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GREENSBORO — A hot wind blew up from the hollow below the 18th green Wednesday, carrying the smell of golf on its billow and guiding wayward slices into the lush green Bermuda grass that is Sedgefield's only defense.

As the 70th edition of Greensboro's PGA Tour event begins today, the winds of summer are threatening to push back against what is expected to be a walk in the park for some of the best golfers in the world. And everyone is keeping an eye out for the biggest element of them all: Hurricane Bill.

Bill is a slicer, and that's bad news for the island nation of Bermuda, but good news for the expected throngs coming out to the Wyndham Championship this week to watch Davis and Sergio and Snedeker and Lucas Glover. The storm is already a Cat-4, which is what storm nerds call the big ones, and that's enough to get the attention of North Carolinians who have been watching golf tournaments and dodging summer hurricanes since the recording of time.

Or since Donald Ross came to North Carolina.

The forecast for the year's first hurricane is a good one. Thus the forecast for golf is for the usual — hot winds blowing up from the hollows, girls in their summer clothes and the scent of verbena in the air. And sunscreen. And beer.

Folks at the National Hurricane Center insist Bill will go right like an open-face 3-iron without bobbling or wobbling or having any effect at all on tourism, shipping or John Daly.

"I don't think Bill will have any effect on the Triad," said Lara Pagano, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Raleigh. "It's going to stay well out to the east, even if it were to meander."

The breezes Wednesday afternoon suggested a wild week looming, but by evening the dark clouds moved in and the summer storms sat poised overhead.

The tournament has always been associated with weather. The old spring date brought snow and ice into play, cold winds blowing through the cherry trees, bitter breezes that forced the natives into winter wear and golfers into winter moods.

Last year's tournament, the first at Sedgefield since 1976, was played in perfect conditions on a reworked Ross design not quite mature enough to hold off the onslaught of Carl Pettersson and the rest of the field.

A year later, the Bermuda grasses have aged into healthy bogey fields and the greens have firmed as much as North Carolina greens can firm during late summer. While there is still talk of someone going low, as in 59, there was more talk Wednesday of Sedgefield holding its own under duress.

"We saw it firm and fast last year, and it's a little softer this year," said North Carolina-born Davis Love III. "I don't think there's much of a home-field advantage."

"The golf course is good," said Glover, this year's U.S. Open winner. "It's tight. You miss the fairways, you're going to have your hands tied because the rough is three inches of Bermuda sinking down to the bottom."

The course was designed in 1926, and the undulating Ross greens were supposed to be its ultimate defense. For 50 years, they held their own. In 1976, the last year the tournament was played here before moving to Forest Oaks, the winning score was 16-under. That was in April, five years after it had snowed on the GGO.

The game has changed over time, but it's still prone to seasonal influences. Pettersson was asked if there was an optimum time for playing the tournament.

"May," he said. "Probably the end of May, maybe the middle of May."

We've played it in March and April and August and September and October, but never in May. That would rule out the bitter cold weather, the snow and the ice. It would rule out summer heat waves and thunderstorms. It would allow the greens to firm up and allow the mowers to shave them closer.

And it wouldn't have us looking out in the ocean for something named Bill.

The Wyndham Championship tees off today at 7 a.m. with a forecast for warm morning breezes and late-afternoon squalls. Hit or miss.

The scores are expected to go low, and the rough is expected to grow as the week goes on. A front is expected to blow through in the coming days, bringing a chance for more of everything and forcing a hurricane already on a slice lie to disappear into the water.

The hot winds that blew across the fairways on the eve of the tournament loosened the last blooms off the crape myrtles and caused little dust devils to rise from the edges of the hardpan and swept clean the old hunting preserve in the final hours before the event.

As night fell, a calm settled over Sedgefield in anticipation of all that will blow by us over the next four days.

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