The Wyndham Championship is one of the PGA Tour's most historic events. Now contested annually at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina, the Wyndham was founded in 1938 as the Greater Greensboro Open. Eight decades of rich history later, the popular Triad tournament is the sixth-oldest event on the PGA Tour, excluding the major championships.

In its early years, the tournament alternated between two Greensboro-area clubs: Starmount Forest Country Club and the current home course at Sedgefield. In 2008 — after 31 years at Forest Oaks Country Club — it moved back to Sedgefield. The former GGO enjoys a storied history and an impressive list of winners such as Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, Gary Player and Seve Ballesteros. A whopping 18 former champions are members of the World Golf Hall of Fame.

In 2010, the Wyndham Championship received a significant boost when McConnell Golf purchased Sedgefield Country Club, helping to spearhead a new decade of excellence during which the Wyndham has truly hit its stride. McConnell Golf acquired Sedgefield with the intention of restoring the club to its original glory. Several major upgrades were made prior to the 2011 Wyndham, while others have been made in subsequent years, including construction of the “Wall of Champions” overlooking the 9th green.

In 2011, for the 16th time in tournament history, the Wyndham produced a popular first-time winner in Raleigh native and Wake Forest University alumnus Webb Simpson, who would then go on to win the 2012 U.S. Open Championship. “There’s no way I would have won the U.S. Open if I hadn’t won at Sedgefield,” Simpson would later say. Following Simpson’s victory in 2011, McConnell Golf President/CEO John McConnell decided to convert Sedgefield’s green complexes to Bermuda grass, a significant investment and improvement. “With Bermuda greens, Sedgefield becomes one of the great golf courses on the PGA Tour,” according to Simpson.

Former champion Davis Love III was equally pleased about the decision.“Changing the Sedgefield greens to Bermuda grass is great news for the members at Sedgefield, but it’s also great for the Wyndham,” said Love. “The new greens allow the course to be played the way Donald Ross intended most of the year.”

Bobby Long, chairman of the Piedmont Triad Charitable Foundation Board of Directors, agreed. “People tend to think the greens should be soft so a player can scream a low 3-iron into a green and have it stick, but that is not what Donald Ross had in mind when he designed this golf course.”

Every aspect of the club has been elevated in the past 10 years, according to Tournament Director Mark Brazil, from the golf course to the clubhouse to the “first-class” activities building.

“And all the little touches around the golf course — the tee boxes, the beautiful landscaping, the benches and the bridges — McConnell Golf’s just done it right,” Brazil said. “Bobby Long always talks about how we need an A++
course. Well, we’ve really got that now.”

On those new greens in 2012, with a fill-in caddie carrying his bag, future Masters champion Sergio Garcia claimed a two-stroke Monday win in a water-logged Wyndham Championship for his first victory on tour since the 2008 Players
Championship. The enigmatic Spanish sensation has always enjoyed Sedgefield and had staged some near-misses in years past — including squandered opportunities to win the Nike Greensboro Open there in 1998 and the Wyndham
Championship in 2009. Finally, it all came together for Garcia, who carved up Sedgefield with rounds of 67-63-66-66 to finish at 18 under.

Afterward, all anyone could talk about were Sedgefield’s new green complexes. “I was surprised how quick [the greens] were,” Garcia said. “Even after all the rain. My first three putts — I couldn’t believe it. They did an awesome job getting the course [ready]. The course looked better than it’s ever looked.”

Two-time major champion John Daly, who made his first trip to Greensboro in 1991, described the greens as perfect. “They’re beautiful, awesome,” he said. “The greens are perfect,” echoed future U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland. “They’re rolling great. You get above the hole, and they’re lightning fast. Keep it below the hole, you can make a putt.”

In 2013, a pair of future Masters champions, Patrick Reed and Jordan Spieth, battled down the stretch, with Reed capturing a sudden-death playoff on the second extra hole. Both players parred the first playoff hole at No. 18 when Spieth rolled in a 30-foot effort for par while Reed missed his birdie putt. On the second playoff hole, No. 10, Reed played a miraculous second shot from the trees on the right side of the fairway to 7 feet with Spieth already safely on the green. Spieth narrowly missed his birdie putt and posted a par. Reed converted his uphill putt for birdie to earn his first PGA Tour victory at 23 years of age.

The Wyndham Championship celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2014. Former champions Rocco Mediate (1993 and 2002) and Davis Love III (1992 and 2006) played in the tournament, while Bob Goalby (1958), Dow Finsterwald (1959) and Lanny Wadkins (1983) made special appearances. Weldon Fields, a tournament volunteer at the inaugural Greater Greensboro Open in 1938, returned shortly after his 100th birthday to take part in the festivities.
The tournament field included 21 major championship winners and multiple international stars like World Golf Hall of Famer Ernie Els.

Colombian golfer Camilo Villegas captured that historic 2014 tournament, becoming the third international golfer in the previous five years to win the Wyndham.

More tournament history was made a year later, when Love won his third Sam Snead Cup — 28 years after his inaugural PGA Tour win in 1987.

Only the man for whom the trophy is named has more victories — eight — at the event.

“[Winning] means a lot here at Greensboro,” said an emotional Love.

In 2015 — the first time Tiger Woods played the Wyndham — the overall economic impact of the “Tiger Effect” on the Triad was staggering. When Woods committed to the event, organizers immediately printed 49,000 extra tickets. While a typical tournament would have, at best, 90,000 people for the week, in 2015 more than 143,000 spectators came
through the gates.

