Tee for two.

• Author: Pace, Lee
• Position: Greater Greensboro Open - Special Report: The Triad

For 55 years, the GGO has served a dual purpose: giving Greensboro national exposure and training three generations of business leaders.

For half a century, the Greater Greensboro Open couldn't dodge the weatherman.

There was snow in 1940. After Ben Hogan shot a first-round 69, it snowed three inches on Easter Sunday, March 24. Play was postponed until Wednesday, when Hogan collected the win in a 36-hole finale.

There were sheets of rain the weekend of April 13-14, 1963. A week of record-setting crowds baited tournament chairman Jim Melvin into ordering 10,000 more tickets for Saturday and Sunday. Then it rained. "We never broke the seal on the boxes," he says. "I looked at those tickets in my garage for 10 years." Melvin can remember the profit to the penny. "That year was the second-worst revenue-producing tournament in history," he says. "We made $1,947.23."

Not one ray of sun shone Thursday through Sunday, March 31-April 3, 1983. Rain and cool temperatures pushed the tournament into a $25,000 bath of red ink. The sun didn't come out until the fourth round on Monday, after thunderstorms postponed Saturday's play.

And then there was 1987. Oh, Lord, was there 1987.

Snow was predicted the evening of Friday, April 3. Members of the Greensboro Jaycees, the group that has run the tournament since its inception in 1938, knew the corporate hospitality tents erected around Forest Oaks Country Club would collapse under the weight of several inches of snow, so they stayed up all night running kerosene heaters in the tents to melt any snow that fell -- small consolation that the snow was merely a light dusting around daybreak. High winds were pulling up tent stakes driven 5 feet into the ground. Workers bought out a local Kmart's stock of mittens and stocking caps for frigid golfers. A newspaper columnist led the singing: "Dashing through the snow, to the '87 GGO ..."

As Mike Solomon, the assistant tournament chairman, stood on the tee of the 17th hole that Saturday, he watched the players remove their mittens, blow on their hands and try to make good swings hampered by layers of clothing. He saw their scowls as they battled biting gusts of wind.

Solomon, who would become chairman for the following year's tournament, shook his head and thought, "How will we ever get a golfer to come here again?"

The Greater Greensboro Open has been a proud part of the city's heritage for 55 years. It's the sixth-oldest tournament on the PGA Tour and has given millions to area charities. But as the 1990s approached, the tournament was becoming stagnant with poor dates, no major-network TV...