Palmetto Golfer - Fall 2019

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From Zero

TO HERO Gray Doctors His Swing Anatomy

INSIDE THIS ISSUE Woman Makes SCGA History Where the Best Players Are LL 2 01 9 Golfer 1 FALLFA2019 • Palmetto $5 • SCGOLF.ORG

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PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

4 King and Lawrence to Enter Hall of Fame 6 Miller Misses ‘His’ Kids 10 Where the Best Golfers Play 12 Coach Calls it Quits, Kind Of 14

CAROLINAS GOLF COURSE SUPERINTENDENTS ASSOCIATION

Ex-Superintendent Jett Takes Off

16 State Amateur Becomes Gray Area 20 Brown Becomes First Woman on Board 23 More Big Events in Charleston 24

SC WOMEN’S GOLF COLUMN

Golf Channel Star to Lead New Interstate Challenge

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STATEWIDE

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CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS

COVER & LEFT: Lugoff’s Tyler Gray has reason to smile after resurrecting his game to win the South Carolina Amateur Championship.

South Carolina Golf Association

Past-Presidents

SECRETARY John Durst

Charlie Bryan – Greenville Charlie Drawdy – Hampton Bobby Hathaway – Blythewood John Lopez – Murrells Inlet Pat McKinney – Charleston Charlie Rountree, III – Columbia Doug Smith – Spartanburg Rick Vieth – Taylors

TREASURER Jeff Connell

Committee Emeritus

PRESIDENT Ron Swinson VICE-PRESIDENT Vic Hannon

IMMEDIATE PAST-PRESIDENT Steve Fuller

Executive Committee Larry Beidelman – Dataw Island Lea Anne Brown – Charleston Justin Converse – Spartanburg Will Dennis – Greenville David Ellison – Columbia Bennett Jordan – Rock Hill Rick Miller – Pawleys Island Brian Price – Greenville Rob Reeves – Greer David Seawell – Aiken Rob Simmons – Beaufort Danny Stubbs – Columbia Blake Williamson – Anderson Ben Zeigler – Florence 2

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South Carolina Junior Golf Foundation Chairman – Rick Vieth Vice Chairman – Harry Huntley Secretary – Joe Spencer Treasurer – Happ Lathrop

Board of Trustees –Charlie Bryan, Charlie

Palmetto Golfer Editor, Trent Bouts, trentb@charter.net Art Director, Kristy Adair Published By Community Journals Media Group (864) 679-1200, communityjournals.com

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Drawdy, Paul Graham, Chuck Howell, Tim Kreger, Mike Mahoney, Rick Miller, John Orr, Barry Reynolds, Charlie Rountree, III, Jesse Smith, Jerry Stafford, Steve Wilmot

Subscriptions or Address Changes

Legal Counsel

SCGA Staff

About Us

Joel Stoudenmire – Greenville

Executive Director............................Biff Lathrop Member Services........................... James Park Director of Operations.........................Kirk Page Director of Competitions.................Kyle Maloney Director of Communications, Marketing & Special Events.........Ann Maloney Office Manager...............................Susan Avery Executive Director, Emeritus...........Happ Lathrop

HEADQUARTERS 7451 Irmo Drive, Columbia, SC 29212 (803) 732-9311; Fax: (803) 732-7406 www.scgolf.org | www.scjga.org www.scjgf.org

Lifetime Honorary Tom Meeks – Far Hills, NJ

South Carolina Junior Golf Association Officers Chairman – Ben Zeigler

Committee – Randy Adams, Bear Boyd, Jeff Burton, John Durst, Bobby Hathaway, Taylor Hough, Wayne Howle, Victor Huskey, Charlie Ipock, Brandi Jackson, David Johnson, Larry Kellogg, John Lopez, Ellen Miller, Lee Palms, Yates Reynolds, Charlie Rountree, III, Roger Smith, Amy Spencer.

SCJGA Staff Senior Director............................Justin Fleming Assistant Director.......................Michael Mckee

SCJGF Staff Senior Director – Joe Quick

(803) 732-9311 or jquick@scgolf.org

MAILING ADDRESS P.O. Box 286, Irmo, SC 29063

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Enjoy the Game in Whatever Fashion You Find It

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confusion and unease because people ARE YOU A RULES BUFF? If so, you don’t know which door to enter, certainly have a lot to talk about after where to pay or who to ask for help. the 2019 USGA rules changes.

So, whatever we can do to take down Are you an equipment junkie? With those, and other barriers for entry is all of the new club designs, putter a good thing. I think we are making styles and grips, changing driver and progress. fairway metal aerodynamics, your head Topgolf is another good example is probably spinning. of this movement and its rapid Do you like to tinker with your expansion, right here in South swing? There are numerous books on Carolina, is a promising sign. As an the swing and PGA professionals who informal means of introducing nonwill help you. golfers to the game, it is a winner.

Is course architecture your thing?

Sure, not everyone who visits Ranking the best architects and courses Topgolf will become a club member is an ongoing conversation. somewhere, but some will and more Do you relax by going to the range still will likely be enticed to get some and “beating balls” or maybe just lessons and enjoy a daily facility at watching the final round of the week’s some point.

PGA tournament in your den?

So, with this, my final column, I Or, do you just like to play with your repeat the refrain I have stressed in regular foursome or group and have a More and more facilities some previous ones: Get out and play. little friendly competition? are installing par three Enjoy our game. Introduce golf to The obvious point is that our game has someone who has not played. Have fun! many facets and can be enjoyed in many layouts, chip and putts, My term as president of the SCGA ways. To be honest, there are even more and even just putting ends at the end of this year. I am ways to enjoy it now than ever before. honored to have had this opportunity You do not always have to play 18 courses where people of and hope that I have done justice holes. Playing nine is an increasingly all ages and skill levels to the game and contributed to its popular way for time-crunched folks to growth and enjoyment. The SCGA get their fix. can work on their game to do a fantastic job with our Another area of the game where there or simply socialize while continues competitions, events and promoting is healthy growth is in the development they exercise. the game. Thanks to our executive of shorter courses. More and more director Biff Lathrop and his staff for facilities are installing par three layouts, all that they do. chip and putts, and even just putting As I sign off, I am also pleased to see courses where people of all ages and the SCGA achieve a first, one that is probably overdue. Lea skill levels can work on their game or simply socialize while Anne Brown has joined our executive committee, the first they exercise. woman to do so in the history of the association. A South Moving away from the traditional ways of the game toward Carolina Golf Hall of Fame member and excellent golfer, Lea making it quicker, easier and more fun to participate can Anne is part of the fabric of South Carolina golf. Critically, only help serve the game we love in the long run. These other she understands the business of golf as well as she does the forms of the game can provide less-daunting avenues of game and will bring an enormous amount to the table.  entry for people.

Research shows that, historically, golf has not done a good job of making the game friendly enough for newcomers.

Even the infrastructure of most courses and clubs can create

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Mike Lawrence, a 10-time Major contestant, pictured at Boscobel Golf Club, has devoted countless hours teaching golfers young and old.

New Hall of Famers: GOOD AT THE GAME AND GOOD TO OTHERS

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WHEN THE SOUTH CAROLINA Golf Hall of Fame welcomes two new members in January it will take several minutes to run through their playing accomplishments. Lifetime Carolinas PGA Section member Mike Lawrence and veteran amateur Kevin King are certainly worthy inductees for what they have achieved with a club in their hands. They’ve been winning tournaments and measuring themselves, with distinction, against the best for decades on end.

But once those resumes are read and the applause dies down, there will be mention of contributions made that are far more difficult to measure, but perhaps in the long run, maybe even more important. In the case of Lawrence, 64, from Anderson in the Upstate, that means the immeasurable amount of time he’s spent teaching the game.

“Having worked with Mike these past few years, I have witnessed his energy, dedication and enthusiasm for the game, spending countless hours teaching adults, juniors and 4

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BY TRENT BOUTS school teams – much of the time without compensation,” says Jim Nimmo, the former PGA professional, who formally nominated Lawrence on behalf of the staff and members at Boscobel Golf Club in Pendleton. “If a person wants to hit balls, Mike is there until dark sharing his knowledge. No one loves to talk about the swing more than he.”

Nimmo is hardly alone in his respect for what Lawrence has given to everyday golfers of all stripes and abilities. As former Clemson golf coach and director of athletics Bobby Robinson says, “For all his accomplishments in golf, his greatest contributions may be as a teacher of both young and old golfers.”

In the eyes of the Tigers’ current coach, Larry Penley, himself a Hall of Fame member, Lawrence’s desire to help other golfers goes back to their days when both were playing under Robinson. The catalyst, Penley suggests, was Robinson’s own time being increasingly pulled towards broader responsibilities within

the athletic department.

“Mike picked up the slack,” Penley says. “He would organize practice and make sure everyone was working on the proper fundamentals … Mike helped me tremendously. Perhaps it was during this time that Mike developed his love to teach. He has a very kind, confident approach that relates well with younger golfers.”

Lawrence developed his own strategy for teaching known as The R3 Approach that Penley and others credit with helping many golfers. One of them is Natalie Garrison Elrod, whose daughters learned under Lawrence as juniors and during high school competition.

As much as he helped them, she says, Lawrence also gave her the gift of a golf swing.

“Mike, along with his R3 Approach concept has taught me the mechanics of my swing, the mental aspects of the game and given me confidence I never imagined possible,” she wrote in a letter supporting his nomination.

“I lave learned so much about golf and now have a mutual interest that I share with my daughters that will last a lifetime.”

Of course, Lawrence could really play too.

Among a host of tournament victories were three South Carolina Open Championships, three Western North Carolina Opens and two South Chapter Championships. He competed in three PGA Championships – at Oak Tree, Crooked Stick and Riviera; and played in the 1990 U.S. Open Championship at Medina.

Later, he qualified for the U.S. Senior Open at Sahalee and also made the field for five Senior PGA Championships. He competed in 18 National PGA Club Professional Championships.

Apparently, collating some of that information took some work as Bobby Foster, another Hall of Famer, who supported Lawrence’s induction explains: “…he’s always been a humble man and reluctant to brag about his accomplishments. As I understand it, he had to get his collection of tournament money clips out of his storage room to make a list of the 10 major championships he’s played in over the years.”

Also over the years, Lawrence served as head pro or director of golf at Smithfields Country Club in Easley, Verdae Greens Golf Club, now The Preserve at Verdae, in Greenville; Pickens Country Club in Pickens and at The Cliffs in

the Upstate. His volunteer service includes coaching Special Olympics golfers as well as numerous high school teams and coordinating golf fundraisers for Upstate Meals on Wheels.

As Foster observes: “He truly checks all the boxes as a player, teacher, servant of the game and wonderful representative of our game.”

Kevin King, 61, from Bluffton, is still playing outstanding golf. Just this year, he won the SC Senior Amateur Championship, becoming only the second player to ever complete the trifecta of the state’s Amateur, Mid-Amateur and Senior titles. The first was Bill Smunk, who capped his trio in 2009 en route to his own Hall of Fame induction in 2014.

King, however, compiled his championships in unconventional order. He won the Mid-Amateur, open to players 25 years of age and older, the year before he won the Amateur, which is open to all ages. In all, there were 31 years between the first leg of his trifecta, the Mid-Am in 1988, and the third, the Senior Amateur this year. He also won a second Mid-Am in 1998.

In 1976, while in college at the University of North Carolina, he competed in the first of seven U.S. Amateur Championships. The following year, still in college, he played in the U.S. Open. He would go on to play in multiple U.S. Mid-Amateurs and U.S. Senior Amateurs.

