Promoting excellence in South Carolina golf course design and operations
through competitive rankings, education and public advocacy.
 


THE TEN PEOPLE
WHO HAVE MOST INFLUENCED GOLF IN SOUTH CAROLINA

THE TEN
Happ
Lathrop
Grant
Bennett
Jay
Haas
Dr. Bruce
Martin
Hootie
& the Blowfish
Charles
Fraser
Jane
Covington
Cecil
Brandon
Jimmy
D'Angelo
Larry
Penley

Deciding the 10 people who have had the most influence on South Carolina golf proved to be a lot like the game itself... using a stick to hit a ball into a hole sounds simple enough, but once you get stuck into the exercise all manner of quirks and special circumstances come into play. To define the criteria for a perfect list might have required a book with as many regulations and codicils as The Rules of Golf. Should a candidate be alive to be considered? Do they have to live in the Palmetto state? Does their influence need to be current or can it be past?

Members of the South Carolina Golf Course Ratings Panel wrestled with these questions and many, many more before returning a slate of candidates. In turn, that list was broken down, rebuilt, analyzed, and kicked in the tires by the panel's board of directors. NASA should be so careful with the space shuttle.

Through all the hand-wringing and back and forth, one truth remained immutable - fame alone does not equate to influence. This may go part way to explaining Beth Daniel's absence from the list. An LPGA and South Carolina Golf Hall of Famer, the Charleston native now living in Florida has 33 wins on the LPGA Tour but her impact on the game in her home state is apparently not so, well, apparent.

Roger Warren, President of Kiawah Island Golf Resort and a past-president of the 28,000-member PGA of America, helped secure the 2012 PGA Championship for Kiawah's Ocean Course. Warren has the firepower to rival most of the big guns in American golf administration right now, but South Carolina is only one of 50 states in that realm. He only landed in the state from Illinois in 2003 and that's recent by anyone's measure.

World renowned golf course architect, Tom Fazio, has built more courses in South Carolina than in any state other than Florida. Pete Dye has built some of the best, like Harbour Town (home of the long-running Heritage championship) and the aforementioned Ocean Course, which hosted the Ryder Cup in 1991. Together Fazio and Dye have done as much as perhaps any individuals when it comes to laying the stage itself. But, Fazio lives across the border in North Carolina and Dye is in Florida, and what's more, someone else came up with the money for each and every course.

Developer Jim Anthony did provide the money and the moving power to transform the golfing map in the Upstate with the Cliffs properties, which use to host the Nationwide Tour's BMW Charity Pro-Am each spring. But, each of the ultra high-end developments is extremely private, limiting their influence on the golfing public. In addition, Anthony is no longer involved, the properites having moved on to new ownership.

There are myriad other notable absentees from our list, many with legitimate claims for inclusion. But there was only room for 10. What we have in the end, we hope, is a list that in some cases affirms what you knew and in others illuminates what you may not have known. The unarguable certainty is that everyone who did make our list has made a difference... in the right way!

HAPP LATHROP  |  EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR - S.C. GOLF ASSOCIATION  IRMO

As affable as he is able, Lathrop is regarded by many as "Mr. Golf" in South Carolina. The catalyst behind enormous growth in the association he has administered for over 30 years, Lathrop's degree of influence is difficult to overestimate. While this list appears in no particular order, it deserves to be known that his name dominated survey returns in the same way Tiger Woods might out-drive a 10-year-old.

Annual tournaments, junior programs, and fund-raisers that Lathrop helped instigate are the most visible outcomes of his work. But for all of that his efforts brokering relationships, sponsorships, and general goodwill for golf in the state are probably more far-reaching.

Photo courtesy of the SCGA

GRANT BENNETT  |  SUPERINTENDENT, PROFESSIONAL, COACH  |  COLUMBIA

Even after his death, the hand of Grant Bennett continues to play out in South Carolina golf through protégés playing and teaching the game, as well as maintaining its courses. While pro/superintendent at Florence Country Club from 1951, Bennett coached McClenaghan High School to 11 state titles and nurtured several future PGA Tour and LPGA Tours players. At one time he was the PGA of America's national junior chairman.

In 1955 he co-founded the Carolinas Golf Course Superintendents Association, which now has 1,800 members and a $1 million annual budget. He was a member of the Carolinas Golf, Carolinas PGA, South Carolina Golf, and South Carolina Athletic halls of fame.

Photo courtesy of Trent Bouts.

JAY HAAS  |  PGA TOUR / CHAMPIONS TOUR PLAYER  |  GREENVILLE

In nearly a quarter-century on the PGA Tour, Haas has won nine tournaments and countless friends with his impeccable conduct and easygoing nature. Such an example has set a standard for youngsters in the state and just as importantly, Haas has long supported programs to bring those players along.

He is a chief benefactor for junior golf programs lending his time, his profile, and his contacts. An unofficial but highly-effective ambassador for the game in the state, his contributions have long lent efficacy to the efforts of the South Carolina Golf Association and South Carolina Junior Golf Association.

