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GREENSBORO -- Bill Rendleman didn't finish first, nowhere close, in Greensboro's first golf championship in 1938. The important fact is that he was there, teeing it up with the best-known pros in the world.

When Rendleman died Aug. 10, just short of his 90th birthday, he may have been be the last -- surely one of the last -- of the 160 who played in the first tournament, then called the Greater Greensboro Open. The first two rounds that year were played at Starmount Country Club, the last two at Sedgefield Country Club, the home of this weekend's Wyndham Championship.

Tournament officials can't confirm that Rendleman was the last of the first, but research by his family leads Sedgefield members to believe it's true.

"Dad is the last to go," said Bill Rendleman Jr., a Greensboro insurance agent.

The elder Rendleman was a 17-year-old Catawba College student when he entered the tournament. Back then entry was easier; a golfer paid a $5 entry fee and a $2.50 caddy fee. He was among 59 amateurs competing with 101 pros, seven of whom were past U.S. Open champs.

With golf bag on shoulder, Rendleman hitchhiked from downtown Salisbury, where his family lived, to Greensboro, where he stayed with his grandfather, who lived downtown.

Rendleman hauled his clubs aboard a city bus the next morning and rode to what is now Friendly Avenue and Holden Road. From there, he walked to Starmount and played the first round.

"I tied Nelson," he quipped during a 1998 interview about that first tournament, referring to the great pro Byron Nelson.

He and Nelson each shot 80 that day. During the second round, Rendleman quit after making a 9 on a hole when his ball landed in a creek.

He learned a lesson when he got back to the clubhouse. The pro at the Salisbury Country Club, of which Rendleman's family was a member, chewed him out for being a quitter. After that, Rendleman who played in amateur tournaments for the rest of his life, never dropped out of an event.

He played an exhibition round at Salisbury Country Club with a golf legend, Gene Sarazen. Rendleman at the time was a student at Salisbury High School, where he was a member of a state championship golf team.

He played in one more Greensboro tournament, in 1946, after serving in the Navy during World War II. He shot 80-81 and missed the cut.

But he won amateur tournaments, including club championships at Greensboro Country Club.

Rendleman moved here in 1965 and retired early from business to devote his senior years to golf.

"The opportunities that golf have given me have been tremendous," he said. "To me, golf means, people, places and faces."

Bill Rendleman Jr. says his dad shot his age for the first time at 68 and continued to do so into his early 80s.

He also was a spectator at Greensboro's PGA Tour event most years.

His favorite TV channel was The Golf Channel, and like a true golfer he never forgot a shot.

"He would talk about that 1938 tournament like it was yesterday," his son said. "He could tell you what he made on No. 3."

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