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GREENSBORO -- On the first day of the Wyndham Championship's long-awaited return to Sedgefield County Club the early clubhouse leader appears to be none other than ... Sedgefield Country Club?

Oh, sure, technically the PGA Tour prefers one of its own golfers to be sitting atop the leaderboard once play gets underway -- especially since most (but not all) tour players give better post-round interviews than golf courses. But for now, the real front-runner at venerable Sedgefield is the golf course itself, which drew rave reviews Monday from players who took the Donald Ross course out for a test drive.

"Love it, absolutely love it," was how John Daly described the course after his afternoon round. "In a few years, they're going to have one of the better stops on tour with what they've got for a course."

Like most of the golfers playing in Monday's pro-am, Daly was getting his first look at Sedgefield, which underwent a $3 million renovation recently by Greensboro golf architect Kris Spence. Daly used his driver on several holes Monday, but figures to leave it in the bag for most of the week.

"It's a little different golf course than what we're used to seeing because, for me, you really only need driver for (Nos.) 14 and 15 and 18," he said. "I can't see any hole on the front where I need it. It's not going to be about distance this week. Whoever wins here is going to have to be very creative around the greens."

Lee Janzen -- like Daly, a two-time major winner -- walked up the 18th fairway in admiration of the course.

"A lot of old courses are modified where they take out the mowing patterns and let the bunkers grow over through the years, but this ... this is something different," Janzen said. "It's like I took a step back in time and I'm seeing what Donald Ross saw all those years back."

Such high praise is exactly what Wyndham officials were hoping to hear when they rolled the dice earlier this year and moved Greensboro's golf tournament from Forest Oaks to Sedgefield. Greensboro businessman Bobby Long, chairman of the foundation that runs the Wyndham, is hoping the move across town will help the struggling tournament gain some clout on the PGA Tour.

"We're really counting on the word getting out about this place," said Long, who, along with Jim Melvin, Wyndham CEO Steve Holmes, and Sedgefield president Joe DePasquale, played with Daly on Monday.

"There's just so much going for us here, and it starts with the course." Janzen said.

The course, designed by Ross in 1925 and built a year later, is not like the typical tour site.

"The green complexes are amazing," said Janzen, referring to the heavily undulated greens surrounded by the shaved collection areas. There's not one hole out here that's like another. You go to a lot of modern courses and play a hole and it reminds you of a hole earlier on the course. Here, each hole is unique."

Daly said Sedgefield reminds him a lot of Oakland Hills, a Ross course that hosted last week's PGA Championship.

"The rough certainly won't be as bad here, but the greens are going to be nice and fast," he said. "You have to come in to them at the right angle or there's going to be trouble."

Contact Robert Bell at 373-7055 or robert.bell@news-record.com