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GREENSBORO - It's a tight fit getting skyboxes, pavilions, concession stands and other spectator conveniences around the ninth and 18th greens. But never mind. The views there and elsewhere are worth the squeeze and bottlenecks that may occur if the galleries are as large as in the old days.

The return of the Wyndham Championship to Sedgefield Country Club after an absence of 32 years seems like a stroke of genius so far. That was evident by the larger crowds that came for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday's warm-up events for the tournament with a $5.1 million total purse.

Two kings of their respective sports, golf's Arnold Palmer and NASCAR's Richard Petty, officially hailed the return of the tournament in ceremonies at the clubhouse and around the first tee, where about 500 people stayed late to see the two legends.

Palmer presented Petty with a putter, and Petty gave Palmer one of his trademark cowboy hats.

Palmer donned it and had the audience in stitches when he removed Petty's other trademark - sunglasses - and put them on.

At the tee-side ceremony, tournament Director Mark Brazil asked Palmer if he had anything to say. Palmer replied, "Can I go back and play the 16th?"

One of the tournament's legendary moments - about 20,000 actually saw it, but 100,000 now claim they did - came in 1972 when Palmer led the tournament with three holes to play at Sedgefield. He tried to hit his ball from the creek on the 16th, failed, wound up with a triple bogey and blew the tournament.

The move from Forest Oaks Country Club back to Sedgefield has brought soaring advance ticket sales and more sponsorships. The pro-am turnout wasn't a throng, but the galleries were noticeably larger than in recent years when spectators tended to be family and friends of the amateur players.

Vijay Singh, one of the event's marquee entrants, had a decent following as he approached the ninth green. Enough people sat in the grandstands and stood around the green to generate a fair amount of applause.

"There have been more people out on a single day than all three (pretournament) days combined last year,'' Brazil said from his golf cart, which serves as his rolling office.

Some spectators said the tournament should have never left the place where it was played off and on from 1938 to 1976.

The goal in returning to Sedgefield is to renew enthusiasm for a tournament troubled by declining attendance and sponsorships during the past decade.

Tommy Millikan watched players hit balls on the practice range with his 13-year-old son, Jared, and raved about the tournament being back at the golf course, designed by the famed architect Donald Ross and set in a beautiful neighborhood.

"I didn't care anything about it,'' Millikan said, explaining why he attended only a few tournaments at Forest Oaks. "I'd a lot rather be back here, where I watched the tournament when I was 18 or 19 years old. I like this course a lot better."

Player Kyle Thompson, a tour rookie, said from the practice range that he would rank Sedgefield among the top five or six courses he has played since joining the tour in January.

The change in the tournament extends beyond the fairways and greens.

"It's the whole style,'' said Doug Tyla, who caddied last year at Forest Oaks and is carrying Ryan Armour's bag this week. He was talking about the wealthy enclave that constitutes the Sedgefield community.

"The houses around here are unbelievable,'' he said of the enormous homes beside the fairways and elsewhere in the neighborhood.

Several look larger than Sedgefield's signature Tudor clubhouse, which most old-timers associate with tournaments of yesteryear. It served as a classy backdrop to what was then the final hole.

At Wednesday's ceremony, Wyndham Hotels President Steve Holmes was presented with a painting of the ninth hole and clubhouse done by Greensboro artist Bill Mangum.

But unlike the 1960s and 1970s, officials for the 2008 event decided against reversing the front and back nine holes to make the ninth the finishing hole.

Brazil says several reasons were behind the decision, including that fact the real 18th hole is tougher than the ninth and that the back nine tends to be slightly more difficult than the front nine. The aim is for golfers to finish on the most challenging holes.

"Don't worry," Brazil said, "you'll be seeing a lot of that clubhouse during the tournament."

CBS is bound to show the fairway, green and clubhouse during its telecast Saturday and Sunday. The ninth hole and the clubhouse also grace tournament publications.

The 2008 Wyndham won't be your grandfather's Greater Greensboro Open, as the event was once called. In the old days, spectators sat on open-air wood bleachers and bought beer at concession stands under funeral-home tents.

Decades later, the concessions at the ninth green are in a big enclosed tent with windows, seats and air conditioning. Luxury skyboxes, which are big revenue generators for the tournament, form an arc around the 18th green. The boxes and pavilion have been placed at strategic spots on other holes.

The tournament may be back at Sedgefield, but you can't totally bring back the past. The event has been away too long for any of the 150 players to have played here before. The oldest contestant, Larry Mize, who turns 50 in September, didn't turn pro until 1980.

And the Geiberger playing at Sedgefield this year is not Al, the winner in 1976 when the event was last played at Sedgefield. It's his son, Brent, who won at Forest Oaks in 2004.

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