If Justice prevails, Greenbrier will overcome schedule, odds

July 29, 2010

Given the economic circumstances of the moment, it was trumpeted with all the fanfare that the state of West Virginia and the PGA Tour could muster.

After the long-lived Buick Open abruptly went belly up in the middle of 2009, the tour soon located a viable tournament site that not only was willing to host an event, but foot the fat title-sponsorship bill. So the tour fast hauled out the velvet ropes, wingback chairs and opened the doors to the TV cameras.

The announcement that the venerable Greenbrier Resort would stage a tour event in a mere 12 months time was excitedly conveyed by the govern who h and PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem.

The tour was so happy, if not relieved, to have filled the void created by the defunct Buick that it beamed the introductory press conference for the Greenbrier Classic into the media center at the Bridgestone Invitational, outside Cleveland.

Greenbriers Old White Course is 97 years old. But the top golfers are staying home this week. (Getty Images) The Greenbrier had changed owners in mid-2009 and the Buicks 51-year assembly line had been formally shut down days earlier, so the new tournament had been cobbled together in six weeks, Finchem estimated, a comparative blink by tour standards. Thus, there was much glad-handing, though the devil is sometimes in the details.

In the downright effervescent transcript of the announcement, provided afterwards by the tour, Greenbrier was misspelled … a total of 67 times.

Ah, the not-so-fine print.

Fifty-one weeks later, the big day is finally at hand for the Greenbrier, which has undergone millions in expansion and renovations since deep-pocketed CEO Jim Justice saved it from bankruptcy in 09 and promised to restore it to five-star status.

Thats four more stars than are entered in the inaugural tournament field.

The iconoclastic resort, which claims more than 200 years of history and once served as home base to Confederate and Yankee troops in the Civil War, albeit at different times, is hoping to reinvent itself this week with a splashy showing in its tour inauguration gala. But mere petticoat ruffles, lace and organza cant make a debutants coming-out party a hit, which is why the success of the Greenbrier wont be known until after this weeks Cotillion is over, if then.

The resorts Old White Course, a name that vaguely conjures up uncomfortable images to some, has hosted both Ryder and Solheim cups, joining only Muirfield Village in that distinction. The 97-year-old track, which Sam Snead used to call home, is an old parkland layout the likes of which arent often seen on tour these days, where shot values and strategy ought to mean something. Of course, thats what they thought last week at the Canadian Open, when the classically styled St. Georges, long missing from the tournament rotation, was torched for a third-round 60 by Carl Pettersson.

The Swede, with four career tournament wins, might be the second-biggest name in the field, since the only player ranked in the world top 25 who showed up for the ribbon-cutting is Jim Furyk. Only five players entered at Greenbrier have won this year on tour, and two of those victories came in so-called opposite events against the weakest fields of the season.

More than 20 American presidents, not to mention luminaries such as Gandhi and Princess Grace, have laid their heads on Greenbrier pillows over the decades past. As for golf royalty, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, not so much.

At the unveiling press confab last summer, with Watson, Finchem and the governor at his side, Justice said all the right things and said that a top tour official had jokingly assured him that Woods was already on board to play. Looking back, kidding aside, it sounds a bit naive. “No, really and truly, I hope Tiger and Phil and everybody in the world can hear me say this, that this is a really special place,” Justice said. “This is a special place and this is the time of year, really and tr Disney World times 10. We surely want Tiger to come, we want Phil, we want all the great players, and well just work really, really hard to make that happen.”

(Note to Justice: Phil and Tiger stopped playing at Disney World years ago, and its tournament courses are located five miles outside Tigers back gate.)

This is where more fine print should be causing hard squints for the resort, which, for all its cash and good intentions, will have a hard time finding relevancy when crow-barred into a hectic, largely unworkable portion of the tour schedule for the tours marquee contingent. The schedue this week reads Greenbrier Classic, but for the heavy hitters, it might as well say, “open date.”

Starting next week at the Bridgestone Invitational, the games big boys are looking at playing seven times in the next nine weeks, culminating with a brutal Transatlantic trip to Wales for the Ryder Cup, only hours after the FedEx Cup finale and $10 million in bonus winnings are settled in Atlanta.

In a way, the tournament underpinnings are reminiscent of the now-defunct 84 Lumber Classic, staged at the Nemacolin Resort in rural eastern Pennsylvania. Joe Hardy, the owner of the lumber company, threw around so much money propping up the t he even that his daughter reportedly revolted at the staggering price tag and the tournament was eventually shut down.

A local writer called Hardy, who generally delivered a solid field, the modern equivalent of Jed Clampett, which Hardy took as a compliment. The folksy, personable Justice, who coaches a girls high-school basketball team for fun, seems like even closer kin to cousin Jed. Justice, who grew up near the Greenbrier and made a fortune in farming and the coal business, is a genial giant at 6-foot-7 with a drawl thats commensurate. A poor Mountaineer who barely kept his family fed, he isnt. Hes supplying the green in Greenbrier.

Like with which it already is, at least by some definition. In an attempt to get more customers to the largely remote locale, Justice somehow convinced Delta Airlines to add service into the White Sulfur Springs, W. Va., area from Atlanta and New York.

To modify a phrase borrowed from another walk down nostalgia lane, if you rebuild it, will they come? The resort was well down a hot rail to bankruptcy under former owners CSX, the railway giant. Justice spent millions from his own wallet in an attempt to make the Greenbrier relevant again, building an underground casino, sponsoring the tour event, and even mandating that male guests wear sports coats after 7 p.m.

This could be the best part of the week: A dress code for guys in white belts, wing-tip shoes, neon-colored clothing and logo-emblazoned lids? Can Daly wear that obnoxious Loudmouth jacket he was sporting at the British Open two weeks ago and still get in the gentrified joint?

If everything goes off as well as Justice hopes, word-of-mouth will mean something going forward among tour players and should help deliver a deeper field next year. But given its proximity to the WGC event next week at Firestone, plus the PGA Championship and four FedEx Cup series stops that follow, he might have to hand out free poker chips to attract the true stars to the venerable venue.

Justice stole the ailing property for the fire-sale price of $20 million, and has dropped at least five times that sum on the casino and golf tournament, calling the shots himself and paying cash on the barrelhead as he goes. Justice loves the autonomy of being rich and cracked recently to Golfweek: “You know the definition of a committee? Its a group of individuals who individually cant do anything, but collectively, they can decide that nothing can be done.”

Funny line. But if Justice had solicited the opinions of folks with knowledge of how the tournament game works, he might have thought twice about his investment this week. Best intentions and best wishes aside, wedged into an unenviable calendar spot and starved for stars as a result, the Greenbrier hues could again resemble an old Civil War pallette.

That is, mostly blues and grey. Even Justices green cant completely change that.