Frank Ford Sr. started playing in his early teens near the end of World War I when he bought a 5-iron for 50 cents and two balls for a nickel, then dug some holes in the front yard to chip to. From that beginning, he became one of the most heralded golfers in South Carolina.

Ford’s accomplishments included winning seven South Carolina Amateur Championships, the first on his home course at the Country Club of Charleston in 1930, the last in 1955 at age 51. In 1935, he teamed with the great Henry Picard to win the International Four-Ball, beating the likes of Horton Smith, Denny Shute and Sam Snead. He won the Biltmore Forest Invitational, then a top amateur event, and was medalist in the Carolinas Amateur three times.

On the local scene, he won the Azalea Invitational four times, the Charleston City Championship 11 times and was club champion at the Country Club of Charleston 18 times. His accomplishments are made more remarkable considering that he gave up golf every August 15, when hunting season began.

Ford was the head of a family that produced four generations of accomplished players. His three sons were all fine golfers, with Billy once a captain of the University of North Carolina golf team. Grandson Frank Ford III won the Azalea Invitational six times and includes Charleston City titles, the Carolinas Amateur and the Carolinas Mid-Amateur among his victories. Great-grandson Frank (Cordes) IV also had an impressive record, with a Carolinas Amateur among his titles.

Ford was inducted into the South Carolina Golf Hall of Fame in 1977 and the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame in 1995.

A member of the PGA Golf Professional Hall of Fame and a 1995 inductee into the Carolinas PGA Hall of Fame, Gary Schaal, of Murrell’s Inlet, SC has been a leader in South Carolina's golf industry for more than 30 years. In 1973, he completed his tour in the U.S. Air Force, being honorably discharged as captain before becoming an assistant PGA professional at Myrtle Beach National Golf Club. He became a full Carolinas Section PGA member in 1976, and won the section’s PGA Golf Professional of the Year Award in 1985, and the section’s Horton Smith Award in 1978 and 1980.

 

In 1988, Schaal was elected as national secretary of The PGA of America. Two years later, he would ascend to PGA vice-president and in 1992 became PGA president. During his presidency he was instrumental in launching programs to enhance PGA professional careers through merchandising, employment assessment and lifelong learning programs. He also steered the debut of PGA 2000, which served as the blueprint for The PGA of America’s action plan to lead the association into the new millennium.
 
Schaal was instrumental in founding the Professional Golf Management Program at Coastal Carolina Univeristy, in bringing the Champions Tour to the Dunes Club in Myrtle Beach and in building the TPC at Myrtle Beach. The former head professional at Pine Lakes International is an owner/operator of Deer Track Golf Resort and part owner of Wicked Stick, Indigo Creek and Diamond Back in the Myrtle Beach area. In November last year, Schaal became the 12th person recognized in the "Legends of The PGA" program in a ceremony at Kiawah. Also in 2006 he was named "2006 Father of the Year" by the executive tournament committee of The National Father & Son Team Classic  

 

Gary Schaal was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 2007.

Twice in the mid-1950s, a young golf professional from Raleigh was promised head pro jobs, first in Jacksonville, N.C., and later in Durham . But neither situation developed as planned. So it was in 1957 that Gene Hamm placed that fateful phone call to Robert Trent Jones.

 

"He told me if I needed work, to come on up to Wilmington, Delaware, where he was designing a golf course," Hamm says. "I went up and built it for him, then built another one. By 1959, I was ready to come back to North Carolina and try to design a golf course on my own."

 

That was the first domino to fall in the prolific and probably underrated design career of Hamm. Today 72 and retired in Raleigh, Hamm designed more than 60 courses in southern Virginia, Piedmont and eastern North Carolina and the Myrtle Beach area.

 

"I've been very happy with what I've done," Hamm says. "I came along in an era where things were a lot different. We didn't have the equipment they have today; we didn't have the budgets they have today. But the work we did was considered very good."

 

Hamm has designed four courses in the Pinehurst area, 12 in Myrtle Beach, a dozen or so along the Virginia-North Carolina border in towns such as Martinsville and Danville. He's done work in many eastern North Carolina towns such as New Bern, Kinston and Clinton, and lists Cheviot Hills, the second 18 at North Ridge Country Club, Wake Forest C.C., Lochmere C.C. and Chapel Hill C.C. among his designs in the Triangle area.

 

"As soon as a developer starts thinking of an architect, he's immediately going to think of all the great ones who get all the press or the tour players who he wants associated with his development," says Tommy Albin of Whispering Pines, who hired Hamm in the mid-1980s to design the Holly Course at Pinewild C.C. in Pinehurst.

