Ike Grainger’s playing record hardly deserves a second glance, with his major prize being the Lyons Trophy, which he received for posting low net in the US Seniors’ GA Championship in 1960. One other golf achievement was serving as non-playing captain of the US Team that won the World Amateur Team Championship in 1964.

As a golf administrator, however, he was without peer. A native of Wilmington, NC, he went on to become President of Chemical Bank in New York City. Ike Grainger played a significant role in the northeastern golf scene and eventually rose to the Presidency of the US Golf Association. After serving on various committees in the Metropolitan Golf Association, he served as that organization’s President from 1943 to 1945. With the USGA, he was Secretary from 1946 to 1949, Vice-President from 1950 to 1953 and President from 1954 to 1955. He was a member of numerous USGA committees during his long affiliation with the organization, including 11 years on the Executive Committee, 16 years on the Rules of Golf Committee and 16 years on the Bob Jones Award Committee.

In 1951, he was Chairman of the USGA Negotiating Committee that carved out the first uniform code of the Rules of Golf with the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews.

Although he lived in New York, Grainger maintained a second residence in Wilmington and was a member at Cape Fear Country Club. His other club affiliations included Augusta National, Pine Valley in Clinton, New Jersey and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews.

Ike Grainger was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 1993.

Irwin Smallwood is a retired executive sports editor of the Greensboro News & Record.  He was managing editor of the Greensboro Daily News for 15 years and a founder of the Carolinas Golf Reporters Association.  Irwin served as the CGRA’s first president in 1957 and 1958.  His work has appeared in national publications, and he won three first place awards in Golf Writers Association of America (GWAA) competition.  Smallwood recruited players for and was a key advisor to the Greater Greensboro Open (GGO) over the years.  At his suggestion, the GGO first extended an invitation to Charlie Sifford to play.  He chaired GGO’s 50th anniversary program and celebration honoring Sam Snead.  One of the Carolinas greatest golf advocates.

Irwin Smallwood was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 1991.

Jack Lewis Jr. was one of the all-time great junior golfers in the Carolinas history.  He won the Carolinas Junior three consecutive years (1963-1965), the South Carolina High School Championship in 1964, the Southern High School Championship in 1963 and ‘64 and the South Carolina Amateur in 1964 at age 17.  Lewis also propelled his McClenaghan High School team to four State Championships and five Southern High Schools titles.

He was the first four-year recipient of the prestigious Buddy Worsham scholarship at Wake Forest University.  He would lose only one individual match during his college career, which began in 1966.  A member of the 1967 Walker Cup team and the 1968 World Amateur team, Lewis earned first-team All-American honors in 1968 and 1969.  All three Wake Forest teams of which Lewis was a member won the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship, including 1968 when he was the individual champion.

Lewis played in the 1967 and 1968 Masters Tournaments as an amateur.  He won the Sunnehanna Amateur in 1966, the North and South Amateur in 1968 and the South Carolina Open in 1968.  After a brief stint on the PGA Tour, Lewis returned to Winston-Salem in 1975 to become head professional at Forsyth Country Club.  During his 10 years at Forsyth, he won the North Carolina Open three times (1979, ‘80 and ‘84) and the Carolinas Open in 1980.  He was named Carolinas PGA Section Player of the Year in 1980.

After moving to Atlanta Athletic Club, he won the 1986 Georgia PGA Match Play title.  Lewis became Associate Coach at Wake Forest in 1989 and became Head Coach when Jesse Haddock retired in 1992.

Lewis is a member of the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame and the South Carolina Golf Hall of Fame.

Jack Lewis, Jr was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 1987.

Few individuals have had a deeper or more lasting influence on golf in the Carolinas than Jack Nance, whose more than four decades of service to the Carolinas Golf Association established the CGA as one of the most respected and largest golf associations in the United States. Under his leadership, the CGA expanded its membership, enhanced agronomic and handicapping services, and elevated the quality of its championships. His vision was instrumental in constructing the Carolinas Golf House and strengthening relationships throughout the golf community.

Nance officiated at more than 30 USGA championships, served as President of the International Association of Golf Administrators, and supported endless initiatives to advance women’s, junior, and adaptive golf. His colleagues and peers described him as a mentor, ambassador and steady force who elevated every person and program he touched.

