GGO and Wyndham Greensboro & former Chrysler Classic History and Caddy History:
                                 
The Wyndham Championship at Greensboro originally known as the Greater Greensboro Open golf tournament or GGO, has been a regular stop on the PGA Tour since it's inception in 1938.  It was played primarily over the Starmount and Sedgefield golf courses in the Greensboro North Carolina area in the 1930's, 40's, and 50's, and primarily at Sedgefield Country Club in the 1960's and 1970's.   The golf course then shifted to a new tournament site beginning in 1977 and was played there until a couple of year's ago moving to the present new 'old' venue - back to Sedgefield CC. 

The GGO as it had come to be known over the year's and still in the not so distant past was won a record 8 times by the great Sam Snead.  There have been some great winners in GGO past as well like Ben Hogan, Ralph Guldahl, Lloyd Mangrum, Julius Boros, Doug Sanders, Billy Casper, Gene Littler, Chi Chi Rodriguez, and more recently by the likes of, Ray Floyd,  Al Geiberger, Tom Weiskopf, Sandy Lyle, Larry Nelson, Nick Faldo, Lanny Wadkins, and many other great champions of the game.

The GGO was originally played in the Spring and was traditionally the last stop before the Masters each year on the PGA Tour in the 1970's and 1980's and drew a great field in a 'warm up' to that major championship each year.  That changed in the 1990's and the GGO was played primarily in late April until moving to August as the last official qualifying tournament to the FedExCup playoffs.

The GGO was also one of the older southern tournaments worked for many years by the tour's original breed of pioneer caddies on the PGA Tour who were predominantly African American and from around the Southern USA.  There were always an additional influx of caddies form Augusta and the Pinehurst area for this great championship.   A lot of those area's regular caddies later decided to give the tour a try and evolved into becoming many of the early caddies who followed the pro circuit in America.

That group of pioneer caddies often stayed two three four or more in one hotel room.  It was a site to see in the evenings after the days work was done with many of these colorful caddies cooking up some great southern barbecue sharing some food drink and stories - the 'Caddy- Romerie' was something special in those parking lots and lawns at those early caddie's hotels.  And GGO week was no exception.  

It wasn't until the 1960's and 70's when professional tournament golf really took off in the US.  Some of those colorful early caddy characters included Herman Mitchell, (Lee Trevino, Gardner Dickinson), Aldophus 'Golf Ball' Hall, (Ray Floyd), Alfred 'Big Rabbit' Dyer, (Gary Player), and other 'larger than life' characters with nicknames like 'Momma Bill', 'Preacher', 'Hobo', 'J Dub', Texas Sam, Bee bop, 'Cigarette', Percy Riley, 'Momma' Bill, Cocky, Walter Montgomery, Orlando Scott, (worked for Johnny Pott), Randy Soul, Ernest Wright, (ladies and regular tour caddy), Seymour, Zoonie, Radal, Sonny Gale, Leroy Schultz, (Weiskopf fame), Sam Pickens, and many others.  These guys were a special group of caddies who loyally hoisted a sack each week hoping at a chance that their player might catch 'lightening in a bottle' maybe even win one or more -then send some money home to their families.  These guys were the early winning caddies in the history of the American professional golf scene.

As the year's passed by however and professional golf really took off the new generation of golf caddies emerged on tour who were primarily white and from the coastal U.S., northeast, southern U.S. and West Coast U.S. in the late 1970's and on into the 1980's.  They played some golf in their formative years, caddied at local clubs in their area, and had that post 60's and 1970's wander lust with a desire and affinity for the 'action' of the professional game.  Winning caddies then emerged at Greensboro, like Pete Bender, (Lanny Wadkins), Dave Woosley, (Danny Edwards), Dave Musgrove, (Sandy Lyle, Seve Ballesteros), Andy Prodger, (Nick Faldo), Russ 'Pine' Craver, (Larry Nelson), 'Disco' Dennis Durning, (Andy Bean), and even a former tour player Lance Ten Broeck became a 'winning caddy' working for Jesper Parnevik there in recent years.


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