He also competed in the U.S. Senior Open and the British Senior Open.

Closer to home, he has compiled 13 club championships on some impressive terrain – Long Cove Club, Secession Golf Club, Berkeley Hall Club and Colleton River Club.

King had two short stints as a professional, first in the early ’80s and then as a senior, competing in six PGA Champions Tour events, but it was as an amateur that he truly made his mark. That amateur record might have been even more impressive if not for a decision that, like Lawrence’s teaching, was in the service of others.

Longtime friend and golfing colleague Mike Harmon, director of golf at Secession, revealed that choice by King in a letter supporting his nomination to the Hall of Fame. “I thought … that Kevin had a great chance of making a U.S. Walker Cup team during the 1990s but he would have had to commit a great deal of time over a two-year period to get that accomplished,” Harmon wrote.

“We talked at length about it for several years but being a great family man and a very busy real estate agent on the island, he was just not able to give it the time he needed and the U.S. team missed out on one heck of a competitor.

I like the fact he put his family and livelihood ahead of his playing, few do that. But I know how much it would have meant to him to have that moniker of “Walker Cupper” in front of his name … But family came first for this man and I have always admired him for that decision.”

Perhaps fittingly then, King’s formal nomination came from someone who did represent the U.S. in the Walker Cup, five-time SCGA Player of the Year, Todd White. Like Harmon, White let King’s playing record speak for itself and instead focused on his “honesty, honor and integrity.”

“While a person’s golf score most often gathers the attention, golf is a game where character, value and virtue are measured and revealed through the game itself,” White wrote.

“As a fellow competitor, Kevin King earned my respect for the manner in which he approaches and plays the game … I am glad to have the opportunity to compete on the links against Kevin, but I am more thankful to be able to call him a friend.”

King and Lawrence will become the 71st and 72nd members of the SC Golf Hall of Fame when they are inducted at Columbia Country Club on January 11. A limited number of tickets are available from the SCGA at (803) 732-9311 or info@scgolf.org.  Kevin King with this year’s South Carolina Senior Amateur trophy that goes with his earlier SC Amateur and SC Mid-Amateur titles.

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Chris Miller

MISSING THE KIDS AND THE GOLF COMMUNITY HE HELPED BUILD

BY TRENT BOUTS Chris Miller dedicated his career to providing opportunities for South Carolina junior golfers including Christian Baliker (College of Charleston) and Jack Parrott (University of South Carolina).

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IT TELLS YOU A LOT about Chris Miller that in two of his favorite funny stories from golf he is not the protagonist but the pranked upon. In a third, he ends up in tears.

In nearly 20 years of, frankly, working his butt off for junior golfers in South Carolina, Miller saw some of the game’s brightest talents and many of the not-so-shiny. He treated them all the same – with respect, encouragement and, when called for, a stern word or two. Which is to say, he treated them like his own.

That explains why, after one event several years ago, he found his truck both covered and stuffed with flowers. A large wedding at the course the day before left a dumpster brimming with discarded floral arrangements. The mothers of two young golfers went to work.

“Everywhere they could put flowers, they put flowers,” Miller laughs. “They were even inside the glovebox. My truck smelled good for a week.”

Another time, at the Junior Heritage at Sea Pines Resort, someone apparently stole a trailer packed with all the paraphernalia needed to run the tournament. Police were called. Miller was one in a room full of distraught people scanning security footage when, this time, two fathers of players walked in.

“They asked what was going on, but I could tell straight away by the gleam in their eyes that they knew something,” Miller says. “They had pushed the trailer around behind the building.

The police weren’t real happy about it because they’d opened a case report. But we had some fun with it.”

In 2013, a kid by the name of Keenan Huskey won The Players Championship at Hartsville Country Club, then delivered a speech that was equal parts farewell and tribute to SC junior golf. Huskey, then 16, had been competing in the junior program since he was 8, half his life.

“He has this speech written out about what it meant to him to have been part of the junior program,” Miller says. “He wanted to thank his parents, a whole lot of people. He goes through this whole spiel. I looked over at his dad and he was crying, so that did it for me. It absolutely killed me. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. I told Keenan afterwards, ‘That was unfair!’… as I hugged him. Just a great kid.”

Those stories speak to a sense of community that Miller misses most since health issues led him to step down as director of operations and services for the SC Junior Golf Association last year.

“It was just a tight, well-knit family,” he says, of the caravan of kids, siblings, parents and grandparents traipsing all over the state to learn from competition. “We’d be on the road and it would be like, ‘Okay, who’s getting the table for 20?’ That bonded these people together. If somebody got sick, was having cancer treatment or something, our entire community knew what

(ABOVE) SCGA/SCJGA representatives share in the celebration as SC junior golf graduate Wesley Bryan receives the Order of the Palmetto.

From left, are Allen Knight, Chris Miller, Wesley Bryan, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, Biff Lathrop, Joe Quick and Happ Lathrop. (LEFT) Today, Chris Miller enjoys the serenity of life beside Lake Murray.

was going on.”

And with so many people in junior golf ’s extended family – there were nearly 3,000 kids on the books at one time – inevitably someone was ill. “In the course of our time, unfortunately, we did have a couple of passings. And we were all part of that,” Miller says.

“We were at funerals, of maybe a parent.

Unfortunately, it was a child one time.

You’d see our community coming out and being there for the entire process.”

Now it is Miller’s own health that is at issue. A history of concussions dating back to his youth – his other passion is dirt bikes – contributed to increasingly severe headaches, sometimes lasting months. He was in the midst of one such stretch in the spring of 2017 while managing operations at the annual Hootie & the Blowfish Monday After The Masters Pro-Am in Myrtle Beach.

The celebrity tournament that attracts thousands of spectators every year also serves as one of the junior golf program’s largest fundraisers. Miller was not about to take a sick day, but his boss, then SCGA executive director Happ Lathrop, could see something was up, again.

“Happ could just tell I felt like crap. He said, ‘Buddy, you’re killing yourself. You don’t need to do this anymore.’ And that’s kind of when I first thought about calling it a day,” Miller says. Six months later he handed over his role to Justin Fleming.

Then in May last year, he officially retired.

“It was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Truthfully, it’s the only job I’ve ever really, really loved.”

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like his dad. But the closer flight school came, Miller realized how competitive it was and feared a documented back injury – water skiing this time – would probably count him out.

The golf bug finally bit when he went to the University of South Carolina. “I picked it up really quickly,” he says, which turned out to be a good thing because mechanical engineering wasn’t quite clicking. “Dumbass,” Miller says by way of explanation.

“Dumb-ass!”

Golf, on the other hand, “seemed like a great career.” A conversation with George Bryan, himself something of a Pied Piper for juniors, led to Miller becoming his assistant at Timberlake Country Club in Chapin in 1993. He earned his full membership of the PGA of America but knew the Tour was out of reach.

Chris Miller shakes the hand of Tip Price after fellow golfer Daniel Donato received his trophy.

“Anyone who has been around me on the golf course knows I belong running Keenan Huskey, who went on to win the program, which started with three chapters tournaments, not playing in them,” he says.

State Amateur in 2015, made his professional and 150 kids, grew at its peak to 19 “Let’s just say I once took a 10 on one hole debut this year on Canada’s Mackenzie Tour. chapters and more than 2,200 kids. The trying to qualify for The Heritage (Classic).

Just as valued by Miller, not to mention likes of the first designated junior player And it was a damned good 10!” by an industry struggling to maintain development center, Junior Golf Land, Miller later became head pro at Newberry participation, are the countless lesser-knowns which opened in Columbia was “unheard Country Club and coach of the Dutch still playing, years after leaving junior ranks of at the time,” Miller says. “This was Fork High School team, featuring a long, behind. Sure, it’s fun to watch on TV as kids before The First Tee got going. And we lean and lanky kid called Dustin Johnson. you knew go on to win big as adults. were running a core program with about For several years, he also worked with “But that’s not what we judge by,” Miller 5,000 kid visits, right here in little ol’ Special Olympics, organizing the statewide says. “It’s every bit as satisfying to see our Columbia, South Carolina.” tournament. Miller found he was good kids now playing in their club’s four-ball The SC junior program’s pioneering at the operations side of a golf event and, or in a mid-amateur event somewhere. work won wide acclaim. The one year perhaps even more importantly, he enjoyed Mallory Hetzel was a favorite and she’s now that Golf Digest magazine ranked junior the moms and dads, not just the kids. coaching at the college level. Just the fact so programs across the country, South “I liked dealing with the parents, which I many of our kids have stayed in the game is Carolina came out on top. know a lot of people don’t,” he says. “A lot vindication of what we’re about. Even some But to Miller, high profile graduates like of people don’t because of the 10 percent of their kids are now in our programs.”

Johnson, who went from Dutch Fork High that complain. They can really weigh heavily Miller is no longer taking a salary from the to world No. 1, PGA Tour winners Bill on you. But the 90 percent – actually, it’s work, but he continues to enjoy watching the Haas, Kevin Kisner, Ben Martin and Wesley probably higher than that – who are really fruits of those labors.

Bryan, and on the women’s side, Solheim good, who are interested in helping their “When you have somebody that’s in your Cup team member Austin Ernst, and LPGA children move forward in the game, they are system since they’re 7 or 8 years old, and Tour debutante Lauren Stephenson, are only a lot of fun.” they go all the way through and you get one measure of success. By the way, that kid In 2000, he joined the SC Junior Golf to watch them play their last Association, which was just junior tournament and you see beginning to find its legs the emotion, that does mean a after a humble start thanks lot,” he says. “Because you feel to a small grant from the like you’re adding something to SCGA 10 years earlier. that particular child’s life, you Miller doubled the size of really do.” the staff when he came on Not that Miller accepts any board, working alongside of the credit. “That all goes to Paul Rouillard, who’d been Happ Lathrop, Hootie & the there from the start. “The Blowfish, board members, the neat thing was that there staff, the tournament volunteers, was nothing there before it, those people,” he says. “Greatest nothing tried and true that bunch of people I’ve ever been we could follow,” he says. around in my life. I might have “To be honest, we kind of gotten to drive the boat a little created it as we went along.” bit, but they built it. No doubt It worked out pretty well. about it.”  The summer chapter Chris during his days at the SC Junior Golf Association based in Irmo.

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Musgrove Mill Tops Clubs With ‘Single’ Best Golfers

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UNLIKE THE OCEAN COURSE at Kiawah Island Resort or the Country Club of Charleston, they will never host a major.

Not a PGA Championship, nor a U.S. Women’s Open. Never draw spectators by the tens of thousands. And certainly, never headline coverage on Golf Channel.

Yet they are home to some of South Carolina’s best golfers, players who, as much as fresh air and exercise, love the competition, against the course and each other. They are clubs that are home to the greatest concentration of golfers with single-digit handicaps in the state. Just who “they” are will likely surprise you.

On top of the lists, for men and for women, are clubs that can fairly be said to sit in the middle of nowhere.

On the men’s side, and overall, the club with the highest singledigit density is Musgrove Mill Golf Club, an Arnold Palmer

BY TRENT BOUTS design in the Upstate with proximity to more cows and goats than humans. In fact, as of the most recent U.S. Census, the club has twice as many members (about 260) than the nearest incorporated town, Cross Anchor, has people (126).

Nudged against the Enoree River amid 315 acres of forest about six miles east off I-26, Musgrove is roughly half-way between Columbia (67 miles) and Greenville (50 miles). Clinton, the town from which the club takes its postal address, is nearly 10 miles away. As Golf Digest magazine once observed, it is “remote.” Yet, good golfers want to play there.

