Getting Kids Into Golf

Greensboro, N.C.-- Well before the sun rises, golfers begin arriving here at the exclusive Sedgefield Country Club.

Players loosen their wrists by tapping balls on the putting green. They move onto the practice range, pulling open-faced wedges out of their bags and striking short shots. Like pianists exercising their fingers, they move down the scale of irons, nine, eight, seven, six, five and four, making the ball fly a few extra yards with each lower numbered club. The first tee time is 7:30 a.m. These serious golfers prepare for a full two hours before teeing off.

Sedgefield has just completed a $3 million restoration project of its acclaimed Donald Ross-designed golf course. Later this year, it will host the PGA's Wyndham Championship on this historic course, where golfers such as Arnold Palmer, Sam Snead and Ben Hogan first hit competitive drives seven decades ago.

This week, however, Sedgefield is opening its exclusive greens -- not to adult pros but to 99 of the United States' top-ranked male golfers between the ages of 12 and 18. From June 9 to June 13, the teenagers will battle in the Footjoy Invitational.

The event represents one of the highlights of the American Junior Golf Association's summer season, an expensive, grueling, pressure-packed few months in which fairway dreams are stirred and fuelled for more than 5,000 junior golfers. Together, the prodigies and their parents will crisscross the U.S., voyaging upward of 10,000 miles to compete in a series of elite tournaments.

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