 

"Gene is in neither of those categories. But I think he's the most underrated architect there is. He's not won the U.S. Open or the Masters. But his knowledge of routing a golf course and of getting the most for your dollar puts him right up there with the best, in my opinion."

 

Albin remembers officials from Club Corporation of America, his eventual partner in Pinewild, suggesting some features to add "sex appeal."

 

"Gene said to me, 'Tommy, that's fine, but it's going to cost a lot of money,'" Albin says. "He was always looking out for the bottom line of his clients."

 

Hamm grew up in Raleigh and first learned golf by caddying at the Raleigh Golf Association course. His first job was with Ellis Maples at New Bern Country Club in 1946. After one year, he moved to Pinehurst to work under green superintendent Frank Maples, and later was head pro in Mt. Airy.

 

"Back then you had to be golf pro and supervisor of the golf course at the same time," he says.

In 1955, architect George Cobb hired him to build a course in Jacksonville, and Hamm was to get the head pro job after the course opened. But the course owner reneged on the arrangement, and Hamm found work building the Duke University Golf Course for Robert Trent Jones. Again, Hamm was to get the head pro job when the course opened, but the job went to Duke golf coach Ellis "Dumpy" Hagler. That's when Hamm took more work from Jones in Delaware and started on his own in design, helping pro Al Smith at Danville C.C. redesign the course there.

 

"Trent Jones wanted me to go to Venezuela to build a golf course, but LaRue, my wife, and I had two children, and I couldn't go running off to Venezuela," Hamm says. "So I took off on my own."

 

As a PGA member, a course construction expert and a member of the national greens superintendents' association, Hamm has brought a well-rounded background to his design projects. He's maintained a low profile throughout his career and built courses that remain today playable and interesting despite being built in the 1960s and early 1970s for less than half a million dollars. His favorite design, Pinewild, was built for about $2.5 million a decade ago.

"That was very little money," Albin says. "But it's still a tremendous golf course."

 

"There are some things you can't leave out, but you can control the cost with the routing plan and the clearing of the golf course," Hamm says. "You can keep the course pretty tight and not take out so many trees. You don't move as much dirt. You don't elevate the greens as much. You keep the greens smaller.

 

"It's not hard to keep a golf course challenging when the hole's only four and a quarter inches wide."

 

Hamm’s last design job was Caswell Pines in Yanceyville. He says if someone came to him today with some work, he'd consider taking it.

 

"Otherwise, I'm finally getting to play some golf," he said.

By David Droschak

 

The owner of Linville Ridge Country Club talked to anyone who would listen about the great job architect George Cobb had done in creating the 16th hole, a dramatic par-3 that showcases an elevation drop equivalent to an 11-story building and a 50-mile view of the glorious Blue Ridge Mountains off in the distance.

 

One day Cobb interrupted the owner, saying “I can’t take all the credit; I have to credit God for this.” Cobb then hesitated for a second or two before saying “but we worked closely with him.”

 

Cobb’s sense of humor, among many other talents, served the golf course architect well over a magnificent career, which saw him design or revamp more than 200 courses, many in the Carolinas, earning him induction into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame Class of 2019. 

 

Cobb passed away in 1986, but most of his golf architectural works live on, capturing the imagination of millions upon millions of golfers since his career began in 1945 with the first golf course at Camp Lejeune. He joins other such architectural legends such as Donald Ross, Tom Fazio and Ellis Maples in the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame.  

 

Cobb, a World War II Marine, would go on to design numerous other military courses, as well as maybe his most famous work – The Par 3 Course at Augusta National.

 

“Mr. Cobb used to say the Par 3 Course at Augusta National was his best golf course when critics would ask him about his favorite design,” said John LaFoy, who as a teenager was best friends with Cobb’s son and would later go on to team up with the elder Cobb on golf course design work. “He was proud of working at Augusta National but he also knew it would not offend any of the other clients he had ever worked for. I’ve always thought that was a good answer.”

 

Despite growing up in Savannah, Ga., a majority of Cobb’s designs stretch from the coast to the mountains of both the Carolinas. “My father was a Georgia native but a Carolinian by choice,” Cobb Jr. said.

 

A few of Cobb’s early designs were instrumental in helping Hilton Head become a national golfing Mecca. 

 

“Dad always thought that the design of his first two Hilton Head courses was the main reason for the continued success and overall popularity of the region,” Cobb Jr. said. “If those inaugural courses – The Ocean and Sea Marsh at Sea Pines – had turned out to be mediocre maybe Hilton Head wouldn’t be the popular destination it is today.”

