South Carolina. First in Golf…Tournaments.

By: Taft Matney

South Carolina. We’re “First in Golf,” and we have a license plate to prove it. What we don’t have and can’t lay claim to is “First in Golf Tournaments,” and that’s a shame. With the Web.com Tour’s BMW Charity Pro-Am just wrapping up, this is something I’ve thought about a lot over the past several days.

South Carolina has a single annual PGA Tour stop in The RBC Heritage presented by Boeing. Don’t get me wrong. It’s an amazing tournament and has a great place on the Tour calendar (immediately following The Masters), but wouldn’t it be great to have an additional PGA tourney later in the season, too?

Then there’s the Web.com Tour that I touched on a few seconds ago. Think of it as the PGA equivalent of AAA baseball. It’s the last stop for professional golfers before they get their PGA Tour card.

I remember when the satellite tour was formalized by the PGA in the early 90s. With an annually scheduled stop at Verdae Greens (now The Preserve at Verdae) in Greenville, the “Greater Greenville Classic” was held only minutes from my house. Back then, it was part of the newly-established Ben Hogan Tour which became the Nike Tour which became the Buy.com Tour which became the Nationwide Tour which is now the Web.com Tour.

Fast forward 21 years.

• The Upstate’s tournament on the developmental tour evolved from needing one course to three (Thornblade Club in Greer, Greenville Country Club’s Chanticleer Course, and The Reserve at Keowee in Sunset, SC) to host the event the way it needs to be executed.
• It has gone from being a traditional tournament to a celebrity Pro-Am that has raised in excess of $9.25 million for more than 150 charities since switching formats in 2001.
• Each year’s event brings an estimated $5 million to the area economy — including 2000 hotel room nights being booked.
• The Upstate also finds itself on display with four days of Golf Channel coverage bringing three picturesque South Carolina locales in to the living rooms of nearly 3.5 million viewers.

How about the Lowcountry tournament? Well…

• The Heritage Classic Foundation has distributed more than $23 million throughout South Carolina and Georgia since 1987 – with $1.5 million distributed last year to charitable organizations, the arts, medical institutions, and college scholarships.
• The RBC Heritage’s estimated economic impact to the state is greater than $80 million per year.
• CBS and Golf Channel team up for wall-to-wall tournament coverage, turning Hilton Head and the surrounding area in to a weeklong tourism commercial.

All of those numbers just keep growing.

What does this have to do with ANYTHING? It’s simple, and I already said it. We’re “First in Golf,” and we have a license plate to prove it. What we don’t have and can’t lay claim to is “First in Golf Tournaments.”

We SHOULD, though. We have the venues to support the events. We have professionals and celebrities who love our state and look for reasons to come here. We have media support from broadcast crews who understand how powerful our state is as a sports backdrop.

I guess what I’m saying is, “Mr. or Ms. PGA Official, give South Carolina an additional date on the Tour schedule. We’ve proven we deserve it, we’ve proven we can support it, and we’ve proven that the support is there from your side, too.”

Oh, and to make sure you know, Beaufort native Mark Anderson shot a fourth round 6-under-par 65 for a five stroke win at the Web.com Tour’s BMW Charity Pro-Am presented by SYNNEX Corporation. You know? Beaufort County has had a pretty good week.