History is Important

By now you have seen the Wyndham Championship's advertising campaign that features black and white photos taken in the 1940's. They are concept ads where today's top players, shown in full color, are placed on a tee at Sedgefield in 1940. The gallery, all men, is dressed in suits and ties. The ads have the tag line, "Bring it home to Sedgefield", and while that thought bugs me a little bit (didn't the tournament have a home at Forest Oaks for 31 years) it's the advertisement's use of the Carol Martin photos that really troubles me.

Carol W. Martin is the greatest photographer Greensboro has ever known. He simply defined photojournalism in this area and practically any photo you've ever seen of Greensboro in the 1940's and 1950's was taken by him. As a photographer myself it seems wrong to tamper with his images. Everytime I pass one of those billboards I can not help but think, I wonder what golfer they took out of that photo to put Rocco in there? Was it Snead? Nelson? Hogan?

I was getting my oil changed after the work day on Saturday and I saw one of those ads with Vijay Singh in it and I thought the it was funny because they would not have let Vijay hit a ball off that tee in 1940. So, in a positive way maybe those ads have a "you've come a long way" tone to them?

Page 41 of this year's commemorative program does list Charlie Sifford's play at Sedgefield in 1961 as one of the Wyndham Championship's Top Ten Historical Moments. It's also worth mentioning that back then the tournament was being run by a group of inexperience young men that despite there lack of business savvy believed that service to humanity is the best work of life and because of this they let Sifford play in their tournament six months before "the Caucasian Clause came out of the PGA TOUR bylaws".

It's also worth pointing out that the other two tournaments that allowed him to play that year were also being run by Jaycees.