Hilton Head Monthly Voice Voice of the Lowcountry 
Pro golferNick Faldo presided over a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the International Junior Golf Academy’s new Performance Training Center in Bluffton. IJGA recently undertook a $2 million building renovation turning a 20,000-square-foot horse barn at Old Carolina into a state-of-the-art indoor training facility for junior golfers.
JOHN FARRELL TALKS SEA PINES, HERITAGE PREP AND MORE
Spend time with John Farrell and you’ll quickly see that more than three decades in the Lowcountry have loosened the soil around this sharp-witted jokester’s Yankee roots.
But if the conversation turns to Sea Pines Resort, where Farrell has been employed as a golf professional since 1989, the tone turns more earnest.
A GUIDE TO THE LANGUAGE OF GOLF
Do you find yourself nodding along in vague agreement whenever golf fans get together? Tired of pretending like you know what they’re talking about?
Here are a few golf terms that might help you fake your way through Heritage week with at least a little more authority.
The Heritage Classic Foundation has extended its contract with Berkeley Hall Golf Club to host the Players Amateur through 2019. The event will be celebrating its 19th anniversary July 10-15. This one-of-a-kind amateur golf tournament was created by players for the players and is made possible by generous contributions and donations from sponsors, volunteers and the host club. The Players Amateur has been played at Berkeley Hall since 2012.
The Heritage Classic Foundation has announced a new golf opportunity during this year’s RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing with the addition of the Tartan Invitational at Atlantic Dunes.
The Tartan Invitational is an exclusive 80-player event pairing each group with a special South Carolina personality. Honorary guests may be a PGA Tour professional, a musician, an athlete, an actor, or a politician. The event will take place on Wednesday, April 11, at Atlantic Dunes by Davis Love III, which was voted the 2017 Golf Course of the Year by the National Golf Course Owners Association.
RBC Heritage presented by Boeing tournament director Steve Wilmot recently was elected to be the vice chairman of the PGA Tour’s Tournament Advisory Council.
The Tournament Advisory Council’s (TAC) mission is to improve the business conditions for all PGA Tour tournaments by establishing and maintaining relationships between tournaments, the PGA Tour and PGA Tour players. The TAC is made up of PGA Tour tournament directors. Wilmot will serve a two-year term as vice chairman and then will become chairman during the PGA Tour Annual Meeting in December 2019.
The RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing always attracts a strong field, but it has been rare for the world’s top-ranked golfer to appear at Harbour Town Golf Links the week after the Masters.
It looks as though that trend will change this April, as world No. 1 Dustin Johnson has committed to play in the 50th annual tournament. A 17-time PGA Tour winner and the 2016 PGA Tour Player of the Year, Johnson was born in Columbia and attended Coastal Carolina, but he has not played in the Palmetto State’s only PGA Tour event since 2009.
The University of Alabama won the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate Golf Tournament last year. Cheyenne Knight was the individual champion in 2016 and 2017. The University of South Carolina's women's team hosted the event.
Long Cove Club, in partnership with Darius Rucker and the University of South Carolina, is hosting the seventh annual Darius Rucker Intercollegiate Golf Tournament from March 2-4, featuring feature top women’s collegiate teams from around the country.
Long Cove Club headed a group of six Beaufort County courses included in Golfweek’s Top 100 Residential Courses for 2018.
The acclaimed Pete Dye layout at Long Cove ranked 19th – the highest-rated South Carolina course on the list. Old Tabby Links on Spring Island came in at 36th, while both Colleton River courses made the top 100 (Nicklaus at 71st and Dye at 95th). Haig Point on Daufuskie Island was ranked 90th, and Belfair’s West Course was 100th.
THE WEXFORD INTERCOLLEGIATE WILL RETURN TO WEXFORD GOLF CLUB FROM FEB. 25-27.
This year’s field of 18 NCAA Division I and II teams is highlighted by the University of Georgia and Texas Christian University. Other NCAA Division I teams in the field include Akron, Charleston Southern, Cleveland State, Davidson, Dartmouth, Dayton, Furman, Gardner-Webb, High Point, Memphis, Mercer, Presbyterian, Radford, and Wofford. Host Francis Marion and fellow NCAA Division II power USC Aiken round out the field. The tournament is open to spectators.
