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GREENSBORO -- The clubhouse stands like a citadel against time as the old water tower rusts above it, and Sedgefield Country Club quietly awaits what is sure to be another attack on its golf course.

Some of the best players in the world, aside from the usual holdouts, arrive this week wielding clubs against an old course that has sat defenseless for more than 80 seasons. The players and their clubs have changed though the years. Time itself became the biggest enemy of what was once the most venerable thing in golf.

Par.

The PGA Tour and its various cousins through the years protected the sacred zero until technology gave man an edge over nature. All these years later, par is nothing more than a starting point. As the Wyndham Championship opens again at Sedgefield, which was finished in 1926, the old days are a distant backdrop to the question of the week:

How low can they go?

The modern golfer has no real concept of the persimmon days, as the old guys had no real concept of the hickory days. Carl Pettersson beat par by 21 shots last year, and no one thought anything of it other than a few indignant people who believed tour officials could've stopped the onslaught by letting the gnarly rough grow higher and by placing the pins on the edges of the cliffs on some of the Donald Ross greens.

But the 2008 champion himself, an honorary member at Sedgefield no less, said nothing can be done as long as the tournament is played in the heat of North Carolina summertime.

"They could get the greens a little firmer, but that's impossible to do in August," Pettersson said. "The players like it like it is."

There are more than 40 golf courses used in any given year on the PGA Tour, spread across the hemisphere like man-made land features. Each is different from the other, each affected by its surroundings and peculiar features. From the winds of the Texas plains to the shores of California. From the flat Florida peninsula to the rolling hills of the Rust Belt. From the lava flows of Hawaii to the Lowcountry of South Carolina. No two are alike.

And the scores they produce in a given week vary according to weather and pin placements.

"The tour sets it up as hard as they can," Pettersson said. "That's their philosophy."

Could the rough be grown thicker and deeper at Sedgefield? Yes, but that still might not make a difference.

Can the pins be placed in precarious positions each day? Again, yes, but it still might not make a difference.

When the tour used to play its World Open at Pinehurst No. 2, there was real fear someone might shoot a 59. Tom Watson and Gibby Gilbert each shot a 62 in 1973.

A 60 was carded at Sedgefield in the old Nationwide days, and last year, despite making a bogey on a par-5, Pettersson shot a second-round 61. Sedgefield seems vulnerable to low scores, but he said that's the case almost every week on the modern PGA Tour.

"If you look at the winning score on tour in general, it's between 15 and 20 (under par) every week," he said.

The season began with a winning score of 24-under at Kapalua, and the winners were 86-under by the end of January.

"Somebody's going to play well no matter if the course is difficult or not," Pettersson said.

Sedgefield is a par-70, already two strokes less than most courses.

"That's a big thing right there if you're talking about someone shooting a 60 or better," David Duval said last year.

Duval once shot a 59, one of only three in the history of the PGA Tour. And he shrugged last year after Pettersson's 61, saying it's possible a 59 could come at any time.

Sedgefield seems to offer many of the right conditions at the time of year when the course is naturally defenseless because the greens have to be heavily watered in the heat. The par of 70 factors in, as does the relatively short distance of many of the holes.

"It's 18 par-4s," Lee Trevino famously said.

And it's been here for a long time. In the old days, anything from 2-under in 1948 to 17-under as late as 1973 won the tournament. Pettersson's 21-under could fall next Sunday, or it could last forever.

"It's a different style golf course," he said. "It's really not like any other we play, an old-style course that I think the players really like."

That's really all that matters on today's modern tour. That's why the tournament was moved here from Forest Oaks two years ago and why the best thing it has going for it is its history.

Time and technology have worn down the old courses all over the world, and rusty old par no longer stands a chance.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com