A native and lifelong resident of Orangeburg, South Carolina, Jane Crum Covington began playing golf at age 13.  She won the South Carolina Women’s Amateur five times, the Carolinas Women’s Amateur five times and the Florida East Coast Championship on two occasions.  Her husband, Hub, was the 1942 Carolinas Amateur Champion.

A past member of the USGA Junior Girls’ Committee, she was among the founders and served as the first President of the South Carolina Women’s Golf Association.

In her youth, she played on the boys high school team, and, while she made the mens golf team at the University of South Carolina, she wasn’t allowed to play in competition.  During her career, she also wasn’t allowed to play at some men only clubs; but she didn’t call it discrimination.

“I always thought it was a shame. I hated to be told that because I was born a woman I couldn’t play at some clubs when my son, who was six years old could.”,  she once said.

Mrs. Jane Covington was inducted into the South Carolina Golf Hall of Fame in 1978.

Jane Covington was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 1989.

Jay Haas was introduced to golf by his uncle, 1968 Masters winner Bob Goalby. A graduate of the legendary Wake Forest golf program, under Jesse Haddock, Haas became a fixture of golfs highest echelon for decades, setting the record for most cuts ever made in PGA Tour history. He won nine times on the PGA Tour and soon approached the mark on the Champions Tour including his first major win, the 2006 Senior PGA Championship.

After a distinguished amateur career that included Walker Cup representation and the NCAA individual championship, Haas earned his PGA Tour card in 1976. the quality and the durability of his game was evident in the fact that he played on the U.S. Ryder Cup teams in 1983, 1995 as a 50-year-old captains pick in 2004. From his home in Greer, South Carolina alongside the golf course at Thornblade, Haas has raised a family including sons Jay, Jr. and Bill, both of whom would play on the PGA Tour. In 2004, Jay and Bill became the first father and son duo to play in the U.S.Open, twice. A brother, Jerry, was long-time golf coach at Wake Forest and brother-in-law, Dillard Pruitt, also played on the PGA Tour and later served as a tour rules official

Jesse Haddock is credited with redefining the term “college golf coach.”  Prior to taking over the position at Wake Forest University, golf coaches were generally regarded as combination bus drivers/baby-sitters. Before he retired in the 1992, his dedication to duty and the success of his program had made the position as respectable as football or basketball coach. A 1952 graduate of Wake Forest, Haddock became golf coach in 1960 when the legendary “Bones” McKinney resigned. 

Three years later, his Demon Deacons won the first of the 18 Atlantic Coast Conference titles they would claim during his regime.  From 1967-77, the Deacons won the ACC crown 10 straight times, and in 1974 and ‘75, Haddock led the team to consecutive NCAA Championships.  Another NCAA title was added in 1986. Under Haddock, 16 Wake Forest golfers won the individual ACC title, while three of his players won the NCAA individual championship —Curtis Strange in 1974, Jay Haas in 1975 and Gary Hallberg in 1979.  Haddock’s players earned All-American recognition 63 times.

Other notable golfers who played for Haddock include: Billy Andrade, Gary Hallberg, Scott Hoch, Joe Inman, Jack Lewis, Jay Sigel, Leonard Thompson, David Thore, Lanny Wadkins and Robert Wrenn. Haddock, who twice coached the prestigious NCAA All-Star team against Japan, was inducted into the Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame in 1980 and into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 1990.

Jesse Haddock was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 1985.

The hallmark of Jim Ferree’s career in professional golf has been courage.  In 1991, at age 60, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  Three years later, he would beat the illness and receive the prestigious Ben Hogan Award, presented annually by the Golf Writers Association of America.

As a player, Ferree made his mark on three different fronts.  He was an outstanding collegian at the University of North Carolina and was the first Tar Heel golfer inducted into the UNC Sports Hall of Fame in 1991.  He played on the PGA Tour for 11 years and won the 1958 Vancouver Centennial, firing a 61 on his way to beating Billy Casper.  He served the game for years on the club level, nearly winning the 1978 PGA Club Professional Championship, losing in a playoff.