Using handicaps maintained through services provided by the South Carolina Golf Association, two out of every three (66.90 percent) male golfers who belong to the club are single-digit players. That’s a staggeringly high concentration when you consider that, nationally, less than a third

(31.31 percent) of all men have handicaps that low.

“They just love the challenge of this place,” says Jeff Tallman, Musgrove’s affable and longtime director of golf. And challenge is right. From the championship tees, Musgrove has a slope rating (the USGA’s measure of difficulty) of 153 on a scale that runs from 55 to 155.

From the forward tees the slope drops to 131.

“It is a second shot golf course because it’s forgiving off the tee,” Tallman says. “The golf course really starts from 150 yards in. You really learn how to hit golf shots, how to control your distances.”

Indeed, thanks to perched greens, waste areas or water, there is barely a handful of holes where the ball doesn’t have to be flown in. You are constantly taking a yardage then adding or subtracting for an elevation change. The penalty for messing up that math or failing to execute

the swing lends to the test that good golfers enjoy.

As proof of that last point, Tallman notes that the SCGA’s current Player of the Year, Robert Lutomski, and Senior Player of the Year, Walter Todd, Sr., are both members at Musgrove.

“That’s pretty amazing, I think,” he says. “For one club to have both at the same time.”

The club also attracts talented juniors. Roebuck’s Nathan Franks just returned from a seventhplaced finish in The Junior Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass in Florida and Phoebe Carles from Clinton won the SC Junior Match Play Championship.

Natalie Srinivasan, who went from Dorman High School to Furman University’s women’s team, recorded a top 20 finish at the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Invitational this spring.

Any surprise that Musgrove attracts such a wealth of good players comes from its geography, not the quality of the golf course.

Jeff Tallman, Director of Golf at Musgrove Mill

A serene view of the 18th green and ninth fairway at Musgrove Mill in “the middle of nowhere.”

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58.33 percent is Cherokee From the time it opened CONCENTRATION OF National Golf and Recreation in 1988 it has been known SINGLE DIGIT PLAYERS Club in Gaffney and fifth at as a “golfer’s course.” Even 56.52 percent is Greer Golf now, more than 30 years Men – Club Single digits Members w / hcps* Percentage and Country Club. on and after a decade of Even the interloper, No. intense high-end, new course Musgrove Mill Golf Club 97 145 66.90% 4, White Plains Golf Club construction from the midParis Mountain Country Club 10 17 58.82% (58.14 percent) in Pageland, ‘90s into the 2000s, Musgrove Cherokee National Golf 42 72 58.33% remains in the upper echelon. while not in the Upstate, & Recreation Club is at least upper state in Golf Digest’s latest rankings White Plains Golf Club 25 43 58.14% Chesterfield County. put it at No. 13 in the state.

Greer Golf & Country Club 39 69 56.52% Heading the women’s Of the dozen courses above Hackler Course At Coastal Carolina 27 48 56.25% list with 33.33 percent is it, eight were built since Southern Oaks Golf Club Musgrove.

Secession Golf Club 110 199 55.28% about 30 minutes southwest Like a number of quality Chesnee Country Club 11 20 55.00% of Greenville. Like Musgrove courses across the Carolinas, Columbia Country Club 157 292 53.77% Mill, Southern Oaks is it might have been lost to Golf Club At Star Fort 60 112 53.57% surrounded by farmland the Great Recession if not and easily missed at 55mph. for the resources and resolve The course did enjoy the of John McConnell, who Women – Club Single digits Members w / hcps* Percentage spotlight briefly in 1994 founded McConnell Golf Southern Oaks Golf Club 4 12 33.33% when club professional on the back of significant Wayne Myers shot a round success in healthcare Preserve At Verdae 4 13 30.77% of 57 that was billed as information management.

Rock Hill Country Club 7 24 29.17% the record low round on a McConnell bought the Country Club of Lexington 15 55 27.27% regulation par-72 course in course in 2007 just before Saluda Valley Country Club

3 12 25.00% the world at the time. the crash, which eventually Greenwood Country Club 2 10 20.00% Second with 30.77 percent, pushed club operations into The Preserve at Verdae, is a a brief hiatus. That, Tallman Woodlands Country Club 5 27 18.52% different story. The course says, was “a black eye we Pickens Country Club 2 11 18.18% sits in a bustling tract of recovered from long ago.”

Lancaster Golf Club 3 17 17.65% Greenville as part of the “Now we’re getting new Columbia Country Club 8 46 17.39% Embassy Suites Greenville enquiries every week and *Minimum of 10 official handicap carrying men or women to qualify for list.

Golf Resort and Conference membership is growing all Center. Third, Rock Hill the time,” Tallman says. “The northern, and particularly the That might go some way to Country Club with 29.17 cool thing about this golf northwestern, part of the state explaining Paris Mountain Country percent, is another “uppercourse is that it’s challenging features so prominently on both lists.

Club’s prominent ranking. The stater.” but it’s still very fair. There Doubtless, there is a long and strong course was established in 1938 by J. P. SCGA executive director is nothing contrived about golf history in the Upstate, having Traynham. He was a prominent golf Biff Lathrop is at a loss it. It just lays on the land, so produced numerous PGA Tour entity in his time and his son, Dillard to fully explain why the all kinds of people enjoy it. winners like Jay and Bill Haas Traynham, who was golf course We have guys in their and past U.S. Open champion superintendent at Paris Mountain, 80s who play every Lucas Glover. twice won the SC Amateur. A cousin Friday.” with Most Single Digit Players Dillard Pruitt won on the PGA Tour “It could also be that there Curiously, the – Men & Women and another cousin, Jan, married Jay is a greater concentration Upstate – the Haas. There is an informal annual of private clubs than there Greenville Country Club 427 northwestern-most family tournament at Paris Mountain is along the coast,” Lathrop 10 counties – courses Kiawah Island Club 340 that celebrates that history. says. “There are more daily fill four of the top five The Cliffs Clubs 335 fee facilities along the coast “Who knows exactly why the places on the men’s Thornblade Club 292 where people play but don’t concentrations of single-digit list and Nos. 1 and 2 Country Club of Lexington 240 necessarily maintain their golfers fall the way they do in South on the women’s list. handicaps through those Carolina,” Lathrop says. “But I will Daniel Island Club 228 Beneath Musgrove courses.

I think it’s also true say this, I think it’s very impressive with a 58.82 percent Bulls Bay Golf Club 227 that clubs with good players that we have so many clubs where concentration is Snee Farm Country Club 217 tend to attract more good that concentration is way over the Paris Mountain Belfair Golf Club 201 players. That can establish a national average. It’s just one more Country Club, just Country Club of Charleston 199 culture that in turn feeds a indicator of how our state is a great north of downtown reputation.” state for great golf.”  Greenville. Third at

TOP 10 CLUBS

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Palmetto Golfer

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Puggy Blackmon, deep in concentration.

College Coaching

LEGEND CALLS IT A DAY, ALMOST…

BY BOB GILLESPIE

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ASK SOUTH CAROLINA men’s golf coach Bill McDonald his favorite Puggy Blackmon story, and it’s no surprise that, talking about his longtime mentor and predecessor at USC, it’s only tangentially about golf.

In 1983, Blackmon was the new coach of a Georgia Tech team ranked last in the Atlantic Coast Conference; McDonald, from Dalton, GA, was national player of the year for the American Junior Golf Association – an organization Blackmon helped start (more on that later). As such, McDonald was a player Blackmon wanted to jumpstart the Yellow Jackets.

So, for McDonald’s official visit, Blackmon fetched him from Dalton Country Club in a chartered helicopter, flew him to the 50yard line at Atlanta’s Bobby Dodd Stadium, put him up in a hotel penthouse suite, and chauffeured him around Atlanta in Tech’s “Rambling Wreck” classic automobile.

McDonald was even entertained by a magician, whom Blackmon introduced as “head of the psychology department.”

Blackmon chuckles, “I’m not sure we even had a psychology department.”

McDonald laughs, too. “There’s an NCAA rule now about ‘excessive entertainment’ – and yes, I was ‘excessively entertained,’” he says.

“None of that is legal now, but Puggy did one heck of a job – one reason I ended up at Tech.”

With McDonald on board, Georgia Tech won the 1985 ACC tournament, beating a North Carolina team led by Davis Love III. Blackmon would win four more ACC titles, three with another recruit, David Duval, who along with Stewart Cink is one of two Blackmon players who later won The Open Championship.

All of which is typical of Blackmon’s alwaysatypical approach to golf. Much of his best work was done away from the course.

Now, that career is done … sort of. After 24 years as South Carolina’s men’s coach, director of golf development and, for the past decade, assistant women’s coach, Blackmon, 68, is retiring … but not really. Already, he says, he’s working with “a few highly motivated players who want to get better,” using his knowledge of the golf swing, and of golf psyches, to build better competitors.

“He can’t just sit back, even though he’s got (four) grandkids and is in every hall of fame you can think of,” McDonald says. “He feels he’s done what he set out to do, and now he’s ready for another chapter in his life.”

Blackmon agrees: “My entire life in golf, in coaching, I’ve always had a desire to learn, to stay ahead of the game. I always loved being

“My entire life in golf, in coaching, I’ve always had a desire to learn, to stay ahead of the game. I always loved being outside the box.” outside the box.”

Often, he occupied that space out of necessity.

Blackmon grew up playing Ridgeland, SC’s nine-hole Sgt. Jasper course – “The Sarge” – and later competed at Baptist College (now Charleston Southern) and Carson Newman in Tennessee. He and Gail, his college sweetheart and wife of 48 years, married after their sophomore years; Puggy ran carts during summers at Harbour Town Golf Links to make ends meet.

After college, he was hired as an assistant pro at Fripp Island, starting a 10-year run in the golf business, as he worked through several resort bankruptcies, started a junior program in Jacksonville, FL, and helped launch the AJGA as director of development. That’s when Georgia Tech came calling, and his career path shifted to coaching.

Working two other jobs because Tech paid only $17,000, Blackmon used his entrepreneurial talents in interesting ways.

Example: because Duval had vision issues in bright sunlight, Blackmon arranged for him to wear Oakley sunglasses. Later, as a professional, Duval became the brand’s PGA Tour poster boy.

“I had 13 years at Tech, and it was incredible,” Blackmon says. But by 1995, Blackmon says, he was “burned out” and looking for a change. When South Carolina

athletics director Mike McGee called, he leapt at the opportunity. “I’d always felt USC was a sleeping giant,” he says.

He soon learned that McGee was, as he put it, “incredible at hiring coaches who could win without facilities or a lot of tradition.”

So, Blackmon continued to do more with less, recruiting in-state players such as future PGA Tour starters Kyle Thompson and Alex Hamilton, and starting two tournaments, the Hootie & the Blowfish Intercollegiate and Darius Rucker Intercollegiate. To raise funds for his program, he began marketing wines themed around Gamecock football coach Steve Spurrier.

By 2007, coaching burnout was back, and Blackmon, who earlier hired McDonald to run the instructional program at The University Club (now Cobblestone Park), made his former player his associate head coach. A year later, Blackmon handed over the top job, and much of his own salary, to McDonald.

“I wasn’t trying to get into coaching,” McDonald says. “It was Puggy’s idea. He thought it’d be a good fit for me.”

Blackmon transitioned to director of golf, hiring Kalen Anderson from Duke to coach the USC women’s team. Anderson was a first-time head coach and “needed some help, and I said I’d do it for the spring,” Blackmon says. He laughs: “Then I did it for 10 years.”