 

Cobb’s designs serviced a diverse section of the nation’s golfers, from those on the Armed Forces who have played on his military designs to students at colleges in North Carolina, Maryland and New York.

 

“I can only imagine how many University of North Carolina students have played Finley Golf Course while they should have been studying,” Cobb Jr. said.

 

Cobb helped mentored LaFoy, who he worked with at Linville Ridge, and fellow Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame member Tom Jackson.

 

“I learned so much from watching what he did and just being around him,” LaFoy says. “One of the biggest things I learned was his interaction with clients. He was such a personable guy, had a good sense of humor and he just knew how to not only treat clients but he knew how to get new work. I tell people this all the time that the only criteria of becoming a golf course architect is to get somebody to hire you.

 

“He was able to do that. He just had a way with clients. He was old school. He knew as much about golf architecture as he did course construction, which is really, really important.”

 

Cobb was a member of the first graduating class in the school of landscape architecture at University of Georgia, and was one of a very few golf course architects in his time to hold memberships in both the American Society of Golf Course Architects as well as the American Society of Landscape Architects.

 

LaFoy laughs about one encounter he and Cobb had with a golf course owner, who had been divorced six times. There was a slight disagreement over a portion of the course construction and the owner told Cobb, “You know George, I can divorce you, too.” Cobb, like he had done so many times in his four-decade career, smoothed it over and rolled on to complete yet another golfing masterpiece. 

 

“Mr. Cobb never disagreed with his clients, but he was firm when he felt they were not right,” LaFoy said. “I learned another great lesson from Mr. Cobb that I still use today. He was always extremely fair to the golf course contractors. Even though he was working for the course owner Mr. Cobb new how hard a job golf course contractors have. He was tough on them but always fair.”

 

Golf course architecture is a unique blend of artistic ability, science and engineering – a combination of several different diverse disciplines, all of which Cobb had an abundance of.

 

“Mr. Cobb was so very gifted artistically; everything he did just kind of meshed together,” LaFoy says.

   

 

Thompson is the first career superintendent to be elected to the Hall of Fame. He pioneered the use of ryegrass fairway varieties in the Middle Atlantic region, including the Carolinas in the late '60s. A constant ally for turfgrass researchers, he provided “living laboratories” and research support at the Country Club of North Carolina in Pinehurst. In the early ‘90s, his experiments helped identify new bentgrass varieties leading to many of those in use today. He was among the first superintendents to actively promote wildlife habitats on golf courses.

 

Thompson is a past winner of Distinguished Service Awards from the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America and the Carolinas Golf Course Superintendents Association. In 2002, he received the USGA's highest turfgrass honor – the Green Section Award. Retired as a golf course superintendent, he now instructs aspiring golf course superintendents at Sandhills Community College .

 

George Thompson was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 2006

Grant Bennett is no stranger to Halls of Fame.  Prior to his induction into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame, the tall Winston-Salem, NC native was inducted into the South Carolina Golf Hall of Fame (1978), the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame (1980) and the Carolinas PGA Section Hall of Fame (1985).  Additionally, for a number of years, he served as either Vice President or President of the South Carolina Golf Hall of Fame.

 

Bennett is best remembered as a fine teacher and promoter of junior golf.  His multitude of pupils included fellow Hall of Famers Randy Glover, Jack Lewis Jr. and Carolyn Cudone.  A long-time head professional at Florence (SC) Country Club, Bennett established a junior program that produced many outstanding players; and the high school team he coached won a number of Southern Interscholastic titles.

 

Although he had moved to Columbia in 1979, the folks in Florence didn’t forget him.  In 1984, he became the first non-Rotarian to be named a Paul Harris Fellow, the highest honor bestowed by the Florence Rotary Club. 

 

Early in life, Bennett dreamed of being a big-league baseball player and later a tour golfer, but freak injuries ended the possibility.  Thus, he turned to teaching golf to youngsters.  He served as head professional at Country Club of South Carolina for 13 years, and later at two clubs in Columbia.

 

He served on the USGA Junior Committee for more than two decades, served as chairman of the PGA of America’s Junior Committee in 1959-’60, was twice named South Carolina Professional of the Year and was named Carolinas PGA Professional of the Year in 1956.

 

Grant Bennett was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 1988.

