Cliff Cunningham was first an electronic technician for AT&T and, second, a good local golfer through most of his amateur days in the Charlotte area.

 

Cunningham began playing in state senior events when he became eligible in 1990.  His golf resume did not sizzle until 1997, when he won the USGA Senior Amateur championship at the Atlantic Golf Club in Bridgehampton, N.Y.  His senior career popped when he won his first North Carolina Senior Amateur championship in 1994.

 

But for four years, Cunningham wondered if he had the talent to play senior golf at the state level.  He resolved those doubts by beating a solid field in the North Carolina Senior at Rolling Hills Country Club near his home in Monroe, N.C.  He followed that a year later with a playoff victory in the same event, again at Rolling Hills.  He shrugged off being labeled a one-course victor by winning the title again in 1996 at Wilson Country Club, again in a playoff.  He followed with titles in 2001 and 2002 at Starmount Forest Country Club in Greensboro and at Raintree Country Club in Charlotte.

 

His USGA experience was unique.  At that time, he had won four state crowns; and he went to New York playing well.  He had failed to qualify for match play in two previous USGA Seniors, and that became his goal in 1997.  “I thought I might even win a match or two,” he recalled.  “But I liked the course, and my putting was the best in had been in some time.  The longer I played, the better I played.”  Cunningham needed two extra holes to win his quarterfinal match, even though he was three holes up with only four to play.  He was under par in his semifinal 5 and 3 victory, and his final-match margin also was 5 and 3.

 

Cunningham is part owner of Eagle Chase Golf Club in Marshville, NC.

 

Cliff Cunningham was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 2002.

According to Golfweek and Golf Digest magazines, only one living golf course architect rivals the legendary Donald Ross for the number of top courses in the USA.  That architect, Tom Fazio, moved his home to North Carolina in his prime designing years, much as Ross did a century earlier.

 

Many architects have design in their blood, and Fazio is among them.  He started at age 17, assisting his uncle, George Fazio, in a firm that was Tom’s on-the-job training.  He became a partner with Uncle George in the 1970s, took over the business in the early 1980s and created his own firm shortly thereafter.

 

One of his early co-creations with George was Pinehurst No. 6 Course (1978).  Tom’s solo work such as the Wild Dunes Links Course (1980) on the Isle of Palms, S.C. got him national recognition.

His best judged Carolinas works at the turn of the century were Wade Hampton GC in the North Carolina mountains (1987), Forest Creek GC in the North Carolina Sandhills (1996), and Belfair Club West Course on the South Carolina coast (1995).  The variety of his designs over all types of terrain is testimony to his creativity.  “A golf course should reflect the natural beauty of its environment,” he said in describing his design theory in part.

 

His other North Carolina designs include Champion Hills GC, Eagle Point GC, Old North State Club, Pinehurst No. 8, Porters Neck P&CC, Treyburn CC and complete redesigns of Pinehurst No. 4 and UNC Finley GC in Chapel Hill.

 

His other South Carolina designs are Barefoot Resort’s Fazio Course, Belfair’s East Course, both courses at Berkeley Hall, Callawassie Island, Cliffs at Keowee Vineyards, Cotton Dike Course at Dataw Island, The Daniel Island Club, Moss Creek Plantation’s Devil’s Elbow Course, the Osprey Point Course on Kiawah Island, the Fazio Course at Palmetto Dunes, Sage Valley GC, The River Course at Kiawah Island, Thornblade Club, TPC at Myrtle Beach, Wachesaw Plantation Club, the Harbor Course at Wild Dunes and Woodcreek Farms.

 

Tom Fazio was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 2002.

A bout with rheumatic fever at age 10 turned young Bobby Knowles from tennis to golf, a fate he never minded. A native of Brookline, Mass., Knowles won the Eastern Interscholastic golf championship at age 16 and the Maine Amateur in 1937.

Buoyed by his triumphs, he turned professional the same year. The son of a well-to-do stockbroker, he had no problem pursuing his dreams. On the 1939 winter tour of the PGA (the forerunner of the PGA Tour), he traveled and played much of the time with Sam Snead, using Bobby’s Cadillac for transportation.