Anderson, who calls Blackmon “a mentor,” says the two complemented one another. “He was instrumental in developing and making our players better,” she says. “He loves teaching, but he was tired of recruiting, and I love recruiting.

We played off each other really well.”

Result? USC’s women earned nine consecutive NCAA post-season berths and won five regional titles. In 2017, Blackmon’s contributions earned him the Women’s Assistant Coach of the Year award from the Women’s Golf Coaches of America. “Whatever his title was, it didn’t really matter,” Anderson says. “Puggy adapted whatever he was doing to fit the needs of the team. He was always involved in getting us better.”

Now, having developed Anderson into the coach Blackmon believed she would be, it seemed to be the time for him to retire to a beach chair, or to granddaddy (to four girls) duties. But he knows that’s not likely to happen.

“I’m like the golf pro who can’t be stuck in the pro shop,” Blackmon says. “I’ve always got a new idea; that’s the way my brain works. I don’t like to be confined.”

For Blackmon, that’s what “working outside the box” has always been about.  FA LL 2 01 9

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Jett Flies High on Both Sides of USGA Championships

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superintendents are good golfers, the time and dedication required to be among the best in either field generally precludes excelling in the other. That explains why Jett went so long between even trying to qualify for a USGA championship.

He made his first attempt during college at Clemson in the early ‘80s when, in a U.S. Amateur qualifier, he came up “three or four shots” shy over 36 holes at Florence Country Club. That was it, until he turned 50 and tried to qualify for the U.S. Senior Open. “Which didn’t go well at all,” he says. “If I remember correctly – and I have tried to forget it quite frankly – I shot 83.”

But when the USGA tapped Old Chatham to host the Senior Amateur in 2019, Jett calculated that he would be age eligible,

turning 55 just in time for qualifying, and put it squarely in his sights. For one, the proximity was appealing. He still lives in the Pinehurst area, about a 75-minute drive from Old Chatham. Then he worked hard on his game over the next few years, winning a handful of small tournaments close to home.

When the USGA announced qualifying sites for the Senior Amateur, the Country Club of Lexington was, serendipitously, on the list.

Jett’s family were members at the club when he was growing up, which is how he came to land that summer job working for the since-retired longtime superintendent Larry Smith. Shortly before the qualifier, he played a practice round with another of the club’s former pillars, golf pro and SC Golf Hall of Famer, Norman Flynn.

COPYRIGHT USGA/CHRIS KEANE

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WHEN HE WAS 15, Paul Jett traveled from Irmo all summer to wield a weed-eater and rake bunkers at the Country Club of Lexington. Twenty years later, he was golf course superintendent host of the 1999 U.S. Open Championship at Pinehurst No. 2 won

by Payne Stewart. And 20 years after that – this year – at age 55, he actually played in a USGA championship, the U.S. Senior Amateur at Old Chatham Golf Club in Durham, NC. Better yet, he made it to the quarter finals, stretching that tooth and nail match to an extra hole. It was, in the eyes of arguably the keenest observer there that week in August, “perhaps the most incredible performance by a superintendent” player in USGA championship history. That observer, Patrick O’Brien, has spent the past 40 years intimately involved with national championships as an agronomist for the USGA Green Section.

“My memory is far from perfect, you know, but I don’t recall any superintendent doing anything like that in a USGA championship in my time,” O’Brien says. “And no one has suggested that it happened before then. What Paul did is a big deal.”

Technically, Jett is no longer a superintendent. He moved into golf sales with Triangle Turf and Ornamental several years ago.

But O’Brien likely will always regard Jett the way he saw him at No. 2, not only hosting the ’99 U.S. Open, but another in 2005 and then the U.S. Amateur in 2008. O’Brien was there each time as a USGA point man for course conditions, which were never in question.

“Paul was at the top of the superintendent hierarchy, so to see him play at the level he did in the Senior Amateur was something special,” O’Brien says. “You have to have game just to get into that field. It’s a strong field.”

While a significant percentage of

Paul Jett plays his second shot at the 18th hole during the round of 16 at the 2019 U.S. Senior Amateur.

Paul Jett in his days as a golf course superintendent shortly before hosting one of two U.S. Open Championships at Pinehurst No. 2.

COPYRIGHT USGA/CHRIS KEANE

“It’s a place that I was certainly familiar with even though I haven’t played it a whole lot in the past 25 years,” Jett says. “A couple of years ago, my sales territory expanded down to Columbia, so when I go I always spend the night and that’s allowed me to get out and play nine holes a few times, thanks to Will Branham, the pro, or Chris DeVane, the superintendent.”

Jett shot 68 in qualifying to secure one of four spots and headed to Old Chatham with “every intention of making the match play rounds … I’d been playing well enough the past three or four months that I would have been highly disappointed if I didn’t get that far,” he says. “Then once you’re into match play, anything can happen after that.”

And “anything” almost did. Jett wasn’t exactly among the favorites going into match play. After all, he made the cut by just one stroke. Had he not sunk a three-footer for par to end his second round, he would have found himself in a 10-way play-off for four spots and who knows how that might have gone.

Secondly, he was a novice in a field laden with experience in USGA championships.

But once he’d made that next stage, Jett says he rarely felt nerves at all. O’Brien, who followed him for nearly every hole of match play, says there was good reason for Jett feeling so “comfortable.”

“You could have laid a center line irrigation system around the golf course just by following where he drove the ball,” O’Brien says. “I seldom, if ever, saw him in the rough. And his distance control with his irons was just

Jett studies his line during his quarterfinal match against Roger Newsom in the 2019 U.S. Senior Amateur.

incredible. To be frank, if he putted just a little better, he could have won the whole thing.”

Even so, Jett says: “It was the greatest golfing experience I’ve ever had.” That is not to say it beat growing and grooming a golf course for the best players in the world at Pinehurst No. 2. “Preparing a golf course and playing a golf course are two different things,” he explains. And while he was impressed by the conditioning at Old Chatham, he spent little time studying it from anything other than a playing perspective.

“Honesty, I try to keep away from looking at the golf course with a superintendent’s eyes, because I don’t have to do that anymore,” he says.

“When I played my one practice round there, I was really just trying to figure out how to play the golf course and come up with a game plan.”

And from that player’s perspective, Jett, a past-president of the Carolinas Golf Course Superintendents Association, could not have been more impressed by the work of another past-president, Brian Powell, CGCS and his staff.

“It was flawless,” Jett says. “The fairways were immaculate. The putting surfaces were as pure as you could hope to find. The bunkers had a nice sand but fortunately, I didn’t have to play out of them very often. There are not a whole lot of places in the state of North Carolina that would equal the conditioning level. I don’t think the USGA could have asked for anything more than they got at Old Chatham.”

The Senior Amateur was one of four USGA championship played in the Carolinas this

summer, including the U.S. Women’s Open at the Country Club of Charleston. That was not so possible in years gone by when many of the leading clubs had bentgrass putting surfaces.

Bentgrass thrives in cooler temperatures but is at its most vulnerable in the extreme heat and humidity common in a Carolinas summer.

But since the early 2000s, much of the region’s bentgrass has given way to a finer-bladed family of bermudagrasses known as ultradwarfs.

Conversely, the ultradwarfs love the heat and are most susceptible to extreme cold.

“There’s a reason the USGA loves to come to the Carolinas and Georgia now in the summer,” the USGA’s O’Brien says. “It’s because of the outstanding conditions that these superintendents can provide with these grasses. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Hell, no! If you don’t know the intricacies of the surface management practices required to get them at their best, they won’t be at their best.

And that doesn’t start a few weeks before the tournament. It starts in the spring.”

For Jett, his quarter-final finish ensures his USGA championship debut won’t be a oneoff. He is exempt for next year’s U.S. Senior Amateur in Detroit, MI, and guaranteed a place in “pretty much” any Carolinas Golf Association championship in 2020. He’s likely to make the most of the opportunities. “With all the support and encouragement that I was getting from friends and superintendents all week, it was a neat ride,” he says. “It would be fun to do that again.” 

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W Tyler Gray tees off on his way to winning this year’s SC Amateur Championship at Thornblade Club.

‘I Couldn’t Find the Clubface’ – STATE CHAMP ONE YEAR AGO

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WALKING UP THE 18TH FAIRWAY at Thornblade Club during the final round of the 2019 South Carolina Amateur Championship, Tyler Gray felt his grip on his emotions finally began to slip. Leading the Amateur field by a comfortable four-shot margin, the 19-year-old from Lugoff finally allowed himself an emotional moment that, he says, he’d once thought might never happen.

“Once I got to No. 18, I had a decent amount of shots on the field,” he says.

Then he pauses, adding, “I’d had a lot of experiences like that in junior golf, though, and hadn’t finished them. So, finishing this off, getting it done, was unreal.”

The rising sophomore at Coastal Carolina got it done, all right. His closing 68, making him the only player in the Amateur field to shoot four rounds in the 60s (67-66-67-68), gave him a 16-under par 268 total on the same course that annually hosts the Korn Ferry Tour’s BMW Charity Pro-Am. Moments later, he was hoisting the tournament trophy – and, he said then, mentally pinching himself. “A year ago,” he told those gathered around him, his voice quivering slightly, “I couldn’t break 80, and here I am today.”

That statement, and his four-shot victory over runner-up Logan Sowell of Kershaw, only begin to tell the story of the longest, hardest – but also most rewarding – year of Tyler Gray’s young life.

His golf road began at age eight, when he and his father, Ryan, played casual rounds together. Before too long, Gray was posting solid scores on his home course, historic Camden Country Club, and competing successfully in SC Junior Golf Association events. At Thomas Sumter Academy, he was 2017 SC Independent Schools Association player of the year and won a pair of state titles.

BY BOB GILLESPIE

When college rolled around, Gray was recruited and signed with Coastal Carolina University, whose alumni include U.S. Open champion and top-ranked player Dustin Johnson. CCU coach Jim Garren, who’d taken the job the summer before Gray’s senior year, signed Gray in part to honor his predecessor’s commitment and take a South Carolina kid. After a few looks, “I liked his game,” the coach says. “He had a decent summer.”

“As the weeks went on, I wasn’t getting any better. By the start of my freshman year, I’d lost all confidence.

I didn’t know if I’d be able to keep my scholarship.”

– Tyler Gray

Everything appeared on track.

But then, during the summer of 2018, Gray “completely lost his golf game, shot some incredibly high scores,” Garren says.

“It was really, really bad.”

Bad? He should’ve tried it in Gray’s golf shoes.

“That May and June, I just started playing really bad golf, indescribably bad,” he says. “As the weeks went on, I wasn’t getting any better. By the start of my freshman year, I’d lost all confidence.

I didn’t know if I’d be able to keep my scholarship.”

How bad was it? Gray calls his trip to play in the Carolinas Golf Association SC Match Play, at Furman University, the lowest of lows. “I shot 95 and 89. I

couldn’t find the clubface, and that’s no exaggeration,” he says. “I’m thinking, ‘How do I get the ball in play?’ You can’t play golf that way.”

His freshman season at Coastal started no better; if anything, trying to show he deserved a roster spot, the pressure on Gray was worse. That, though, was when Garren stepped in to save his once-promising freshman from joining the ranks of washed-out former college golfers.

“We did something we don’t normally do in a team-oriented situation,” says Garren, who previously had been an assistant coach at Southern Mississippi, New Mexico and Oklahoma, helping the Sooners to the NCAA championship his third year there. “My No. 1 goal was to get Tyler mentally healthy, back to enjoying the game.”