Ferree was born in Pinebluff, North Carolina, and grew up in Winston-Salem, where he attended Reynolds High School. He learned the game of golf from his father, Purvis, long-time pro at Winston-Salem's Old Town Golf Club. Jim attended the University of North Carolina and was a member of the golf team, and had but one PGA Tour win during his regular career years. He was regarded as one of the very best in the game in the tee-to-green ball-striking phase of the game, but putting was always his Achilles' heel. He spent most of his thirties and forties as the director of golf at Long Cove Club in Hilton Head, SC. His career reached full blossom in 1981 when he joined the Senior PGA Tour. He was chosen by PGA Commissioner Deane Beman to be the model for the knickers-wearing player on the Senior Tour's logo. He shares the Georgia-Pacific Grand Champions record for most victories (9) with two other golfers. He was the Senior PGA Tour's Comeback Player of the Year in 1993.  

He has won twice in 15 years and has been among the top 15 season money winner five times.  Now, as a Super Senior on the Vantage Classics series, he won nine titles in 1994, and won more than $255,000, the most money ever won by a Super Senior in a season. Jim, his wife Karen, and their young son, Purvis Jennings Ferree Jr., live on Hilton Head Island.

Jim Ferree was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 1995.

By Dave Droschak

Payne Stewart’s dramatic winning putt on the final hole of the 1999 U.S. Open galvanized the world of golf 20 years ago this summer and to this day remains one of the game’s most iconic moments.

Stewart’s clutch putt played out in front of tens of thousands of fans huddled around the 18th green at Pinehurst No. 2, and many millions more glued to their TV sets. But there was also a behind-the-scenes hero of that Open who played a vital role in the success of the championship and the USGA’s now long-standing relationship with one of golf’s historic resorts.

Jim Hyler Jr., the former president of First Citizens Bank and one of the state’s most influential businessman of his generation, was called upon more than two decades ago to serve as chairman of the 1999 U.S. Open President’s Council – a monumental task of gathering support for one of golf’s majors in a location that was anything but a slam dunk for the USGA.

It was Hyler’s role in that Open and his unlikely 12-year stint in the USGA ranks that eventually saw him rise to USGA president that helped get him elected to the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame Class of 2019. Hyler also spearheaded countless charitable efforts associated with golf over the years across the state, including serving as chairman of the First Tee of Wake County in 2005.

“Perhaps Jim’s greatest achievement was his leadership of a group that administered the U.S. Open at the legendary Pinehurst Resort,” says John Bodenhamer, senior managing director of championships for the USGA. “While the USGA had always recognized Pinehurst No. 2 as one of the world’s finest, it never thought it could host a U.S. Open because of the agronomic limitations and because of its remote location to which fans and corporate dollars would not travel. Jim put together a group that overcame these challenges and by all measures staged one of the most successful U.S. Opens of all time, bringing notoriety to the USGA, the state of North Carolina and Pinehurst Resort.”

Hyler grew up on a tobacco farm in rural southside Virginia, with no access to golf.

“I had kind of beat some golf balls around in our yard at home but never really played to speak of until I went to Virginia Tech, and at the time there was a golf course on the edge of campus. I started playing golf on that little 9-hole course.”

Hyler says he also fell in love with Arnold Palmer in the early 1960s as he headed into his teenage years.

“Arnold Palmer really was a crucial part of my developing an interest in golf,” Hyler says. “I just found him to be an incredible personality and player, and really followed him. He’s my all-time sports hero. That had a whole lot to do with me falling in love with the game.”

After serving on the President’s Council for the U.S. Open in 1999 Hyler says was unexpectedly tabbed to serve as a member of the USGA executive committee from 2004-2011, rising to the position of USGA President in 2010-2011.

“Working with the business community across North Carolina to support the 1999 Open was my first exposure to the USGA,” Hyler recalls. “I developed some friendships there with Mike Davis and David Fay and so on, but then I got a call out of the blue in 2003 – totally out of the blue – asking me if I was interested in interviewing to go on the executive committee. I honestly asked the guy if he had the right number. He assured me he did. Being on the USGA executive committee, and spending four of those years chairing the championship committee and two years as president, was really was an incredible eight years. I’m sure thousands of people would have loved the opportunity to do that. My wife and I were able to meet a lot of wonderful people, make a lot of lifelong friends and travel to some fabulous places around the world. It was very cool.”

Hyler was also a founding board member of Old Chatham Golf Club in Durham County, serving as club president from 2005-2006. His business vision helped usher the club through a difficult beginning after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers.

