Photos of Sedgefield CC (Ross - NC, USA)

[Scott_Burroughs]

Back in '04 I had a chance to play Sedgefield CC in
Greensboro, NC, former home of the PGA Tour's Greater
Greensboro Open.  I believe Sam Snead won 4 of his 8 GGO
titles here, and 4 at Starmount Forest, which alternated sites
of the GGO from 1938-1961. Sedgefield hosted exclusively
from 1962-1976.   It took me 2 tries to finish the entire
course, as the first time, I got rained out, downpouring while
on the 12th hole (and experiencing one of those 'golfers are
such nice people' stories, as the member I was playing with,
whom I'd just met, invited me to his house off the 13th hole,
as we walked there in the downpour, letting me shower and
borrow clothes until I got back to my car).

I didn't get any pics of the first 8 holes....too busy
chatting.... but you can see them on the club's web site:

http://www.sedgefieldcc.org/index.cfm?ID=79

Also, you can see a description of the upcoming restoration
by Kris Spence here:

http://www.sedgefieldcc.org/UploadedFiles/linktofile_189.pdf

One thing I love about Ross courses is the natural lay of the
land, where hills are just left there and become sloped
fairways, as they should be.

Oh, and yes, it's a housing development course, with little of the housing in play.

#9, par 4:


Uphill approach toward the Tudor-style clubhouse, which, as
the Sedgefield Inn in 1953, was the birthplace of the ACC Conference:


#10, par 4:


Approach:


#11, par 4:


From edge of first tilted fairway, looking at another.  The
bunker left of the green is actually before the green:


The fairway on the par 4 13th, which slopes away on both sides, as it doglegs left:


Tee shot on long par 4 14th, to blind landing area:


Approach.  The cross bunkers are a good 60 yards infront of the green:


Short par 5 15th, with landing area diagonal to play:


Par 3 16th, to tilted green:


Green:


Par 4 17th. Tilt everywhere:


Approach to a very tilted green.  Wouldn't be surprised if
that's a lost bunker in front.

[tlavin]

Scott:

Thanks for the pictures.  It has a simple, old-timey feel to it.  Let's see how it looks when the work is done.  One thing I noticed was a couple negative camber fairways where the fairway is tilted in the opposite direction of the dogleg.  That certainly is a simple way to make a short hole much more difficult, particularly if you put bunkers on the inside of the dogleg to force the player to play the middle of the fairway and risk jumping into the rough.

[CHrisB]

Scott,
The article doesn't mention it, but do they have any plans for
switching the nines so that the current 9th becomes the 18th?

Rumor was that the current 9th was in fact the original 18th
and that the nines were switched by the membership because
the original starting holes (now the 10th-13th) were too hard.

I hope they (re-)reverse the nines--the current 9th such a
natural finishing hole with the clubhouse behind, while the
current 18th across the road doesn't feel like a finishing hole
at all.

[Scott_Burroughs]

Chris,

I agree about #9 being a natural finishing hole/location, but
as it is, the range is near the first tee but not #10, and #10
is right near #9 green, while #18 green isn't close to #1 tee.  
With #18 being a short par 5, the opportunity for closing hole glory is there.  


Thought I'd show pics of holes I didn't have from the club's
web site, linked in the first post:

#1, par 4 (bad pic):


#2, dogleg right par 4, with a blind landing area and the
stream factoring largely on the approach:


#3, uphill par 3, with mostly blind green:


#4, par 4 w/blind tee shot:


#6, par 4 w/layup downhill tee shot to uphill approach to sloped green:


#7, long par 3 with a creek fronting the green.  Supposedly
gave Arnie fits one year and cost him the tournament:


#12, long par 3:


#18, short par 5, with blind tee shot:

[Tyler Kearns]

Scott,

Thanks for sharing your pictures. There are definitely some shots that seem very uncomfortable. It looks nearly impossible to hold the 17th green or keep it in play on 13. Not a detriment, just unnerving and something you do not see much of presently. It is a good way, as opposed to length, to get golfers anxious and on their toes.

TK

[Kris Spence]

Scott, thanks for posting the  photo's.  Sedgefield is such a great course on great ground as you can see.  Ross designed two courses at Sedgefield with only the Blue course and three holes of the Red course being built.  The remaining holes on the Red course were never constructed and later developed for residential purposes.  The present practice fairway and tennis complex sit where the three holes were built.

The property has a very graceful character and offers the player ever concievable shot option and stance you can imagine.  Ross routed many of the holes diagonally to the ridges and valleys which really entice the player to shape the shot off the tees and into the greens. It is a course that promotes creativity most if not all of the way around.

We will be using very detailed aerial photos as well as the orginal field drawings with Ross' final penciled revisions in restoring the course.  The original green fill pads are intact with the exception of #15 which was lowered @2' during a previous project.  (It will be restored to its original height).  The greens have lost anywhere from 30 to 50% of their original size which will be reclaimed when coring the greens back out.  Most of the fairway bunkers were removed in the 60's and 70's, especially those that were significantly in play. (all will be restored)  Many of the greenside mounding and little articulating edges were  removed and replaced with small bunkers that narrow the approaches forcing an aerial approach to the front corner hole locations.  We will be removing most of these bunkers and restoring the mounding however I will also retain a few of the added bunkers and reposition them more to the side of the approachs.

The course will get a new irrigation system and be regrassed with tifsport hybrid bermuda.  Additional length will be added in select locations where we can bring the natural landforms back into play and all of the tees will be renovated, squared, aligned etc.

One of the neat discoveries during the research process was Ross' pencil notation to add a bunker 20 yards short of the 9th green that started at the center line of the hole 20 yards short of the green extending diagonally short and left of the green.  We also found perspective photos  of this bunker in the local archives which we will used .  The restoration of this bunker will require the player to fade the tee shot along the right half of the fairway in order to gain an unobstructed line  into the green.  Tee shots left of center  will face an approach shot over the bunker diminishing  visibility of the green and will sort of tuck the green between it and the large scale of the clubhouse in the background.

Sedgefield is a very respectable course and the club has a great atmosphere, this project will help it reestablish itself as one of the premier courses in the southeastern US.  There is so much history that has taken place there, I enjoy just being around the place.

[Scott_Burroughs]

Kris,

Thanks for the detailed report!  More great stuff, straight
from the source, that makes this web site.

Is that a lost bunker on #17 that I pointed out above?  Or
just a grassy swale?

[Kris Spence]

Scott,

The shoulder below the 17th green was used to prop up the approach and right side of the green and was always grass.  He noted it as a "grass hollow".   Ross originally built another bunker just short and right of the one you see left front  in the center of the approach above the shoulder.  He removed it in is final revision to the course.

When we were preparing the Master Plan, we had several copies of field drawings as well as the 36 hole routing of both courses.  There were significant descrepencies in bunkering between the field drawings and the 1930's aerial photo's we had.  During a meeting with the club they asked if I was interested in looking at some ragged "probably not worth much" old blueprints they had tucked between two peices of card board.  My first look at them didnt reveal much however when I carried them into the daylight I noticed the penciled notes in Ross' handwriting and realized I had the plans he carried with him during his final walk through of the course.  Every descrepency between the drawings and aerials were explained on that set of plans.

Ross made several changes in the later stages.  On the 13th for instance, there was another approach bunker along the same angle and just right of the present one that crossed the center line of the hole when approaching the green.  By removing it, the approach shot from the right half of the fairway is unobstructed and provides a better angle to the green while taking the shorter route to the hole left would require play over the top of the bunker and to a less receptive  angle.  Good stuff !!!