Van Hoy didn’t set out for a career in golf. A 1952 graduate of the University of North Carolina, He worked as a systems analyst at Western Electric in Winston-Salem until 1965. But sometime that year, he read in the newspaper that the executive directorship of the Carolinas Golf Association was open, applied for the job—and got it. Thus, an administrative giant was born.

When he took command of the CGA in 1965, it consisted of 136 member clubs, five championships and 7,046 handicap cards. When he departed after 26 years in 1991, the organization had grown to more than 550 member clubs, 14 major championships, more than 120,000 handicap cards. During his tenure the staff grew from one to four, which included the first agronomist employed by any sectional golf association in the country.

Other programs initiated under Van Hoy’s regime were the Carolinas Golf Foundation, which provides financial support to various universities and technical schools engaged in golf-oriented turf research; a group property-casualty insurance program; and seminars on the Rules of Golf for colleges and high schools.

Van Hoy served a term as President of the International Association of Golf Administrators in 1989.

Actually, Van Hoy didn’t retire from the CGA in 1991; he simply gave up the job of executive director to become director of a series of new one-day four-ball events for seniors conducted by the organization.

 

Hale B. Van Hoy was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 1992.

Regarded by many as “Mr. Golf” in South Carolina, Happ Lathrop has presided over the game as executive director of the South Carolina Golf Association across four decades. In 1976, he became the first full-time employee of the South Carolina Golf Association when membership involved 99 clubs (about 11,500 golfers) and assets stood at $50,000. Today, 32 years later, the association commands more than $1-million in assets and represents the interests of more than 70,000 golfers across nearly 300 clubs.

 

A fine player in his own right, Lathrop won the state amateur championship in 1968 as an 18-year-old, becoming the youngest to do so at that time. He was South Carolina Inter-Collegiate Champion in the same year. Yet it is his service as an administrator that he is best known for.

 

Lathrop also helped create one of the most successful and respected junior development programs in the country, through the South Carolina Junior Golf Association (1989) and the South Carolina Junior Golf Foundation (1995). In addition to producing numerous PGA Tour players, those organizations have fostered strong and healthy competition for juniors and awarded more than $300,000 in education scholarships and well over $100,000 to organizations for minority and disadvantaged youth.

 

For all of the events and organizations Lathrop has had a hand in creating or running, his efforts brokering relationships, sponsorships, and general goodwill for golf in the state are just as far-reaching. He was inducted into the South Carolina Golf Hall of Fame in 1997 and has also been recognized as Father-of-the-Year by the National Father and Son Team Classic tournament in Myrtle Beach .

 

Happ Lathrop was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 2008.

While football was his main game in college—as a lineman under the legendary Wallace Wade at Duke University—it was in golf that Welch made his mark.  He not only was a fine player, but he also proved to be a great leader.

 

Welch teamed up with fellow Hall of Famer Dale Morey to win the Carolinas Senior Four-Ball Championship on eight occasions, including the first four times the championship was played, from 1969 to 1974.  He and Jack Crist won the Carolinas Four-Ball title in 1963 and he and son Charles captured the Carolinas Father-Son Championship in 1977.

 

His most satisfying golfing achievement, perhaps, was in the 1966 Carolinas Amateur Championship at Linville Golf Club, where he had a monumental struggle on the way to the title.  In the quarterfinals, he needed 21 holes to prevail over Dillard Traynham and in the semi-finals, he went to the 20th hole before toppling the legendary Billy Joe Patton.  In the championship match, he disposed of Joe Inman Jr., then a member of the Wake Forest University golf team, 5 and 4.

 

Additionally, Welch was medalist in the Carolinas Amateur in 1951 and ‘52 and reached the championship match in 1951, where he was defeated 2 & 1 by P.J. Boatwright Jr.

Welch, who served on the CGA’s Board of Directors for more than 40 years, was the organization’s President from 1959 to 1960.

 

Harry Welch was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 1981.

 

Welch (L) pictured with PJ Boatwright.

Born in Plymouth, Mass., Henry Picard is a long time resident of Charleston, SC, where he moved as a young man.  He was one of the outstanding golfers of the 1930's and his swing was one of the finest in the game. Besides winning two of the Big Four Championships, he was successful in about thirty other tournaments in the twenty years of his playing career, which began in 1925.
 
His best finishes in the British and US Opens were 6th in 1935 and tied for 6th in 1936, respectively.
 
He experimented a good deal with his swing but never to the extent of damaging it.  In general, his game was conservative; he was a fine long iron player but seldom went for the difficult shot unless circumstances dictated.  He is the only player to ever defeat Walter Hagen in a play-off, which he did in the 1932 Carolina’s Open.