“And probably one of Jim’s lasting legacies is his commitment to amateur golf, which has led Old Chatham to adopt a goal of hosting one major amateur championship or qualifying tournament each year which will culminate with the club hosting the 2019 U.S. Senior Amateur Championship,” said Old Chatham club president Allen Wilson.

“It is such an incredible game; there is no other game like it,” Hyler says when asked about selfless contributions to golf. “The game itself you are outside, you have a chance to be with your friends; you call penalties on yourself and there is really no other sport that does that. It is just an incredible game. If we can reach one kid and make a change in their life it’s worth it. I just love the game and what it’s about and just want to impart all the traditions and values of the game. Allowing others to be exposed to golf is very important to me.”

Hyler remains a solid 6.2 handicap between a few back surgeries and a recent rotator cuff operation.

“I kind of scrape it around now and have a decent short game,” Hyler says, chuckling.

A humble steward to the game of golf says he was humbled when informed he was heading into select company of the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame on Feb. 9 at a banquet in Columbia, S.C. 

“It really was disbelief, just very surprised,” Hyler says. “It’s just like everything in my golf journey here the past 20 years I had no idea that something like this would happen. At the same time gratitude because it’s a great honor and something I never expected or considered.”

The ninth of 12 children who grew up in a home off the second fairway of Roxboro Golf Club, where his father worked on the course, Jim Thorpe learned the game by going out after dark and hitting shots, with the only illumination provided by the back porch light.

A running back in high school, he earned a football scholarship to Morgan State, but abandoned that sport after two years to devoted more time to golf. Thorpe’s brother Chuck played the PGA Tour in the early 1970s and Jim followed suit in the 1975. He lost his playing privileges and returned to the tour’s qualifying tournament in 1978, when he shared medalist honors with John Fought.

After rejoining the circuit, he won three times—at the 1985 Greater Milwaukee Open, where he won by three strokes over Jack Nicklaus, and the Seiko-Tucson Match Play 1985 and 1986. He also won the Canadian PGA championship in 1982. Thorpe also held the distinction of being low pro in the 1985 Western Open, losing in sudden-death to Scott Verplank, who became the first amateur to win a tour event since Gene Littler in 1954.

During his career on the Tour, Thorpe amassed nearly $2 million in earnings, with his best season coming in 1986 when he pocketed $326,087 to finish 15th on the money list

When Jimmy D’Angelo first saw Myrtle Beach in November 1937, as winter golf professional at the Ocean Forest Club—the Grand Strand had one golf course.  That was it.  Ocean Forest.

Now Ocean Forest is called Pine Lakes International; and the Grand Strand, at this time has many more courses.

It’s impossible, of course, to point a finger at any one person and say “This is the man responsible for the golf boom along the Grand Strand.”

But the name of Jimmy D’Angelo would be among those mentioned.

D’Angelo was involved in the creation of The Dunes Club in Myrtle Beach, which is considered one of the nation’s best courses.   He was the Dunes Club’s head professional from the club’s inception in 1949 until his retirement in 1968.  During that time D’Angelo helped promote and develop Myrtle Beach as a prime golf location.

D’Angelo was the first president of Golf Holiday, an organization that promotes the area to golfers all over the nation.  As a result, millions of golfers visit Myrtle Beach every year. 

Jimmy D’Angelo was inducted into the Carolinas PGA Hall of Fame in 1984 and the South Carolina Golf Hall of Fame in 1985.

Joe Cheves first came in contact with golf as a caddie and “sometimes” player in 1928.  “It’s been a love affair ever since,” he said at his induction ceremony.

After military service, he became head professional at Twin Valley Country Club in Wadesboro, NC, then moved to Mimosa Hills Country Club in Morganton, NC There, Joe was head professional from 1951 until his retirement in 1981.

A four-time winner of the Carolinas PGA Section Seniors’ Championship, Cheves was founder and long-time President of the American Golf Association, which stages several senior tournaments around the nation each year.

One of his biggest moments as a player came in the 1978 U.S. PGA Seniors’ Championship at Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL, where he nearly won.  Tied at the end of the regulation 72-hole with Joe Jimenez and Manuel de la Torre, Cheves had to settle for second place when Jimenez birdied the first hole of a sudden-death playoff.

Cheves twice received major honors from the Carolinas PGA Section.  In 1964, he was named CPGA Professional of the Year.  Joe Cheves was inducted into the Carolinas PGA Hall of Fame in 1994.

Joe Cheves was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 1989.