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GREENSBORO — On a clear day, the sweeping view from the TV blimp circling Sedgefield Country Club encompasses all of Greensboro.

And yet, you still can’t see the Wyndham Championship’s whole home.

The PGA Tour stopped in Greensboro for the 71st time this weekend, but the tournament no longer belongs to one city.

It can’t. Not anymore.

“It could probably survive. We’ve got great leadership on our board,” Greensboro City Councilman Zack Matheny said.

“But, honestly, it wouldn’t thrive. The fact is, it’s a regional thing. I don’t think of it as a Greensboro thing anymore.”

The grand old golf tournament made famous by Sam Snead has outgrown Greensboro, and that’s by design. It belongs to a 12-county region now, to 1.6 million people living in the Piedmont Triad.

Business sense

If you think a PGA Tour event is just about golf, well, you’re wrong.

When you see all those big, white hospitality tents that dot the Sedgefield landscape — the ones that require an invitation to get in — think of them as canvas-walled conference rooms.

Amid the cheers and groans of the galleries, business is being done in a thoroughly business-casual environment.

Kelly King understands that. The CEO of BB&T, the bank based in Winston-Salem, has served as the honorary chairman of the Wyndham Championship for the last two years.

King’s company is the golf tournament’s second biggest sponsor after Wyndham Worldwide. BB&T contributes a minimum of $250,000 to be classified among the event’s “premier sponsors.”

“We have been involved for a long time, even back when it was the old GGO, but not nearly at the level we are now,” King said. “We have increased our involvement because of the broader purpose the tournament is taking. If this economy grows, it’s good for BB&T. … Specifically, it’s a good way for us to entertain our clients. We have one of the big tents there, and we invite hundreds of clients and prospects. It’s a way for our officers to meet with them in an informal way and to have some fun.”

Once upon a time, those corporate tents came from across Greensboro.

Now they come from across central North Carolina.

“We used to get over 80 percent of our sponsors from the Greensboro area,” tournament director Mark Brazil said.

“Now it’s closer to 40 percent come from Greensboro and Guilford County. The other 60 comes from places like Burlington and Winston-Salem and all the other cities and towns in the Piedmont Triad.”

Working together

King is also the chairman of the Piedmont Triad Partnership, a nonprofit group of corporate leaders dedicated to economic development and recruiting businesses here.

Some of the money to run the nonprofit comes from the Wyndham Championship’s proceeds. The tournament contributes $100,000 to the partnership, Brazil said, and runs a program challenging others to match the donation.

“We believe so much in what they’re trying to do to grow the region,” Brazil said of the partnership. “Look, if Burlington gets a company moving in, we all win. If High Point gets a company, we all win. … As we try to compete nationally against other metropolitan areas, it’s just a huge no-brainer that (regionally) is the way we have to act.”

Jim Melvin agrees. These days, the former Greensboro mayor serves as president of the Bryan Foundation, a philanthropic nonprofit.

“If you look at what we’re trying to do from an economic development standpoint, we’re either going to make it as a region or we’re going to fail as individual cities,” Melvin said. “The Wyndham gives us a wonderful opportunity to get the corporate leadership of the region to work together. If we can work together on something like this, we can work together on lots of other things.”

Jobs, jobs, jobs

Those corporate leaders work together on many things.

But job one is jobs.

“The Wyndham is an old, old tournament,” King said. “But it has changed in the last few years, and the leadership of Wyndham and the leadership of Piedmont Triad Partnership are pretty much the same. As we talked about the socioeconomic climate of the area and growing jobs, we concluded the Wyndham was an excellent tool to help get that done.”

North Carolina’s unemployment rate has hovered around 10 percent this summer, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“What we’re really working on is jobs, so young people will have a future here,” Melvin said. “This was Camelot when I was a young man. We had all those top New York Stock Exchange-traded companies with offices downtown. How many are left? Not many.”

Allen Gant is the CEO of Glen Raven Mills in Burlington. He’s also one of the directors of the nonprofit foundation that runs the Wyndham and a strong supporter of the Piedmont Triad Partnership’s regional efforts.

Gant pointed to HondaJet as an example of regional success. The new executive jet planes are being built in Greensboro, but the engines are assembled in Burlington.

“Truth be told, any one particular county can’t answer all of the resources,” Gant said. “Just look at HondaJet. … They couldn’t house everything in the same place, but they had to have them logistically near.”

Gant’s own company has been around for 133 years under the same family leadership. It’s survived when other textile companies have folded or moved by thinking regionally, he said.

“There’s tremendous sharing of resources throughout the Triad region now, recruiting new industry,” Gant said.

“We’re building a 100,000-square-foot building in Mebane as a result of that, which will bring real jobs to the region. It’s working. It’s the right way.”

Charity starts at home

What’s also working is the tournament’s commitment to charities.

On Tuesday, Wyndham Worldwide announced it had signed on for two more years as the primary sponsor. Terms of the extension were not disclosed, but the first four years of the Wyndham deal were worth $26 million.

When the announcement came, Rick George, the PGA Tour’s chief operating officer, said the tournament had “raised over $10 million for charities in the last several years.”

That’s a lot of money for places such as Victory Junction Gang Camp, Starlight Children’s Foundation and Christel House.

“We decided the focal point of our charities is to focus on children,” Wyndham Worldwide CEO Steve Holmes said. … Those are our three signature charities. Then we have a number of other charities we support locally.”

Holmes said Victory Junction was one of the attractions that drew Wyndham as a sponsor in the first place.

Since then, others have benefited. First Tee of the Triad. The American Junior Golf Association. Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater High Point. Crosby Scholars of Forsyth County. And many, many more.

The Piedmont Triad Charitable Foundation, the nonprofit that runs the golf tournament, showed $247,582 in cash dispersals to 24 charities on its 2009 IRS Form 990.

But not everything shows up on the foundation’s books, and Wyndham Worldwide’s 2009 Form 990 is not yet available.

Brazil said the tournament’s charitable donations, cash, amount to “right around $500,000” with another $500,000 in charitable impact.

“I don’t want people thinking that when I say we’re at $1 million in charitable impact that it’s a pile of a million dollar bills,” Brazil said. “It’s a number we report to the PGA Tour when we explain, 'Hey, this is the impact we’re having on the region.’ There’s a number of ways we make an impact beyond cash donations.”

For instance, Brazil said the Wyndham gives away $75,000 worth of tickets to other charities so they can use them for fundraising. TV commercials worth up to $100,000 per spot were donated to promote the region. And the tournament puts on fundraisers for other charities, including one Monday that will help Harris Teeter raise money for schools.

“All that does not go through our books,” Brazil said, “but it has charitable impact.

“It’s somewhere between $900,000 and $1 million. We’re focused on trying to maintain that, and maybe even grow it over the years. …We’re strengthening this Wyndham Championship brand every year. The charitable impact will grow as we get stronger financially.”

Strengthening the brand means stressing the region instead of Greensboro.

The city’s name hasn’t appeared in the tournament’s name since 2006. But some habits die hard.

“We’ve got some work to do there, because (TV announcers) still slip sometimes and call it Greensboro,” Melvin said. “But we’ve bought some ads promoting the Piedmont. You’re not going to change it overnight, but we think we’re well on the way. … We’ve got corporate leadership from all over the region: Burlington, Asheboro, Winston-Salem, Davidson County. That’s what it’s all about. We couldn’t do it as just Greensboro only.”

Contact Jeff Mills at 373-7024 or jeff.mills@news-record.com