World War II and the 26th Infantry of the U.S. Army cut short his golf career. During the war, he was stationed in Augusta, Ga., and decided to remain in the South after the war. He relocated to Aiken, S.C. Knowles regained his amateur status and continued to travel the world in pursuit of golf. He won the Massachusetts Amateur in 1949, a championship for which he qualified ultimately 12 times. He won the New England Amateur in 1950 and was named to the 1951 U.S. Walker Cup team.

Bobby became the first resident of the Palmetto State to be named to a Walker Cup team, a victorious team at that. In 1951, he won the French Amateur at Chantilly Golf Club near Paris. These led to invitations to the 1952 and 1953 Masters Tournaments.

As a senior player, his talent did not diminish, winning the 1965 and 1966 Carolinas Senior Amateurs. He tied for second place in the 1967 and 1968 senior championships. He won the South Carolina Senior Amateur title in 1964 and 1967. Knowles other titles include the Tri-State Open three times and the Palmetto Golf Club seven times. He has been a member of Palmetto Golf Club since 1947.

Bobby returned to The Masters each year after his playing appearances and served on the tournament scoring committee for 28 years. He is a great-grandson of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Although a Massachusetts native, Bobby Knowles spent his adult years and earned his golf honors while living in Aiken, South Carolina. He was the first Palmetto State resident to be named to a Walker Cup team, and his 1951 side won the cup for the U.S.

At age 16, Knowles won the Eastern Interscholastic. He won the Maine Amateur in 1937, the Massachusetts Amateur in 1949 and the New England Amateur in 1950. A year later, he won the French Amateur near Paris, leading to a pair of Masters Tournament invitations.

 

Bobby Knowles was inducted in the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 2001.

Instead of following his father’s career into the tobacco industry, Cecil Brandon pursued one in golf.  And even that path was different from most in the game, following his graduation from Davidson College, a stint in the U.S. Army (and Korea) and two years as an insurance salesman.

Brandon could have been a club professional and might even have pursued a playing career with a career-low handicap of plus two.  Instead, at age 29, he moved to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where he produced and sold advertising postcards, leaving behind a potential banking career. 

 

Eight years later, he and a trusted few friends started a company that would drive Myrtle Beach into the “golf capital of the world.”  He was part of Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday from its inception in 1967, serving as executive director for 30 years.  Brandon is credited with spearheading the golf package marketing effort that has seen the area grow from eight courses and 10 motels to more than 100 of each. 

 

Brandon was instrumental in attracting the Senior PGA Tour Championship to the area in 1993 and 1994.  Golf Holiday hosts the World Amateur Handicap tournament each year, the largest single-site gathering of amateur players in the world, attracting nearly 5,000 competitors from all over the world. 

 

Brandon also worked closely with the PGA Tour to develop the Tournament Players Club of Myrtle Beach.  His efforts on behalf of Myrtle Beach have brought worldwide attention not only to his home but also to golf in the state of South Carolina. Brandon Advertising is a successful agency in Myrtle Beach.

 

He has been honored by South Carolina with the Order of the Palmetto, Tourism Ambassador of the Year, Citizen of the Year, the state tourism award and –special to him – Parent of the Year.

 

Cecil Brandon was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 2001

The chance for an eleven-year-old to make 25 cents carrying a bag of golf clubs for nine holes doesn’t sound like much today. But for Johnny Bulla in 1925, it was the first of many opportunities that he turned into a Hall-of-Fame career.

 

From those humble beginnings in Burlington, Bulla went on to set a standard of great golf that was finally recognized earlier this year with his induction into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame.

 

Bullas father, a Quaker minister, moved the family from Asheboro to Burlington as young Johnny was starting grade school. After a few years kicking around Bigger Better Burlington, Bulla found out you could make some good money as a caddie at Burlington Country Club. The old country club is no longer around but stood near what is now Williams High School. Bullas father wasn’t very fond of his son being a caddie. At the first sign of spring, Bulla would kick off his shoes and walk barefoot down the fairways looping for the members. He liked the money but he didn’t have any interest in playing.

