who like Souchak, won the Greensboro Open. Buddy Allin, who died last year at 59, earned his title in 1971 at Sedgefield.

Less than three years earlier, he had been in a foxhole in Vietnam and was highly decorated.

We likely won’t see the likes of him again.

Contact Jim Schlosser at 601-9879 or beale1@clearwire.net