Photo courtesy of Trent Bouts

DR. BRUCE MARTIN  |  PLANT PATHOLOGIST - CLEMSON UNIVERSITY  |  FLORENCE

Probably the least publicly-known member of the top 10, Dr. Martin is an international leader in his field. He is considered a wall between the state's reputation for outstanding golf and the havoc that turf diseases could wreak on the industry, and ultimately the state's economy. With golf contributing $1.5 billion annually, many jobs would be threatened were Martin and his colleagues at Clemson University's turfgrass department not as good as they are.

Dr. Martin provides critical diagnoses and research serving individual golf courses and the industry in general. His work on a mystery disease affecting courses along the Grand Strand several years back helped avert a catastrophe that could have soured tourism in the region.

Photo courtesy of Trent Bouts

HOOTIE & THE BLOWFISH  |  ROCK BAND, BENEFACTORS  |  COLUMBIA

Okay, the band is four people, not one, but it is impossible to split the contributions of the members and it is equally impossible to ignore their impact on golf's next generation in the state.

Through a close relationship with the South Carolina Golf Association and the annual Monday After The Masters charity event in Myrtle Beach, Hootie and the Blowfish have poured more than $2 million into junior golf in just over a decade! The money has helped provide equipment, coaching, events and playing facilities like Junior Golf Land. That means a lot of kids, many of them underprivileged, getting exercise and learning the game's lessons of respect and etiquette.

Photo courtesy of Vanguard Records

CHARLES FRASER  |  DEVELOPER  |  HILTON HEAD ISLAND

The late Charles Fraser was the catalyst and driving force for the internationally renowned Sea Pines community and Harbour Town Golf Links, home of the Heritage Championship, first won by Arnold Palmer.

But his legacy is far grander still. For it was Fraser's foresight and energy that inspired the transformation of Hilton Head Island from the sleepiest of bumps in the Atlantic Ocean to one of the state's glittering jewels. Myrtle Beach has the quantity of golf, but the Hilton Head Fraser generated is high-karat... lending richness to the game, and riches to the state economy.

Photo courtesy of the Heritage Foundation

JANE COVINGTON  |  PLAYER, LEADER  ORANGEBURG

Jane Covington was teeing it up against the boys long before Annika Sorenstam was born. Way back in 1942, she stepped out for the University of South Carolina - on the men's team! She was that much of a pioneer. Her service to the game since then earned her the moniker of "first lady of golf in South Carolina." Recently, she launched the ceremonial first shot in a new tournament named in her honor to raise money for women's junior golf in the state.

A co-founder of the South Carolina Women's Golf Association in 1948, she was the inaugural president and her contributions as a champion of, and for, women's golf are recognized by three separate halls of fame.

Photo courtesy of Christopher Huff at The Times & Democrat

CECIL BRANDON  |  ADVERTISING EXECUTIVE, PROMOTER  MYRTLE BEACH

The story goes that Cecil Brandon began selling postcards of Myrtle Beach from the trunk of his car. By the time he retired, Brandon's ability to sell a concept had helped transform the Grand Strand into a feast of golf, drawing millions of visitors and dollars to the game and the state every year.

As co-founder and long-time executive director of Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday and founder of Brandon Advertising, Brandon's efforts set golfers salivating and set in motion pilgrimages from across the nation. So profound has his impact been on golf and the state that he received the Order of the Palmetto, alongside other honors including a place in the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame.

Photo courtesy of Brandon Advertising

JIMMY D'ANGELO  |  CLUB PROFESSIONAL  MYRTLE BEACH

Jimmy D'Angelo's best stroke in golf was probably not any he played with a club. It's hard to beat his brainwave that led to Myrtle Beach hosting the Golf Writers Association of America's annual championship. That single master stroke ensured that any golf writer worth his salt was going to know about the city, and be reminded of it year after year. The value of the ensuing exposure for golf in the state is impossible to measure.

D'Angelo was recently remembered by Golfweek's Brad Klein as the first promoter of golf in the region. Another respected observer of the game, reporter Shane Sharp, recalled D'Angelo as "The Godfather" of golf at the beach.

Photo courtesy of The Dunes Golf & Beach Club

LARRY PENLEY  |  HEAD GOLF COACH - CLEMSON UNIVERSITY  CLEMSON

Synonymous with men's golf at Clemson University, Larry Penley is part of the game's fabric in South Carolina. His efforts with Clemson for over a quarter century have delivered not only great players but perennial prominence for the Tigers and the Palmetto State. Ben Martin, Klye Stanley, Jonathan Byrd, Lucas Glover, Charles Warren and D. J. Trahan are just some of the young men Penley helped guide to the PGA Tour.

Penley secured Clemson's first NCAA golf championship in 2003, was named NCAA coach of the year soon after, and in 2004 entered the Golf Coaches Association of America hall of fame. Penley's conduct and that of his teams provide fine examples for all young golfers in the state.

Photo by Mark Crammer