Part of that was mechanics. “His fundamentals had broken down, so we had to work on his swing and free up his head,” Garren says. “August and September were hard on him, but we did things to try to make him comfortable. By October, we started to see some signs; he could shoot 76, 78, respectable scores. He completely bought into what we were doing.”

Garren says Gray suffered from “some homemade moves going on with Tyler” that needed fixing. “Grip, ball position, tempo – all awful,” the coach says. “But those were basic, easy fixes. When he realized (his swing) wasn’t the problem, he started playing the way golf should be played, not just (worrying) about the golf swing.” As important, maybe more so, Gray “started to believe in himself.”

Gray also learned something else about his coach: he cared. When he says Garren “took me under his wing,” he refers to late-night phone calls between player and coach. One call in particular stands out. “It was the first one, two weeks into the school FA LL 2 01 9

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Proud parents Ryan and Amy Gray with their champion son, Tyler.

year,” Gray recalls. “Coach said, ‘Tyler, if you don’t talk to me, I can’t help you. And I want to.’ I was 100 percent honest about how I felt about my game, and we started from square one. And I got a little better every month.” He learned, Gray says, that “(Garren) believed in me.”

Gray didn’t play any events for the Chanticleers, but by this spring, he was close to making the line-up, Garren says.

In practice, “you could tell he was finally confident with his game. He trusted all we told him, and when he left for summer, he was in a good spot.”

That showed when Gray returned to the CGA Match Play – “where he’d hit the lowest of lows a year before”– and played well making it to the round of 16, Garren says. Gray also finished top 10 in the Magnolia Amateur, and in qualifying

for the SC Amateur, shot a 67. That set the stage for what was to come.

“It was a big deal,” Gray says. “I’d set a goal this summer to win the State Am. I didn’t think that was unreachable, but I knew I’d have to work hard.”

His opening 67 trailed leader Jake Carter, who would finish third, by three shots. Gray played seven holes of the second round before a rain delay forced him to finish 11 holes Saturday morning, and he led by a shot heading into that afternoon’s third round.

“I’m thinking it’s doable, and the way I was playing, maybe this was my week,” he says. After another 67 for a two-shot lead, “that’s when I started to realize I had a chance to win.”

Gray never wavered on Sunday. Leading Carter and Raymond Wooten of Clemson by a shot at the turn, he made back-to-back

“Grip, ball position, tempo – all awful. But those were basic, easy fixes. When we realized (his swing) wasn’t the problem, he started playing the way golf should be played, not just (worrying) about the golf swing.”

– Coastal Carolina University Coach Jim Garren

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birdies to take a four-shot lead after 13 holes. A 12-foot par-saving putt at the 14th and a birdie at the par-5 15th put him in command.

Down the stretch, the previously doubtbefuddled Gray “had a laser focus; I just stayed focused,” he says. That only ended at the 18th, when he finally allowed himself to enjoy the moment. “The emotion when I walked off 18 green, what I had accomplished … you can’t put a price on that,” he says.

What’s next for a player whose golf career is, in fact, just beginning? “He’s gotten a lot better, most obviously in control of his driver; that was his No. 1 issue before,” Garren says. “He’s starting to understand what a high-level college player knows, that you don’t have to hit it as hard as you can, how to play a tee shot – maybe you don’t use the driver. His wedge game is way better now, too; he knows how far he hits those and how to flight the ball.”

This fall, Garren says, “I think he comes in, day one, and wants to get into the (starting) line-up. He’s the second Coastal guy to win the State Am (after Drew Ernst), and if he takes the next step, I hope he’s on the plane to Wisconsin,” where the Chanticleers will open their fall season.

That’s also on Gray’s radar. He wants to

Tyler Gray gets to know the gleaming SC Amateur trophy, something that seemed completely beyond his grasp just a year ago.

play every Coastal tournament and “be a key contributor,” he says. “I want to help the program go in the right direction: win the conference title, play in the (NCAA) post-season.” On a personal level, Gray wants to focus on his next three years with a goal of, “if I get better each year, at some point, being good enough to be a professional one day.”

The player who couldn’t play at all a year earlier, who had no belief in himself? That guy just won his state amateur championship and, like others before him – Lucas Glover, Bill Haas, D.J. Trahan – hopes that means a PGA Tour future. No, not just hopes it; believes it.

“At some point,” Tyler Gray says, “I’ll be good enough.”  FA LL 2 01 9

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Lea Anne Brown with her portrait that hangs in the SC Golf Hall of Fame.

Making History LEA ANNE BROWN RECORDS ANOTHER FIRST

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BY TRENT BOUTS

GROWING UP IN small-town Kentucky, Lea Anne Brown wasn’t raised to recognize any distinction between “girls’ jobs and boys’ jobs.” “I had two brothers and we each took turns to wash the dishes, clean the house. But then I had to mow the grass, too,” she says.

“Our parents always treated us as equals.”

This fall, Brown anticipates a similarly level footing when she joins the South Carolina

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Golf Association executive committee, even though she will be the first woman to do so in the organization’s 90-year history.

As SCGA executive director Biff Lathrop explains, “This is not about getting a woman on the board, even though that is probably long overdue. This is about getting Lea Anne Brown on the board and tapping into her extensive knowledge of the game and

the industry of golf. That Lea Anne Brown happens to be a woman is just one more aspect of what she will bring.”

Brown, of course, is one of the state’s most decorated amateur players with enough crystal and silverware to stock a small trophy store. In 2011, she was inducted to the South Carolina Golf Hall of Fame with a resume that has required almost annual updating since. Just last

year, for example, she became the first player in history to win women’s Senior Player of the Year honors from both the Women’s South Carolina Golf Association (WSCGA) and Carolinas Golf Association (CGA).

In all, she has played in 16 USGA championships at State Team, Mid-Amateur and Senior levels. She was won numerous titles at state level, the first in 1991. That year, Brown won both the State Amateur Championship and the State Matchplay Championship, another first. “I’m very competitive,” she says. “I like being first and being the first woman on the board in South Carolina is a great honor.”

Accepting the invitation that came this summer with a phone call from Lathrop, while she was in West Virginia representing

the Carolinas in the Virginias-Carolinas Team Matches, wasn’t automatic. You see, Brown is busy.

In addition to a hectic playing schedule, she has a full-time job as membership director at Bulls Bay Golf Club in Awendaw. She is a licensed realtor and also owns an antiques business, serves on the advisory board of The First Tee of Greater Charleston and on another board, The Friends of the Muni, striving to raise more than $3 million to renovate Charleston Municipal Golf Course.

As she told Lathrop: “I have a lot going on.” It was the same explanation she’d offered declining an earlier invitation to serve on the board of the WSCGA, something she had done for a period “years

Lea Anne Brown with husband and veteran club pro Hart Brown during the U.S. Women’s Open Championship at the Country Club of Charleston.

“This is not about setting a woman on the board– this is about getting Lea Anne Brown on the board and tapping into her extensive knowledge of the game and the industry of golf.”

– SCGA Executive Director Biff Lathrop

ago.” “They were looking for someone who could be there all the way through to serving as president, and I knew I couldn’t commit the time for that,” Brown says.

She was feeling the same way about the SCGA, even though Lathrop stressed there were only four meetings a year. Her attitude shifted when, soon after Lathrop hung up, WSCGA executive director Clarissa Childs called and was “supportive of the idea,” Brown says. “Clarissa was very gracious.”

Thus, Brown will attend her first meeting of the SCGA executive committee, along with 18 men, on October 31.

“I expect there will be a learning curve, but I want to help if I can,” she says. “They want a woman’s perspective and I’ll be honest with them.” Brown makes that statement without any edge or motive beyond wanting to bring to the table something that has been absent, as she says, “a female’s opinion.”

Women’s status in sports has been an intermittent source of contention for years.

Most recently, the U.S. women’s soccer team made headlines pushing for pay at the same level as men, something tennis achieved at the four majors some time ago but still does not have across lesser competition. Protests about the absence of women among the membership of Augusta National Golf Club dominated the lead up to The Masters in 2003.

There is no ax next to the clubs in Brown’s golf bag. “I don’t feel like we’re cheated, personally,” she says. “Maybe because I compete as much as I can and that there is so much that the WSCGA and CGA offer as far as tournaments. Yes, I would love to see more girls playing golf. But our junior program in South Carolina is one of the best in the country, so I don’t feel like we’re being cheated.”

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Brown moved to the Carolinas in 1983, a year after marrying a dashing young assistant club pro from Danville, KY. They met by chance when he was at a PGA meeting at the same course where the UK women’s team was practicing. “He asked me if I’d like to grab a bite to eat and I said I couldn’t but that I would take a rain check,” Brown says.

He called a few weeks later and their first date was a double date, of sorts, on the golf course. They played in a foursome rounded out by two high school boys. “One was a little chunky and the other was skinny,” Brown recalls. “And they were hilarious, like Laurel and Hardy. We laughed so much.

We had such a blast. We fell in love and got married two years later.”

That assistant pro is better known today as the long-serving director of golf at the Country Club of Charleston, Hart Brown.

The Palmetto State has him to thank for bringing Lea Anne Brown just the right amount of miles south, eventually. They first moved to Charlotte but when the course he was working at fell into bankruptcy, Hart Brown interviewed and landed a job with the legendary Tommy Cuthbert at Kiawah Island Resort. Five years later, in 1988, he moved to the Country Club of Charleston, building his own legend there ever since.

In the meantime, Lea Anne Brown was making her own inroads into the South Carolina golf scene. Having known early in her college career that she didn’t want to pursue a professional playing career, she took a job as a buyer for the pro shops at Seabrook Island, adjacent to Kiawah.

Then she took what proved to be a fateful call from Terry Florence, a giant of the game in South Carolina and then director of golf at Wild Dunes Resort on the Isle of Palms.

Florence invited her to interview for the merchandising position there. She accepted the job and was there for 14 years. Then Florence was recruited for an ambitious project north along Highway 17 that would become Bulls Bay Golf Club.

“Flo called me about six months later and said, ‘I don’t know if you want a career

“I’ve met some of the most incredible people in my life through golf.

People who will be friends for the rest of my life.”

– Lea Anne Brown

change but we need a membership director.’

They only had 12 members at the time,” Brown recalls. “I really liked Wild Dunes and really didn’t want a change. But Hart said, ‘Go see what it’s all about. You owe it to Terry to interview.’ I said, ‘Okay.’

“When Terry drove me to the top of the hill – there was still no clubhouse there then – and looked over the golf course that was so massive and just beautiful, I said, ‘I want to be part of this.’”

Today, there is a clubhouse on that manmade hill, the centerpiece of the Mike Strantz designed course that boasts 425 members and a waiting list 50 long. Florence is gone, however, lost to cancer after a long

“This phenomenal teacher actually changed my life.

Because my game eventually awarded me a golf scholarship and paid my way through school, with two years at Western Kentucky and then Kentucky.”

– Lea Anne Brown

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battle in 2013. He lived long enough to attend Brown’s induction to the SC Golf Hall of Fame that he entered in 2005.

“Flo was an awesome man with a great personality who never met a stranger,” Brown says. On buying trips as far afield as Arizona, even California, Brown would encounter people who knew her boss. “They would see Wild Dunes on my name badge and they’d start asking how Flo was and telling me to say hello for them when I got home. He was so charismatic and genuinely caring. So much fun and so honorable. He was so happy for me when I got into the Hall of Fame. He’d be pretty happy to know I am going to be on the SCGA board.”

Brown’s desire to see more girls playing golf is as much for what the game will bring them as it is what they will bring to the game. “I’ve met some of the most incredible people in my life through golf,” she says.

