Take the North Carolina team in the annual North-South Media Challenge that was played at Forest Creek Golf Club Tuesday and Wednesday. In fact, Reid Spencer, captain of the North team, wishes someone would take those choking, gagging, no-playing duffers and send them to Pinehurst Resort’s Golf Advantage School or something.
Seriously, it was awful. The North squad, loaded with such standout stars as Rich Rushforth, Mike Purkey, Brian Tarr and Eddie Southards, not to mention four other guys, appeared to have the match well in hand after the first day of competition.
Southards, the smooth-swinging sports editor of a nearby newspaper, led the morning charge by dragging his reluctant partner to a 3-0 win in the foursomes, paving the way to a 7-5 lead.
He and Purkey followed that up with a win that afternoon against Scott Michaux of the Augusta Chronicle and Ken Burger of the Charleston Courier, and with radio star Rushforth leading his twosome to a 3-0 sweep against John Brasier and Bob Gillespie, things appeared well in hand heading into Wednesday’s singles with a 14-10 cushion.
Unfortunately, some players simply don’t know how to handle being in the lead. For the second year in a row, the South team charged back in singles to claim the match, the bragging rights and the trophy.
Forest Creek head professional Waddy Stokes was almost speechless after witnessing the debacle. He presented the trophy to South team captain Pete Wofford, shook his hand, congratulated him and handled all the formalities. But he was careful to avoid getting too near to the stricken Spencer, who stood through the proceedings with bowed head, mumbling incoherently to himself.
To his credit, Spencer handled the humbling defeat as well as could be expected. The fact that his hand-picked eightsome was able to turn a 14-10 lead into a 27-20 defeat was mind-numbing.
The South wasted no time in turning the tables in the singles. Michael Dann, associate director of the Carolinas Golf Association who scored a perfect 9-0 in the competition, drilled Tarr in the lead-off match 3-0.
Tarr, a Charlotte-based freelance writer who had been the North’s Man of the Match in the previous two years and who had posted five birdies in the opening round, was simply no match for the aggressive Dann.
Wofford blanked Purkey, another Charlotte-based writer 3-0 in the second match and history was on the way to being repeated.
And Spencer’s feelings weren’t soothed any by the fact that Reid Nelson, a golf publicist from Charleston who was called in to sub for Brasier in the singles, blistered him 2-1.
The victory gives the South a 2-1 edge in the competition, which was held at The Reserve at Litchfield (S.C.) the first two years.
Although the South team took home the handsome trophy, the two Tom Fazio-designed courses at Forest Creek were the big winners. Many of the media group had not played the courses and were duly impressed with what they found.
Forest Creek is an equity membership facility with a membership fee of $50,000. Golf course home sites start at $150,000 and forest home sites at $70,000.
Included are the two Fazio courses, the South, which was opened in 1996, and the North, which opened a few months ago. Already completed in the first phase of operations are the pro shop and grill, a state-of-the-art practice facility that includes a short-game area, an awesome men’s clubhouse, tennis courts, an Olympic-size swimming pool, cabanas and a children’s wading pool.
Forest Creek is three miles east of the village of Pinehurst and offers exclusivity and privacy for its members, among whom are some of the nation’s power-brokers. Michael Jordan, a former University of North Carolina and NBA basketball star, owns property there and is often seen playing one of the courses.
The quality of the golf courses is about as good as it gets. Although the newer North Course might be a little more demanding, both are pure Fazio and are deserving of being ranked in the state’s Top 10.
Forest Creek hosted a North Carolina Golf Panel outing a few weeks ago and panelists, who vote on the state’s Top 100 Courses, were raving about both layouts.
“I kept looking for something to complain about,” one panelist said, “but I couldn’t find anything.”
As Bill Hensley, a veteran golf writer and publicist said, “I can’t imagine any place in the world that has two golf complexes as close together as Forest Creek and the Country Club of North Carolina that has two courses each of the quality they do.”
