Tiger Woods returns to action in 2009 Buick Open

July 29, 4:13 PMHartford Golf ExaminerTim Gavrich

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This week, the PGA Tour will come to the Flint, Michigan area for the 51st and last time for a good while. In one of the poster-child regions for the ravages of the current economic situation, it is no wonder that this is the final year of the Buick Open, which has been contested at Warwick Hills Country Club in Grand Blanc has hosted the event every year in the event’s history. Two times—2002, and 2006—one Eldrick Woods has walked away with the hardware. He will have the opportunity to bounce back from his missed cut at Turnberry a couple weeks ago and claim his third Buick Open title. It would be a fitting story for the greatest golfer of our generation to hoist the trophy for its final time.

• View a slideshow of Old White Course at the Greenbrier, a potential stop for next year's Buick Open

Warwick Hills is as stereotypically well-suited to a PGA Tour event as can be. It is of modest length, tree-lined, and extremely straightforward (Tour players, by and large, prefer courses that are “right there in front of you” instead of quirkier affairs with some blind shots and unconventional holes). It is also historically one of the easiest courses that the pros will see all year, with a four-day score better than 20-under winning very often. With two drivable par 4s on the back nine bracketing a short par 5, there is a possibility of players making up four or five shots to par in the course of three holes. This makes for plenty of roars and excitement as rounds wind to a close. The Buick Open will be well-televised all four days, meaning viewers will have ample opportunity to catch the action and bid Warwick Hills farewell.

What will become of this slot on Tour after the sun sets on the Buick Open for the final time this week? One scenario has the venerable Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia becoming the newest PGA Tour stop next year. New resort owner and mining and agriculture mogul Jim Justice has designs on bringing the world’s best to the distinguished, beautiful mountain retreat in 2010.

Because Washington & Lee University is only an hour from the Greenbrier, I have had the good fortune to play two of the resort’s three golf courses—the Greenbrier course, a Jack Nicklaus layout that played host to the 1979 Ryder Cup, and the Old White course, an old Seth Raynor/C.B. Macdonald course that has been magnificently restored by architect Lester George in the last few years. The Old White course is likely to be the host course for the new Tour event, should the Greenbrier’s proposal be accepted.
The Old White course is one of my very favorite venues in golf. One would be hard-pressed to find an inland golf course with a more spectacular setting. Playing the Old White in the fall in full view of the changing colors in the trees up and down the nearby mountains is one of the greatest joys I have had in golf.

As a whole, the set four par 3s at the Old White is one of the best I have seen anywhere. It features four classic “template holes”—a Biarritz at the 3rd, a Redan at the 8th, an Eden at the 15th, and a quirky but delightful Short hole at the 18th. The best hole among the four in my opinion, is the 217 yard Redan 8th hole, which features a very deep bunker guarding the front and left sides of the green, which tilts steeply from front-right to back-left, meaning that a low right-to-left shot can use the slope of the green to funnel a ball towards the hole. It is a brilliant example of a golf course understanding the inherent challenge and fun in using the contour of the land to manipulate the journey of the golf ball.

Anyway, here’s hoping that the Greenbrier lands a PGA Tour stop. I will be glued to the television in order to see how great players play a golf course for which I have great admiration.

Cheers.