“People who will be friends for the rest of my life.” Some of them are in far-flung places in the U.S., people she has gotten to know over repeat appearances in USGA championships.

But she stresses that the richness of such friendships is available to players of all abilities. The simple act of taking time to play is a wonderful vehicle for getting to know people, she says. Having grown up around the game – both her parents played – she loved it long before she became exceptionally good at it.

In high school, she was a 28-handicapper.

Then she met an instructor, Gene Fawbush, who fitted her athletic ability with some technique and within a year she was down to a 12. “This phenomenal teacher actually changed my life,” she says. “Because my game eventually awarded me a golf scholarship and paid my way through school, with two years at Western Kentucky and then Kentucky.”

Some people urged her to take her game on Tour. But Brown identified several reasons not to. There was a time when she wondered about it. “I’d been a big fish in a little pond until I got to college and realized how tough it was out there,” she says. Several friends gave it a go. “And they were good. But they didn’t make it.

And there weren’t that many professional tournaments for women back then. There were a lot more amateur tournaments and I really wanted to play competitively.”

South Carolina golf is fortunate she made that choice, and future women members of the SCGA executive committee will be too. 

“Book is Open” on More Big Events in Charleston

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THEY SAY LIGHTNING never strikes the same place twice and while Country Club of Charleston leaders hope that’s true, they feel a little differently about events like the U.S. Women’s Open Championship. In that regard, they are, well, “open” to the idea of hosting future Opens or other significant national, or international, events.

“It’s way too early to be talking anything definitive,” says Frank Ford III, general chairman of the 2019 U.S. Women’s Open which the club hosted to rave reviews this spring. “We’re definitely going to sit back for a few years and let this one settle. But the USGA has said it would love to come back and the club loved having the event, so I think the book is open.”

Indeed, the normally staid USGA was effusive in its enthusiasm. Just hours after South Korea’s Jeongeun Lee6 recorded a one-shot victory, John Bodenhamer, the USGA’s senior managing director of championships said: “Oh my goodness, we’d love to come back. Let me put it right out there and say that. We want to be respectful of the club. We’re hopeful they’ve had a good experience. By every sign, I think they have.”

Ford confirms the club’s satisfaction. “The club had a great time with it. Everything we could plan for went off perfectly. And pretty much everything we could have hoped for came off well too,” he

BY TRENT BOUTS

2019 U.S. Women’s Open General Chairman Frank Ford III

says. “The lightning strike was a scary moment but even that kind of went according to the plans that we had in place.”

That spectacular strike next to the infamously difficult 11th hole, came during a weather delay in the second round. It was captured on video that went viral and prompted World Golf Hall of Famer and the club’s own Beth Daniel to quip on Twitter: “This is scary stuff but I have heard that no one was hurt. This strike was just to the left of #11 green and shows that even God can’t hit the 11th green!”

Ford says the strike came just moments after a handful of frustrated spectators were “almost banging down the doors” to get back outside after the extended delay. “I told them we trust in the technology.

There were eight weather stations around Charleston tracking things,” he says. “And they got it absolutely right.”

Whether a future big event at the club is another Women’s Open, perhaps a Solheim Cup, or even a men’s championship is up for discussion, particularly with plans to add yardage to the course over the next two years.

The USGA’s Bodenhamer is on record as being willing to consider a range of possibilities. “I think if the club would have us back. We’d love to come back for the U.S. Women’s Open. We’d love to have a U.S. Women’s Amateur.

But we’d certainly entertain others as well,” he said in June.

“We love it here. This is exactly what we like to come to.”

In the meantime, the Charleston area has a return of the PGA Championship on the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Resort to look forward to in 2021. There has also been recent news of South Carolina’s newest course, Congaree, a high-end private facility near Ridgeland throwing its hat in the ring for the 2025 President’s Cup. 

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Golf Channel Star to Lead New Interstate Challenge

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BY CLARISSA CHILDS

AN ALREADY EXCITING YEAR for the SC Women’s Golf Association is about to take on some new flavor with the first of what will become a biennial challenge against a team from Georgia. Former Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman will captain the South Carolina team in the inaugural PeachPalmetto Showdown at Reynolds Plantation in Georgia on November 17 and 18.

Tilghman, from Myrtle Beach, was inducted into the South Carolina Golf Hall of Fame earlier this year. Teams of eight made up of the top four mid-amateurs and top four seniors will compete in a Ryder Cup-style format in the Showdown.

The Showdown is reflective of what has been a year of growth for the WSCGA on and off the golf course. In addition to new events, new partnerships have been introduced to benefit our members. We are proud to name OnCore Golf as the official ball of the WSCGA. Manufactured in Greenville, the ball is available at a discounted rate for our members through www.wscga.org.

The WSCGA has also entered into a partnership providing member discounts for Jack Grace Shoes. These shoes feature swappable saddles allowing golfers to change up the look of their shoe without having to own multiple pairs. Again, members can order shoes through our website which now also features a member message board that is a great place for players to find partners for events.

We kicked off the year at Seawell’s in Columbia presenting our 2018 Player of the Year award to Dawn Woodard and Senior Player of the Year award to Lea Anne Brown.

Kelly Tilghman leads SC in the first Peach-Palmetto Showdown.

The WSCGA Junior Golf Foundation also awarded the first Bob Handler Scholarships to Hannah Boyle and Katherine Spurling. The scholarships support female golfers pursuing higher education.

Next came our annual Winter Trip, which was to Jekyll Island in Georgia. We had a

great time and turnout. Jekyll Island is home to a wealth of history including being part of the first transatlantic telephone call. Next year’s trip is to Hammock Beach Resort in St. Augustine, FL, from February 20 to 23.

Registration is limited to 35 players.

Our championship season began in March with the Team Championship at Fripp Island won by Lea Anne Brown and Rachel Wyatt.

In May, The Cliffs Valley Club hosted the Palmetto Cup, which ended with a fourhole playoff eventually won by the team from Ponderosa Country Club. The Senior Championship was also in May at Caledonia Golf and Fish Club. Jayne Pardus was our champion, with Karin Wolfe winning the Legends Division, just as she did last year.

In June, we were proud to be involved with the U.S. Women’s Open Championship at the Country Club of Charleston. The majority of the WSCGA board of governors spent the week in Charleston to be a part of one of the greatest events in women’s golf. Along with the SC Golf Association, we coordinated volunteers at the infamous 11th hole. The par 3 hole is a treacherous reverse Redan where Sam Snead once took a 13.

After watching a week of pure shots, we were inspired to test our own best at the 71st annual WSCGA State Amateur Championship at Dataw Island Club. This year’s champion, Dawn Woodard, secured a record-breaking eighth State Am title in a four-hole playoff with junior Sophia Burnett.

Pam Prescott took the State Division.

The 2nd annual South Carolina Women’s Open presented by Seabrook Island Club and Real Estate was another success. There

The Women’s South Carolina Golf Association greatly appreciates the support of the following sponsors at this year’s SC Women’s Open Championship: Seabrook Island Club | Seabrook Island Real Estate | Town of Seabrook | Columbia Experience LPGA Symetra Tour | Coastal Getaways of South Carolina | South Carolina Golf Association Baker Cadillac of Charleston | Carolinas PGA | LPGA Amateur Golf Association | OnCore Golf Jack Grace | Swingdish | State Street Popcorn | Backstage Whiskey | San Soleil | Firefly Spirits Josh Cellars Wines | N.W. White & Company | Imperial Hats | Rockin’ Double Bar Productions 24

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Jayne Pardus, winner of this year’s Senior Championship.

Team Championship winners Lea Anne Brown and Rachel Wyatt.

were a lot of returning big name players like Dawn Woodard, Rosie Jones, Natalie Huff and Sydney Legacy with new faces as well as from several other countries. The Ocean Winds Course at Seabrook Island Club was in perfect condition with greens rolling true and fast.

We had an exciting finish for the Overall Open Championship with South Carolina’s own Sydney Legacy defeating Angela Aung, in yet another four-hole playoff – the third in a WSCGA event this year. Aung earned the Open Amateur Division title and is the first female golfer from Myanmar to play college golf at the Division I level. Rosie Jones retained her title in the Overall Senior Division and Natalie Huff played some great golf to become the 2019 Senior Amateur Champion.

A new feature at the Open was a pro-am where anyone could register a three-person team and be matched with one of the

State Amateur champion Dawn Woodard.

SC Open Champion Sydney Legacy and Open Amateur Champion Angela Aung.

professionals or leading amateurs in the event. The pro-am included lunch, golf, tee gifts, awards reception with people from all over the U.S participating. Special thanks to Firefly Distillery for their support of this new annual event.

Rounding out August, the WSCGA Junior Golf Foundation hosted its annual Junior

A new feature at the Open was a pro-am where anyone could register a three-person team and be matched with one of the professionals or leading amateurs in the event.

Overall Senior champion Rosie Jones and Senior Amateur champion Natalie Huff.

Girls LPGA High School Clinic at Par Tee in Columbia. Seven professionals from the SC Women’s Open traveled to spend a day teaching the junior girls. This year we had 79 high school girls participate in this event.

Finally, we hosted the 5th annual Cross State Shoot Out at Houndslake Country Club in Aiken. The Lowcountry had dominated this event the first four years, but this year the Midlands team stepped up and took the title.

At press time, we were preparing for the 41st annual Walton Horton and Jeanne Campbell WSCGA Match Play Championship at Palmetto Club in Aiken; the WSCGA/SCGA Mixed Team Championship at Dataw Island Club in October; and the Carolinas Net Championship at the Country Club of Whispering Pines in Whispering Pines, NC, in November.  Clarissa Childs is executive director of the South Carolina Women’s Golf Association.

Karin Wolfe retained the trophy in the Legends Division of this year’s Senior Championship.

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LATEST FEATURE OPENS IN SEA PINES RENAISSANCE Sea Pines Country Club general manager and chief operating officer Robbie Ames isn’t easily impressed. The former PGA Tour caddie, who worked the bag for older brother Stephen, has walked many of the world’s best courses alongside the world’s best players. And prior to his post at Sea Pines Country Club, Ames held posts at famed Desert Mountain in Scottsdale and Cinnamon Hill at the luxurious Rose Hall in Jamaica.

But the impressive metamorphosis of this private club tucked just inside the gates of Sea Pines Resort in Hilton Head has the loquacious native of Trinidad and Tobago at a loss for words. Well, almost. “This club means so much to the members and the community, it has been incredibly special to be a part of this experience,” says Ames, reflecting on what he says has been one of the most enjoyable periods in his golf career.

A new pool in a timeless setting is part of a major renaissance at Sea Pines Country Club in Hilton Head.

The “re-imagination” of Sea Pines Country Club began with a $2.7-million renovation of the main clubhouse in 2017. This first phase resulted in an entirely new dining facility, the Blue Heron Pub and Grille, modernized 24-meter outdoor and updated indoor saline pools, and a new children’s splash pool.

This summer, the club leveled-up its health and wellness game with the debut of a new $3-million fitness center.

Completely renovated and expanded from 2,500 to 7,300 square feet, the new facility features the latest cardio and strength training equipment, as well as a grab-and-go café and infrared sauna.

A new second floor with a balcony overlooking the tennis courts and golf practice range features a multi-purpose room for group classes and gatherings.

Locker rooms have doubled in size to 26

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A view of the original Hollow Creek holes at The Reserve Club in Aiken. accommodate the infrared saunas, a popular post-workout amenity. The group fitness line-up now includes yoga, Pilates, spin, full-body strength training, TRX and water aerobics. Physical and massage therapy round out the offerings.