In 1935, he became a professional at Hershey, Pennsylvania, and almost immediately came to the fore, winning six tournaments in the same year; two in partnership with Johnny Revolta.  In 1938 he won the Masters by two strokes over Ralph Guldahl and “Lighthouse” Harry Cooper.  The following year he reached his peak, defeating Byron Nelson in the final of the PGA Championship with birdies on the 36th and 37th holes.  He also won five other tournaments, was leading money winner and was a member of his third Ryder Cup Team.

When in 1942 the war stopped the tour he virtually retired from competition, later taking a job at Cleveland’s Country Club.  His last attempt at a major title was to reach the semi-finals of the National PGA in 1950, played at the Scioto Country Club, Columbus, Ohio.  Since departing the tour he has become known far and wide as an instructor and players of all calibers seek his advice.

Mr. Picard was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 1983.  He is also a member of the National PGA Hall of Fame, the Carolinas PGA Hall of Fame, and the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame.

A partial listing of Mr. Picard’s accomplishments include:

1934-1936

Winner, The North and South Open (Discontinued 1951)

1935

Winner, The Metropolitan Open

1937

Winner, The Argentine Open

1938

Winner, The Masters

 

Winner, The Hershey Open

 

Winner, The Charleston Open

1939

Winner, USF&G. Classic

 

Winner, PGA Championship

 

(Semi-Finalist 1938 and 1950)

 

A native of Durham, NC  and a long-time resident of High Point, NC, Henry Poe played collegiate golf at Duke University. His amateur career was highlighted with victories in the Eastern Amateur in 1934 and 1935.  At Durham’s Hillandale Golf Club, which his father operated, he once shot 61, a record that still stands.  He also once posted a record 63 at Hope Valley CC in Durham.

Poe became a professional in 1937, and in that year’s Mid South Open, his first pro event, he was tied for the lead at the end of regulation play, but went on to lose an 18-hole playoff at Pinehurst No. 2 to Dutch Harrison.

He later became an assistant professional at Winged Foot GC, and then succeeded Byron Nelson at Redding (PA) CC in 1940.  He remained there until 1966, when he was hired to build and operate three golf courses in Alabama.  After retiring, Poe moved back to his native state in 1985.

A PGA member for more than 50 years, he was active in PGA affairs at both the sectional and national level.  He was a five-time president of the Philadelphia PGA Section in the 1950's, was a PGA of America Director from 1957-’59, and chaired the PGA’s Annual Meeting from 1958-’69.  He served as Treasurer of the PGA from 1970-’72, as Secretary from 1973-’74 and as President from 1975-’76.  His legacy as PGA President was establishing the National Junior Golf Foundation and the Business Schools for apprentice professionals.

Poe served as a member of the Masters Rules Committee for ten years and as a Director of the PGA Tour Policy Board from 1971-’76.  He is also a member of the Philadelphia PGA Hall of Fame and the Carolinas PGA Hall of Fame.

Henry Poe was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 1988.

The quality of Howard Ward's writing and his longevity as a golf reporter for newspapers and golf publications put him in elite company in the Carolinas.

 

Ward's honest appraisal of the game and the people who play it has greatly benefited the sport. When circumstances called, he has shown the toughness required of a good reporter, but he was never one to take cheap shots for the sake of spicing up stories. He continues to cover golf with integrity that all reporters should emulate.

 

Ward worked for the Fayetteville Observer for 41 years, the last 27 years as sports editor, retiring in 1997. He has worked since 1998 as lead golf writer for The Pilot newspaper in Southern Pines/Pinehurst, and has freelanced for Golfweek, Golf World and Golf Magazine, as well as for newspapers in Great Britain and Canada. He was editor of the Golf Record of the Carolinas for eight years, has been a CGRA member since 1970, served as vice-president in 1979 and president in 1980, during which the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame was organized, and served on the Hall of Fame selection committee through 2008.

 

He's covered 22 Masters, seven U.S. Men's Opens, three PGA Championships, three U.S. Women's Opens, two U.S. Amateur Championships, two PGA Tour Championships and one LPGA Championship,. In addition, he has covered scores of other PGA and LPGA events as well as Carolinas Golf Association, CPGA Section events and numerous local events.

 

Ward penned what might've been the first national article on Michelle Wie for Golfweek when she competed in the 2000 WAPL Championship at Legacy Golf Links as a 10-year-old. He's won numerous North Carolina Press Association and CGRA awards, and has been recognized by the Carolinas Golf Course Superintendents Association for continued reporting of members' activities.