FanHouse DrewWeaver

For amateur golfers, not men like Tiger Woods, the end of the round is when your knees start a-knockin'. Your hands clam up, your brow starts sweating and you're not exactly sure what you did right the first 14 holes.

On Friday at Bethpage Black, in what was the second day of the first round of the U.S. Open (say that five times fast), Tiger rolled in a birdie putt on the 14th to get back to even par. On a golf course known more for curse words and broken hearts than birdie opportunities, even par is a number players would be thrilled with given the current conditions overtaking Long Island.

But for Woods on Friday, even par was hopeful thinking that only lasted for those first 14 holes.

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Donald Ross is known worldwide to golf fans as one of the consummate masters of course design. And now, thanks to the Wyndham Championship's recent move to the Sedgefield Country Club, PGA golfers competing in the FedEx Cup event (August 11-17, 2008) will get to experience the same pristine Piedmont Triad golf conditions that legends like Sam Sneed, Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer enjoyed for years after Ross' original design in 1926.

Of course, this isn't the Wyndham's first rodeo here, although it is the first year back to Sedgefield following a 31-year hiatus, and the return did not come at a cheap price. The recently finished, nearly yearlong renovation of the course cost over $3 million, but as tournament director Mark Brazil put it, the intent was to make Sedgefield "one of the favorite spots on tour."

Brazil pointed out that right now, "this golf course is as good as it gets" and by all accounts, he is absolutely right. A friend of mine recently teed it high and called the dense rough "diabolical" (by all accounts complimentary), while recent praise from former winner David Toms has already attracted some big name attention.

Three-time major winner Vijay Singh, who recently announced his entry into the Wyndham, joins an already stout group of golfers that includes Toms, last year's champions Brandt Snedeker, Tim Clark, Carl Pettersson, local favorite and Masters darling Drew Weaver, Davis Love III, and, of course, goshdarn American hero and two-time Wyndham winner Rocco Mediate.