“We are a lifestyle-focused club, and the fitness center is the hub that connects to golf, tennis, culinary, social and everything we offer,” says Ames.

Fitness notwithstanding, golf is still the major draw at Sea Pines Country Club.

Earlier this year the club engaged Phil Smith to create a masterplan for its Club Course, originally designed by Arnold Palmer and updated by Hilton Head-based Clyde Johnston in 2001. Enhancements to the practice facility will likely come first, followed by potential upgrades to tees, fairways, bunkers, greens and irrigation.

HOLLOW CREEK COURSE FINALLY MAKES IT TO 18 When the original 10 holes of the Clyde Johnston/Fuzzy Zoeller-designed Hollow Creek course at The Reserve Club opened for play in 2007 at the Woodside community in Aiken, it was expected that the remaining eight holes would follow in a year or two. Lean economic times beginning in 2008 put a hold on those plans, but now the Reserve Club is moving along with the completion of the Hollow Creek course, with Clyde Johnston again at the helm.

Johnston worked with design consultant and former Masters champion Fuzzy Zoeller on the original 18-hole design.

Additionally, two of the eight holes that needed completing were built in 2017, leaving just six holes now to complete the golf course. The six new holes will wrap around the Hollow Creek Land Preservation, 110 acres of natural woodland and wetland area established by The Reserve Club.

Construction work has been contracted

to Wadsworth Golf Construction, the same company that built the original 10 holes.

While some modifications are expected on one of the existing 12 holes, all will remain open while construction progresses on the finishing six. The full 18-hole course is expected to host a soft opening this fall.

The par 71, 6,950-yard Johnston/Zoeller design will be the second golf course at The Reserve Club at Woodside, alongside the Nicklaus course.

WEED TO PRESERVE DYE’S LONG COVE Bobby Weed Golf Design has been hired to continue providing planning and advisory services at Long Cove Club in Hilton Head, on the heels of the design firm’s restoration last year of the golf course. The layout, designed by Pete Dye in 1981, is often considered one of his most authentic and well-preserved designs.

“Long Cove wishes to protect its heritage and preserve its status as an authentic Pete Dye design, never more relevant than now, with Alice Dye’s recent passing,” Bobby Weed says. “With its original innovative land plan and colorful history, it is perhaps one of the most significant courses in the timeline of golf course design.” Long Cove was Weed’s first assignment with Pete Dye and the genesis of Bobby Weed Golf Design.

Constructed right after TPC Sawgrass, the golf course at Long Cove Club represents a “time-machine” look into Dye’s work during one of the most productive and brilliant periods of his career. The legendary Long Cove construction crew, directed by Weed, included several future golf course designers, including Weed himself, Tom Doak, P.B. Dye, Ron Farris and Scott Pool.

“Many of Pete’s courses have been tinkered with, often by the man himself,”

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Weed says. “That is not the case at Long Cove, which is largely untouched. Our main task is to maintain that authenticity.

Preserving one of our generation’s more forward-looking and contemporary courses is a great honor and fit for us.”

DECORATED VETERAN HEADS GROW GAME INITIATIVE Gene Augustine, a decorated military veteran and former president of the Golf Academy of America in Myrtle Beach, has been named the first director of Project Golf. Project Golf, based in Myrtle Beach, is dedicated to growing the game by increasing access to the sport, including quality instruction, with an emphasis on junior golfers.

While raising interest is Project Golf’s top priority, it’s not the organization’s only mission. Project Golf has also raised money to help members of the local golf community in need and is actively reaching out to disabled veterans, using golf as a means of therapy.

“Project Golf is an initiative that will allow the Myrtle Beach community to cultivate the health of the game in short and long term,” says Bill Golden, CEO of Golf Tourism Solutions, the company that launched Project Golf. “Gene Augustine has dedicated much of his life to the service of his country. His love of golf makes him a natural leader for Project Golf, and he will be a vocal advocate for all that is great about the game.”

Lieutenant Colonel Augustine, who served in the Marine Corps for 20 years, was deployed in Operations Desert Shield/ Storm, Operation Silver Wake and Operation Enduring Freedom. A recipient of the Bronze Star and Meritorious Service Medals, in addition to other honors, Augustine was also a professor at the U.S. Naval War College before pursuing a career in golf in 2015. Augustine attended the Golf Academy of America in Orlando, FL, and graduated as valedictorian before becoming president of the Myrtle Beach campus.

CHARLESTON TEAM WINS VETERANS TOURNAMENT Team Charleston, representing the Carolinas PGA Section, captured the PGA HOPE Secretary’s Cup, a nine-hole golf competition for military veterans that kicked-off this year’s PGA Championship week in Farmingdale, NY. Led by PGA Professional Perry Green, general manager and director of instruction at The Golf Club at Wescott Plantation, PGA

From left, former New York Mets All-Star David Wright (PGA Championship honorary ambassador) is joined by Chris Nowak, PGA HOPE; Doug Robertson, U.S. Army; Bill Burge, U.S. Marine Corps; PGA professional, Perry Green; Fred Gutierrez, U.S. Navy; Jesse Duff, U.S. Coast Guard; and PGA of America vice president, Jim Richerson.

HOPE’s Charleston chapter, featuring, Doug Robertson, U.S. Army; Bill Burge, U.S. Marine Corps; Fred Gutierrez, U.S. Navy and Jesse Duff, U.S. Coast Guard bested the field of 12 teams, by shooting a five-under-par 31 in the scramble format on Bethpage State Park’s composite Red and Blue courses.

Each team consisted of one PGA professional and four military veterans living with physical or cognitive challenges, including PTSD, TBI and amputations. The participating military veterans have all graduated the PGA HOPE (Helping Our Patriots Everywhere) program. PGA HOPE introduces golf to veterans with disabilities to enhance their physical, mental, social and emotional well-being.

The program features a six- to eightweek instructional golf clinic, followed by a graduation, and on-course golfing opportunities. PGA HOPE programming through the Carolinas PGA Section is at no cost for military veterans. There are 12 active PGA HOPE programs in the Carolinas, positively impacting more than 660 veterans.

GOLF MARKETS THROUGH HOOTIE SUMMER TOUR Myrtle Beach and its golf courses have “traveled” with Hootie & the Blowfish on the band’s “Group Therapy Tour” this summer thanks to a partnership between stakeholders in the Myrtle Beach tourism community and South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and

Tourism. That partnership is serving as an official sponsor of the tour ensuring Myrtle Beach will enjoy a presence at all 47 North American stops on the tour, which began in May and runs until mid-October.

Collaborators include Golf Tourism Solutions, the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, and Myrtle Beach International Airport. The partnership between Hootie & the Blowfish and Myrtle Beach extends a relationship that began decades ago.

Hootie was playing venues along the Grand Strand in the 1980s, and the band moved its wildly successful charity golf tournament – the Hootie & the Blowfish Monday After the Masters Celebrity ProAm – to the area in 2003. Monday After the Masters annually attracts more than 6,000 fans and has raised more than $7 million for children’s educational programs and the South Carolina junior golf program.

PRACTICE FACILITY PART OF RENEWAL AT BRIAR’S CREEK The Golf Club at Briar’s Creek on Johns Island has a new high-tech practice facility and plans a total renovation of the club’s golf course next year. The Robert C. McNair Performance Center is named after late entrepreneur and philanthropist Robert C. “Bob” McNair. It is part of a two-year, $6-million overall renovation plan for the club.

The private golf club is majority-owned

by McNair Interests, a private investment and management company founded by Bob McNair, who died in 2018.

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The new 1,000-square-foot facility features a dedicated putting room, a hitting bay equipped with cameras and top-ofthe-line swing and ball flight monitors and a club-fitting room. The center also includes a cutting-edge course simulator, which allows members to practice virtually on real courses throughout the U.S. Hank Smith is the club’s director of instruction. Smith will manage the performance center and will oversee training. He is the former director of golf and lead golf instructor at Frederica Golf Club on St. Simons Island in Georgia.

MYRTLEWOOD’S PALMETTO UNDERGOES RENOVATION Founders Group International, owner of 22 Myrtle Beach area golf courses, renovated Myrtlewood Golf Club’s Palmetto Course this summer. The course closed June 24 and was to reopen in September. Schlegel Golf Design was tasked with restoring greens to their original size and shape. The greens now feature new Sunday ultradwarf bermudagrass. Bunkers were also renovated.

The Palmetto Course opened in 1973 and over time the layout’s putting surfaces naturally lost size and shape, but FGI’s management team found the original drawings from Edmund Ault, Ltd, the company that designed the course.

Using the drawings as a guide, Schlegel expanded the Palmetto Course’s greens by 28 percent. Dan Schlegel worked for Ault, Clark & Associates (formerly Edmund Alt, Ltd), and was part of a team that completed a pair of course enhancements on Palmetto in the 1990s.

In the last two years, six of FGI’s 22 courses have been the beneficiary of significant capital improvement projects.

In 2018, Tradition Club and Myrtlewood’s PineHills Course underwent renovations that included new greens, and FGI installed the Better Billy Bunker system at TPC Myrtle Beach. In addition to the work at the Palmetto Course, this year the company also remodeled the clubhouses at Aberdeen Country Club and River Hills Golf Club.

TPC MYRTLE BEACH IS OWNERS’ BEST TPC Myrtle Beach is Myrtle Beach Area Golf Course Owners Association Course of the Year.

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are judged on four criteria: quality of the golf course, quality of the ownership and management, contribution to the community, and contribution to the game.

One of the area’s highest-ranked courses, TPC recently underwent improvements worth more than $1 million, including a 2018 bunker renovation project featuring the Better Billy Bunker system. As a result of the capital improvement projects, the course has been in peak condition and was wellreceived by players this year in the Dustin Johnson World Junior Golf Championship and the NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championship’s Myrtle Beach Regional.

TPC Myrtle Beach also annually provides more than $25,000 in greens fees to various charities and donated land that houses the Dustin Johnson Foundation, a gift that contributes to the organization’s ability to raise money. TPC, like all Founders Group International courses, also donated a percentage of revenue from local rounds in October to victims of Hurricane Florence in the Carolinas.

“We are thrilled that TPC Myrtle Beach has been recognized as the Myrtle Beach Area Golf Course Owners Association Course of the Year,” says FGI president, Steve Mays.

“TPC has always been an outstanding layout, and our general manager, Kevin Williamson, and superintendent, Clay DuBose, work tirelessly to ensure the course exceeds the expectations of golfers.

Winning Course of the Year honors is welcome validation of that work.”

Randy Laney, head golf professional at The Witch Golf Club, was named Employee of the Year. Known for his energetic personality, Laney’s willingness to help with any job, no matter how big or small, made him a natural for the award, a release from the owners association said.

“Randy’s work ethic and commitment to customer service have long made The Witch a favorite of golfers,” says Tracy Conner, president of the Myrtle Beach Area Golf Course Owners Association.

EDITORS’ VOTE GOES TO SEA PINES RESORT Home to three top golf courses on Hilton Head Island and 5,000 oceanfront acres, The Sea Pines Resort has received a Golf Digest Editors’ Choice Award for “Best Resorts – Carolinas.” The selection, through which the magazine’s editors identify their list of “The Best Things in

Golf,” adds to the legacy of The Sea Pines Resort’s golf course collection.

All three courses – Harbour Town Golf Links, Heron Point by Pete Dye and Atlantic Dunes by Davis Love III – are Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuaries. Atlantic Dunes was named 2018 “Golf Course of the Year” by the National Golf Course Owners Association.

