Local golf: Davie legends show they still have it

Published 12:00 am Thursday, September 7, 2023

By Post Sports

By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — The story goes that when Jeff Lankford began playing in events as a member of the Country Club of Salisbury a few years ago, a helpful golfer, who had no idea who Lankford was, advised him that he was eligible to hit from the Senior tees.

“Nah, I’ll be OK playing back with the young guys,” Lankford told him.

Lankford, who will be 60 on March 30, still hits from the black tees with the young guys. So does his playing partner, 57-year-old Uly Grisette, who also qualifies for the (55+) Senior Division, at least based on his birth certificate.

Lankford and Grisette may have lost a few yards off the tee over the years, but they make up for distance with steadiness and experience. Lankford and Grisette are the two best golfers ever to come out of Davie County, and together they won the Crowder-Dorsett Four-Ball Memorial Labor Day Golf Tournament on Monday.

Lankford is 2-for-2 when it comes to winning club championship tournaments at the Country Club of Salisbury and he’s been on winning teams in the Country Club’s Member-Member tournaments. But he hadn’t played in the massive Labor Day Four-Ball, which attracted 340 golfers this year.

Neither had Grisette.

Grisette was a little stunned by the magnitude of the Labor Day Four-Ball. He had no idea what he’d signed up for.

“The tournament was awesome, much bigger than I anticipated,” Grisette said. “Great course — challenging, but really fun. Great competition. We only had one match that wasn’t tight.”

While they are old friends and teammates, Lankford and Grisette have only recently reconnected.

They are separated by only a few miles, but before the Labor Day Tournament, they had played just a few rounds together since their college glory days.

Still, they didn’t miss a beat. They were still a great fit.

“They were tough because nothing rattles them,” said Josh Brincefield, one of the defending champions who lost a battle to Lankford and Grisette in Monday morning’s semifinals. “They know what they’re doing. Every shot they hit comes off the center of the club face, and that’s what you’re aiming for. They’re great guys. They were fun for Charlie (Barr) and I to play with and they were fun to watch. I knew Jeff, but I had never met Uly. Uly is kind of a hidden legend that no one actually had seen. He’s an unassuming guy. He walks up to the first tee on Monday and says, ‘Hi, I’m Uly.'”

Lankford and Grisette played for powerhouse Davie High teams in the 1980s when the War Eagles were winning conference championships every year. Lankford went on to N.C. State, and Lankford’s success in Raleigh was part of the reason that Grisette, who would become an All-American, also joined the Wolfpack.

Both were good enough back in the day to play in PGA events. Grisette finished tied for 15th once in Chattanooga, Tenn. He shot 63 in Missouri. Lankford made cuts and won decent money on the Nike Tour, which is now the Korn Ferry Tour.

Both eventually gave up their PGA Tour dreams and eventually reclaimed their amateur status.

Lankford and Grisette shot 66 in qualifying, but it was a stellar field and they were only the No. 5 seed. Eric Edwards and Alex Nianouris shot 61 to pace qualifying and claim the No. 2 seed, behind the defending champions, while Keith Dorsett and Jacob Smith shot 65 in qualifying and were seeded third.

The path to the title for Lankford and Grisette began with a 4 and 3 win against Wes Cline and Jordan Taylor on Saturday.

In Sunday’s quarterfinals, Lankford and Grisette won 6 and 5 against Andre Robinson and Terrain Gill. The Davie duo set a blistering pace in that match and was 7-under through 13 holes.

“We’d made it to the Monday semifinals, but all Uly and I talked about was whether or not we’d have the legs to play two matches on one day,” Lankford said.

The contest with defending champions Brincefield and Barr was on Monday morning. Brincefield, Salisbury High’s golf coach, grabbed his first long-awaited title in 2022, while Barr is a brilliant young golfer with a future, a High Point University player who qualified for the U.S. Amateur.

“Charlie Barr can hit a 2-iron further than most people can hit a driver and we were driving it 30 yards by them most of the time, but Uly and Jeff can still hit it far enough,” Brincefield said. “We weren’t that far past them, and Jeff can hit a 4-iron as well as I can hit a 6-iron.”

The Davie team went up by three holes at one point, but Brincefield and Barr mounted a comeback and had caught up heading to the pivotal par-3 17th.

“We’ve got the honors and we’ve got the momentum, and then I hear the crowd roaring when Charlie hits his shot,” Brincefield said. “It’s 212 yards, and Charlie puts it 4 feet from the hole. Fantastic shot. Then Lankford hits a great shot. I’m standing there and I know it’s right on line, but you can’t really see how close it is until you actually get up there. When I hear someone yell, ‘Get in the hole!’ I know Jeff has put it real close. He’s even closer than Charlie, 3 feet away.”

Barr’s putt was a tough 4-footer, sidehill, with serious break. It didn’t fall.

Lankford had an easier one, straight uphill. He calmly knocked it in, and that hole proved decisive.

“Charlie beat himself up a little bit for the miss, but that’s a tough putt,” Brincefield said. “You have that putt 50 times, and you’re going to miss it 25 times.”

Then Brincefield began wondering how his new friends from Davie could possibly hold up for another round of golf.

“I’m 47, and I was completely exhausted after 18,” Brincefield said.

In the other semifinal on Monday morning, the older guys won again. Keith Dorsett, a sentimental favorite and the grandson of one of the men for whom the tournament is named, hasn’t won a Labor Day Four-Ball since 2004, but he and partner Jacob Smith were able to edge Edwards and Nianouris, the qualifying phenoms who are still in their 20s.

It was another epic match. Dorsett and Smith advanced 1-up.

“Keith really wants to win another Labor Day badly, and he’s such a good guy, everyone wants him to win another one,” Brincefield said. “Then there’s Edwards and Nianouris — they’re probably the best players out here. But this tournament is so hard to win. If they keep trying, they’ll have their time.”

But on Monday, time stood still for the Davie legends.

Their match with Dorsett and Smith was a 50/50 toss-up until Grisette got hot with his putter.

Grisette and Lankford won 2 and 1.

“I made three birdies in a row late,” Grisette said. “I made a really long putt — I believe it was on 14, and that put us ahead. Jeff and I, we made a pretty good team. Jeff is just so good, and it was like old times. we ham-and-egged it. If one of us had a bad hole, the other guy picked him up. It was a good day for the old guys, a good day for the Wolfpack.”

It was a special tournament, blessed with serene weather and ideal course conditions. Golfers praised everyone from head pro Chad Campbell, to the maintenance crew, to the sponsors to the volunteers to the spectators, who were out in force on Monday.

“We’ll probably be hitting it a few yards shorter next year,” Lankford said with a laugh. “But we hope to be back to defend.”

 

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