Woods told John McConnell — one of his partners during the Pro-Am, along with Los Angeles Clippers superstar Chris Paul — that Sedgefield’s greens were the best he played all year.

“The people are just absolutely incredible,” Woods said, after his final round 70 left him four strokes behind Love and tied for 10th. “The support that they showed, to come out in droves like this … it was very special playing in front of them.”

In 2017, Swedish golfer Henrik Stenson captured the Wyndham Championship and became the tournament’s 19th international winner. Stenson entered the tournament ranked ninth in the Official World Golf Rankings and moved to sixth with the win — setting the tournament scoring mark at 22-under par.

Two years later, bolstered by a supportive throng of family, friends and fellow Western Carolina University alumni, Hickory born-and-bred J.T. Poston made some Wyndham history of his own, wrapping up a bogey-free week by firing a scorching, Sunday 62 to hold off Simpson by a stroke. Poston’s performance equaled the lowest mark for a final round in tournament history, set by Love at Forest Oaks Country Club in 1992. He became the fifth North Carolina native
to win the tournament in its 80-year history, joining Raymond Floyd, Scott Hoch, Love and Simpson.

“I haven’t had that many bogey-free rounds this year,” Poston said, following his final-round fireworks at Sedgefield. “To be able to do four in a row is pretty special, and finish it off with a 62 on Sunday is pretty awesome. To be able to do it here in North Carolina with a lot of friends and family, I don’t think I could have drawn it up any better.”

The Wyndham Championship has benefited from recent PGA Tour calendar changes. Three years ago, the tour unveiled a revamped tournament schedule highlighted by significant championships every month, all culminating with the FedExCup Playoffs in August.

The Wyndham Championship now holds an important position on the PGA Tour schedule, as it represents the final opportunity for some players to move into the top 125, thus securing exempt status for the following season and qualifying for the FedExCup, while those already qualified for the playoffs can improve their seeding.

If there’s any tournament on the PGA Tour where prize money takes a backseat, it’s the Wyndham. As the schedule’s final regular-season event, players aren’t as concerned about picking up a few extra grand coming down the Sunday stretch. Instead, they’re thinking about earning a few additional FedExCup points.

There’s also the recently implemented $10 million Wyndham Rewards payout awaiting the FedExCup Top 10 following the Wyndham Championship. Last year, Justin Thomas had already claimed the $2 million top payout, but Simpson and Sungjae Im entered the final week with a shot at the $1.5 million second-place bonus.

In 2020, with no paying spectators, no TV towers or grandstands lining Sedgefield’s greens and fairways, the 81st Wyndham Championship was a visibly different affair. Yet in many ways, the COVID-19 edition of the Triad’s long-running event ranked among its most memorable. Four former World No. 1s, including Brooks Koepka and Spieth, and plenty of impressive international talent arrived for the final week of the Tour’s regular season. As always, there was plenty of local representation. Three North Carolina natives — 2011 Wyndham champion Simpson, up-and-coming
talent Doc Redman and fan favorite Harold Varner III — all were in the mix late Sunday afternoon.

In the end, the 2020 Wyndham Championship teed up one of the most exciting duels in recent tournament memory. The dark-horse journeyman, a 42-year-old former club pro named Jim Herman, held off familiar Wyndham contender Billy Horschel and a host of others down the stretch in a thrill-a-minute finish. Herman and Horschel traded punches
throughout a gripping afternoon. Herman backed up a career-best 61 on Saturday with a final round 7-under 63. His weekend total of 124 matched the lowest final 36-hole score by a winner in PGA Tour history. 

Horschel closed with a 65 — the 23rd consecutive round of par or better at Sedgefield for the 2014 FedExCup champion. The tournament wasn’t decided until Horschel’s final chance to tie on the 72nd hole, an 8-foot birdie putt, slid left of the cup. Third-round leader and 2016 Wyndham champion Si Woo Kim shot 70 to tie for third at 18 under with Simpson (65), Redman (68) and Kevin Kisner (64).

More than anyone, Herman took advantage of Sedgefield’s flawless Bermuda green complexes, which have become among the most popular on Tour. He drained 444 feet of putts for the week, which equates to making a 6-footer on every hole. He gained a Herculean 6-plus strokes on the field by deftly employing his Bettinardi Inovai 5.0 Tour mallet
nicknamed “The Hermanator.”

So many golfers praise Sedgefield Country Club, the Wyndham Championship and the Triad in general.

“Greensboro will always be a special place to me,” said two-time Wyndham champ Brandt Snedeker, who shot 59 in winning the 2018 event. “I think most of the guys love coming here because it rewards good tee balls and gives you the opportunity to make birdies. And there’s only two par 5s. Everybody in the field can reach them, so distance here is not an overriding factor. It’s kind of nice to come to a place and know you can make some birdies and get some
good stuff going.”

Simpson, who hasn’t missed a weekend at Sedgefield since 2009, adores the Wyndham so much he named one of his daughters after the event. “I love the holes,” Simpson said of Ross’s old-school, rolling parkland layout. “I love the shot shapes … I’ve had some good finishes here. My first win here. I’m close to home where I grew up, close to where I live now and obviously a short drive to where I went to college, so I love being here.”

A sentiment that’s shared by many.