WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — “It’s just a baby,” said Doug Bell, a broadcaster for Sirius XM PGA Tour Radio, of The Greenbrier Classic — the PGA Tour event that’s playing out for a fifth year at The Greenbrier Resort this week.
Bell, a guest on Thursday’s MetroNews “Talkline,” said that works in its favor.
“Everything’s new. You go to some stops that have been around for 25, 30 years and it’s, “Ah, it’s just a PGA stop,'” he said. Bell has traveled to the Mountain State each year since the start of The Greenbrier Classic which, he said, spectators seem to continue to appreciate.
Tim McNeely, the current athletic director at Fairmont State University, was the tournament director for The Greenbrier Classic in its early years.
“It continues to gain national attention. It’s a wonderful platform,” he said of how the PGA Tour event has grown. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for people from outside of West Virginia to see our state through an incredible window called The Greenbrier.”
Michael Tate, executive director of the Royal and Ancient, is making his first visit to West Virginia this week. “First impression is, it’s superb,” he said of The Greenbrier Resort. “The quality, the standards, it’s a world-class destination.”
The R&A and the United States Golf Association are the rule-making bodies for golf. The R&A also holds the British Open which begins at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Great Britain on July 13.
“In worldwide golfing terms, I think it would be fair to say that a lot of the countries, outside the U.S., regard the Open, the British Open, as their major. For those non-golfers, there’s three majors within the U.S. borders and one outside. We’re the one outside.”
MetroNews “Talkline” with Hoppy Kercheval is broadcasting from Slammin’ Sammy’s at The Greenbrier Resort this week for the 2014 Greenbrier Classic.