Brent, you beat me to it!
This article is one of a series “The State” is running on South Carolina’s classic courses, and I think they did a pretty good job.
The timing was great, as we were hosting the Carolina Golf Association’s Carolinas Fourball this week (as we do every year). The results of the Fourball this year were interesting…..
1) Qualifying is for two days, with the low 32 teams qualifying for Match Play. Medalist this year was 132, the highest since 1989. 11 teams at -2 played off for 6 places in match play; also unusually high (-3 seems to be the normal magic number). This is in spite of the fact that qualifying rounds had tees (#2, a par 3, #6, a long par 3, and #10, a medium 4) set on the “member” tees rather than the “championship” tees.
2) While the participation of College players seemed down a little this year, they were still solidly represented. For the first year in a while there was no one from Clemson, but there were 3-5 from USC, 6 from College of Charleston, several from USC Aiken (a very solid program), and a team each from several other schools.
3) The winning team is dear to my heart. Scott Harvey and Patrick Brady have both played for many years. For quite a few years Scott played with a wonderful gentleman named Bubba Judy (gotta love the Carolinas!) who was a pretty good player but who was no longer really competitive at that level. Scott told me years ago that Bubba first brought him to Camden when “I couldn’t play a lick” and “so long a Bubba wants to come we’re coming as partners.” Scott’s father won the Fourball twice, so this is an important tournament for him. Bubba quit playing a few years ago, and Scott and Patrick hooked up (Patrick’s Dad is in the NC Golf Hall of Fame) and had, for the past two years, reached the finals only to lose (Patrick had lost in the finals two other times with another partner). The third time as a team was the charm, as they won today 4/3. Scott was so emotional that he said he didn’t trust himself to speak at the presentation. It was really fun to see winners that really cared about the history as well as just winning! These guys are what golf is all about.
4) As a sidebar, the college players ended up constituting about half the field of 16, a little less the field of 8, and the finals were made up of 3 “old cocks” and one college player. I’m not sure what that means…..
Bottom line, I guess, is that I think that was a pretty good article, and the CGA Fourball validated the course as a pretty good tournament venue.
Jamey