USGA GIVES GRANTS TO FIRST TEE IN SC The USGA has awarded $5,000 grants to the First Tee’s Charleston and Aiken chapters as part of a $100,000 donation to chapters across the nation. The grants are being dispersed to 25 chapters located in or around USGA championship locations and Allied Golf Associations as part of the organization’s strategy to leave a positive, lasting impact on local host communities.

The USGA has supported the First Tee since its inception in 1997, providing more than $26 million in grants to the organization. With the USGA’s support, First Tee chapters reach more than 136,000 young people annually at more than 1,200 program locations, with support from 25,000 volunteers. Additionally, First Tee has been introduced to more than 10,000 schools and youth centers reaching millions of additional kids through these programs.

PINE RIDGE MARKS 50TH ANNIVERSARY Pine Ridge Country Club in Edgefield is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

The club has celebrated with a range of events and activities. Sometimes referred to as golf’s “best kept secret” in the Augusta area, the course was designed by Greenville native Russell Breeden, as part of a goal to provide the county with “upscale recreation.”

The club needed to sign 300 members just to get started with a loan from the Farmers Home Administration. That membership drive began on August 7, 1967 and by September 20 – just over six weeks later – had signed 330 members. In November that year, the FHA signed off on a loan of $366,880 and the club opened for business in 1969. 

CHAMPIONSHIPS

Partners Championship Spring Valley Country Club and The Members Club at Woodcreek, Columbia

CHAMPIONSHIP FLIGHT 1

Kyle Bearden, Bamberg Walt Todd, Jr., Laurens 62, 60 – 122

2 Brandon Cemprola, Columbia Ryan Reynolds, Camden 59, 66 – 125 T3 Cody Clepper, Sumter Jon Weiss, Florence 63, 63 – 126 T3 Josh Branyon, Honea Path Thomas Todd, III, Laurens 64, 62 – 126

TOURNAMENT FLIGHT 1

Barry Roof, Myrtle Beach Delan Stevens, Conway 65, 64 – 129

2 Steven Calicutt, Spartanburg Landon Hames, Roebuck 64, 67 – 131 T3 Mike Bellon, Columbia Eric Nord, Blythewood 63, 69 – 132 T3 Scott Robbins, Aiken Rick Robbins, Chester 66, 66 – 132

Partners Championship

Palmetto Cup Matches The Reserve Golf Club, Pawleys Island

DAY ONE Amateurs 13 vs. Pros 8

DAY TWO Amateurs 14 vs. Pros 7

FINAL TOTALS Amateurs 27 vs. Pros 15

Senior Four Ball Championship Florence Country Club, Florence

T3 Josh Dewees, Columbia Sean Sullivan, Columbia 66, 66 – 132

Senior Four Ball Champs

WALT TODD, JR. & KYLE BEARDEN

CHAMPIONSHIP FLIGHT 1

Danny Hopkins, Murrells Inlet Alex Stanek, Conway 65, 66 – 131

DANNY HOPKINS & ALEX STANEK

2 Bert Atkinson, Charleston 3 Country Club of Spartanburg Sammy Truett, Surfside Beach – Bryan Kelley, Tim Dunlavey, 67, 67 – 134 Kyle Milner – 223 3 Mike Gravley, Greer Todd Webber, Moore PRO-AM RESULTS 66, 69 – 135 1 Country Club of Spartanburg 4 Mike Daniels, Murrells Inlet Rich Weston, Pawleys Island 69, 67 – 136

– Josh May, Bryan Kelley, Tim Dunlavey, Kyle Milner – 133

Trescott Championship

T2 Greenville Country Club – Karl Stefka, Wesley Harden, Lee Palms, Garland Ferrell – 134

TEAM RESULTS

T2 Carolina Country Club – Jimmy Shaw, Todd Whitehead, Max Fain, Carter Ridgeway – 134

Holly Tree Country Club, Simpsonville

1

Holly Tree Country Club – Robert Lutomski, Chris Eassy, Russ Gillig – 212

2 Cobbs Glen Country Club – Josh Branyon, Denton Moore, Blake Williamson – 219

T2 Holly Tree Country Club – Matthew Okutsu, Robert Lutomski, Chris Eassy, Russ Gillig – 134

Palmetto Cup – Amateur Team

Trescott Champs

(FROM LEFT) STAN SILL, RICH WESTON, MATT O’QUINN, ROBERT LUTOMSKI, EDDIE HARGETT, JON WEISS, WALTER TODD, HAPP LATHROP, WALT TODD, JR., KYLE BEARDEN, RAYMOND WOOTEN, JAMES LIGHTSEY, JOSH BRANYON, THOMAS TODD, CHRIS MITCHELL, BIFF LATHROP.

ROBERT LUTOMSKI, RUSS GILLIG & CHRIS EASSY

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CHAMPIONSHIPS Senior Champ

Four-Ball Champs

KEVIN KING

T2 Southern Oaks Golf Club – Grayson Bell, Sawyer Mills, Adam Sheriff, Weston Bell – 134

Senior Championship Callawassie Island Club, Okatie

1

Kevin King – Bluffton 72, 69, 74 – 215

2 Rich Weston – Pawleys Island 73, 73, 73 – 219 3 Duff Wagner – Taylors 72, 75, 74 – 221 4 Eddie Hargett – Blythewood 71, 76, 75 – 222 T5 Charlie Hall – Bluffton 75, 76, 73 – 224 T5 Duke Delcher – Bluffton 72, 78, 74 – 224 7 Jeff Jaeggi – Simpsonville 75, 70, 81 – 226

KYLE MILNER & BRYAN KELLEY

Super Senior Four Ball Championship The Links at Stono Ferry, Hollywood

1

Roger Page, Duncan Tim Pope, Spartanburg 66, 66 – 132*

2 Bobby Hines, Greenville Terry Willis, Greer 67, 65 – 132 3 Jim Burgess, Murrells Inlet John Dennis, Greenville 68, 65 – 133 4 Bob Rickman, Florence Bob Varn, Orangeburg 66, 68 – 134 T5 Walter Odiorne, Blythewood Bernie Shealy, Columbia 68, 66 – 134 *won in one-hole playoff

SEMI-FINALS Thomas Addison, III – Weston Sanders def. Brandon Truesdale – Walt Todd, Jr. 4&3 Bryan Kelley – Kyle Milner def.

Lindsay Carrington – Matt Grandy 3&2

FINAL Bryan Kelley – Kyle Milner def. Thomas Addison, III – Weston Sanders 2up

Austin Scott, Daniel Island

67, 72 – 139*

T4 Zachary Reuland,

Rock Hill

68, 73 – 141

T10 Tobin Turner – Greenville 76, 74, 79 – 229

6 Matthew Hutto, Blythewood

72, 70 – 142

T10 Andy Congdon – Murrells Inlet 77, 75, 77 – 229 T10 Casey Smith – Abbeville 79, 78, 72 – 229

Super Senior Four Ball Champs TIM POPE & ROGER PAGE

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T7 Daniel Brasington, Woodruff 72, 71 – 143 T7 Griffin Tarver, Tega Cay 72, 71 – 143 T7 Gene Zeigler, Florence 72, 71 – 143 T7 Drayton Stewart, Charleston 71, 72 – 143 T7 Brandon Masters, Piedmont 67, 76 – 143 *won in two-hole playoff

Greenville Country Club, Greenville

1

T4 Manning Sloop,

Rock Hill

69, 72 – 141

T10 Marcus Byler – Hilton Head 73, 80, 76 – 229

AUSTIN SCOTT

Dudley-Sullivan Junior Championship Father and Son Championship Country Club of Lexington, Lexington

3 Trey Crenshaw, Lancaster

70, 70 – 140

T8 Robert Fisher – Johns Island 75, 76, 77 – 228

Palmetto Golfer

Musgrove Mill Golf Club, Clinton

2 J.T. Herman,

Hilton Head

70, 69 – 139

T8 Geno Berchiatti – Greenville 72, 77, 79 – 228

30

Four-Ball Championship

Junior Champ

T7 Rafe Reynolds, Greenville

74, 69 – 143

DIVISION I

1 Jeff Bell, Piedmont Weston Bell, Piedmont 70* T2 John Dennis, Greenville Will Dennis, Greenville 70 T2 Jay Wilkins, Simpsonville Chris Wilkins, Simpsonville 70

DIVISION II

1 Robert Hoffman, Greenville Brent Hoffman, Simpsonville 72 T2 John Moore, Anderson Denton Moore, Anderson 73 T2 Skip Eynon, Columbia Everett Eynon, Columbia 73

CHAMPIONSHIPS Dudley-Sullivan Father & Son Champs

Lefty-Righty Champs

JEFF & WESTON BELL

DIVISION III

T1 Mike Burton, Taylors Scott Burton, Greenville 74 T1 Charles Powell, Charleston Mike Powell, Greenville 74 T1 Tyler Huff, Greer Willie Huff, Greenville 74

DIVISION IV

1 Michael Mitchell, Summerville Mason Mitchell, Summerville 72 2 Mike Hirsch, Pawleys Island Justin Hirsch, Greenville 73 T3 Will Thompson, Greenville Bo Davies, Wellford 75

Lefthanders Champ

JEREMY REVIS & DANIEL EZELLE

Lefthanders Championship

DAY ONE

SC 5 vs. GA 3

Lake Marion Golf Club, Santee

DAY TWO

1

FINAL TOTALS

Mitchell Vance, Columbia 74, 67 – 141

T2 Robert Dargan, Columbia 73, 71 – 144 T2 Stan Sill, Spartanburg 72, 72 – 144 4 Dixon Walker, Columbia 74, 74 – 148

SC 5 vs. GA 3

T4 Christian Salzer, Sumter

69, 68, 66, 71 – 274 T4 Matt Carter, Easley

67, 72, 66, 69 – 274

South Carolina Amateur Championship

7

Colby Patton, Fountain Inn 71, 70, 65, 69 – 275

8

Judson Holliday, Aynor 66, 70, 70, 70 – 276

1

Tyler Gray, Lugoff 67, 66, 67, 68 – 268

2 Logan Sowell, Kershaw 66, 68, 68, 70 – 272

The Country Club of Spartanburg, Spartanburg

T4 Raymond Wooten,

Clemson

69, 68, 67, 70 – 274

SC 10 vs. GA 6

Thornblade Club, Greer

Georgia-South Carolina Junior Team Matches

MITCHELL VANCE

3 Jake Carter, Aiken 64, 70, 69, 70 – 273

T9 Todd White, Roebuck

69, 68, 70, 70 – 277 T9 Jamie Wilson, Mt. Pleasant

69, 70, 69, 69 – 277 T9 Robert Lutomski,

Simpsonville

70, 69, 67, 71 – 277

T3 Cecil Callahan, Greer Brian Callahan, Greer 75 *won in two-hole playoff

Lefty-Righty Championship Lake Marion Golf Club, Santee

1

Daniel Ezelle, Taylors Jeremy Revis, Greenville 62, 67 – 129

2 Daniel Coker, Hartsville Mitchell Vance, Hartsville 68, 65 – 133 T3 Brent Roof, Columbia Jon Davis, Columbia 68, 67 – 135 T3 Nicholas Beiers, Lexington Dixon Walker, Columbia 68, 68 – 136

Georgia-South Carolina Junior Team Matches (BACK ROW) TREY CRENSHAW, MANNING SLOOP, DANIEL BRASINGTON, AUSTIN SCOTT, BRANDON MASTERS, GENE ZEIGLER, ZACH REULAND, MATTHEW HUTTO. (FRONT) DOUG SMITH, BIFF LATHROP, JOE QUICK, CHARLIE ROUNTREE, III.

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