The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
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32 ■ THE WOLFPACKER "Well," Sykes told him, "that's about as good as being the world's tallest midget." "Coach Sykes is NC State golf," Watson added. "He built a program with what- ever was available to him, which until re- cently was inferior to most of the top 50 schools in the country. The job he has done is amazing." Sykes had been successful, even before he had a home course to recruit to in 2009, because of his personality, demeanor and timing. After all, Sykes admitted he wasn't much of a student or an athlete. He was good enough as a junior golfer to win the club championship where he was a caddy, but he never played high school golf. He did make both the freshman football team and the freshman golf team at NC State, but had to quit both because of injuries and grades. That he was ever an athlete at all was quite remarkable. At the age of 5, while playing cowboys and Indians with neigh- bors, an errant wooden arrow destroyed Sykes' right eye. As much as he wanted to play football and basketball — he attended Everett Case's early basketball camps at Dorton Arena — he always had to be mind- ful of his good eye. "The doctor told my parents when I was in middle school that I shouldn't have to worry too much about playing football, but the only sport I should avoid was golf, since the size of the ball could possibly do as much damage to my good eye as the wooden arrow," Sykes said. "I guess that's pretty funny in light of my chosen profession." Just because he only has one eye doesn't mean he lacks vision. That, in fact, is one of the things he does best, according to longtime colleague Page Marsh, coach of the Wolfpack women's golf team and mem- ber of the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. "He is always good for seeing things in his own unique way," Marsh said. "I love that. "At times we can all get stuck. You might be staring at your navel and be like, 'I can't see anything.' He always sees things in another way and helps you out. "That just helps you move forward." Sykes wasn't sure he would make it past his inaugural season with the Wolfpack. His first team, made up entirely of walk-ons, finished dead last at the Atlantic Coast Conference Championships at Foxfire Country Club in Pinehurst, ending up 110 strokes behind champion Wake Forest. The next year, the Wolfpack finished second, thanks to some strong play by fu- ture PGA Tour player Vance Heafner, Ken Dye Jr. and Marshall Stewart. When Dye won his foursome in the Wolfpack's final group, Stewart came running up the fair- way screaming, "We won! We won!" By which he meant the Wolfpack beat everyone except the Demon Deacons, who won the event by 44 strokes, a record that still stands as the largest margin of victory in the history of the league championship. Sykes' program was on its way, even though the young coach was still a part- timer on the athletics department payroll. After the trophy was presented, Sykes went up to legendary Wake coach Jesse Had- dock Jr. and said, "We're improving a lot faster than you are." The next two seasons, Haddock won NCAA championships. Sykes started with z e r o s c h o l a r s h i p s , moved on to a handful of in-state-tuition-only grants from 1974-87 and eventually turned NC State golf into a global enterprise. He gave his first out- of-state scholarship to Bowen Sargent, who is now the men's golf coach at Virginia. Since then, Sykes has beaten bushes, both foreign and do- mestic, to find talent to make the Wolf- pack competitive in one of the nation's most difficult collegiate conferences. He found Tim Clark in Durban, South Africa, thanks to a tip from a high school friend of Clark's who played for Sykes, based solely on the recommendation of PGA Tour star Nick Price. He found Swedish native Carl Pettersson at Greensboro's Grimsley High School, helped him get enrolled at an Alabama junior college to improve his grades, then recruited him back to NC State. And he found eventual NCAA champion Matt Hill, from Bright's Grove, Ontario, playing on the Canadian Junior National Sykes (right) is the is the longest tenured member of the Golf Coaches Association and was inducted into the organization's Hall of Fame in 2001. PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE MEDIA RELATIONS Sykes — pictured here with current senior Jacob McBride — entered this spring with 52 total tournament wins, an average of more than one per season. PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE MEDIA RELATIONS "Coaching those guys wasn't hard. They had all the skills when they got here. I just had to make sure they showed up at the golf course on time." ■ Sykes on coaching future professional standouts Tim Clark and Carl Pettersson, who have combined to win more than $50 million on the PGA Tour