 

“I didn’t start playing until I found out they had a caddie tournament and all the caddies had to play. I finished last and was embarrassed”, laughed Bulla. “I worked my fanny off after until I got better.” Bulla learned a lot about life from his parents and from those early years as a caddie. He was Burlington Industries founder Spencer Loves favorite caddie.

 

The best lesson he ever learned in life was when Staley Cook, owner of the newspaper in Burlington, offered him a dollar if Staley beat this doctor he always lost to.

 

“Staley was a good player but had a terrible slice off the tee”, Bulla recounted. I would race ahead and pick up the ball with my toes and place it on top of the Bermuda grass. Cook won the match and Bulla collected the dollar.

 

Two weeks later the doctor invited Bulla to caddie for him in Pinehurst. It would be Bullas first trip to Pinehurst, but Bulla never saw the course. When they arrived the doctor gave him 50 cents and told him to catch the bus back home. He told me, I saw you cheating for Staley picking the ball up with your toes and teeing it up. That stayed with me all of my life. I never cheated anyone again.

At age 18, Bulla hitchhiked to Pinehurst to play in his first professional event. His curiosity led him to hitchhike to Georgia to see the course Bobby Jones was building. Along the way he slept in the back seats of cars. In 1933 he hitchhiked to Chicago to watch the U.S. Open; he could not have imagined he would play in the same tournament three years later. That same curiosity led him to frequently visit Pinehurst and watch Donald Ross create his magic on the No. 2 course.

 

Bulla joined what is now the PGA Tour in 1935 and played into the 1960s. At the 1935 Louisville Open, Bulla became friends with Sam Snead; and, for the next few years, they traveled together. Snead noted, Traveling with Johnny in those days probably helped me handle the successes and the failures. I always remember what he said about life. It's like a three-legged stool with equal parts spiritual, mental and physical. It can't stand up without solid foundation in each part of your life.

 

Bulla was a hard worker on tour; the number of practice balls he hit rivaled Ben Hogan's. Bulla was among the best long-game players of his day.

 

I was one of the top four or five longest drivers on tour and I was very accurate. Sam used to say I was the best one-iron player of our time. But, he admits, I was probably the worst putter on tour. The shorter the shot, the worse I got.

 

Bulla was a naturally left-handed but was told to do everything right-handed growing up. Later in his forties he tried playing left-handed and finished second in the National Lefties Tournament.

 

His greatest moment might have been the 1939 British Open at St. Andrews. In miserable conditions, he drove flawlessly and never missed a fairway. The driver is on display in the Royal & Ancient Golf Club Museum, but his name is missing from the claret jug. He finished early that day and was the leader in the clubhouse. He held the lead until Dick Burton, playing in the final group, caught him and won with a birdie on the last hole.

 

All was not lost; Bullas wife bore him a son that day named Robert Bob Jones Bulla named after his Georgian friend.

 

The British Open was suspended until after the war. When it resumed Bulla picked up where he left off and finished second to Sam Snead in 1946. He tied for second in the 1949 Masters Tournament. He came close to winning all four events now considered the Grand Slam. In 1939, he led the U.S. Open after 54 holes but finished sixth; and he gained the round of eight in the 1948 PGA Championship.

 

Another great accomplishment was his string of cuts made in the U.S. Open from 1936 to 1954. He played in 18 U.S. Opens, 15 Masters and 9 British Opens. Bulla played in 40 consecutive Los Angeles Opens, the site of his lone tour triumph in the 1941.

 

Bulla endorsed Walgreens Drug Store's low-priced Po-Do golf ball. This cost him invitations to many tour events, and he was banned from the PGA Championship and the Ryder Cup from 1936 to 1946.

 

Walgreens offered Bulla a plane to fly to the tournaments back in the 1930s. He was the first tour player to fly his own plane to tournaments. During World War II he moved to Greensboro and flew the Atlanta-to-Chicago route for Eastern Airlines. I played a lot of golf with Bobby Jones during the war. We normally played several times a week at East Lake , commented Bulla.

 

After the war he purchased a C-47 and converted it to a DC-3; Hogan was his co-pilot. He would charge players a small fare to ferry them to the next tournament.

 

In 1946, Sears and Roebuck signed him to a 10-year contract to represent them and create a line of Johnny Bulla clubs and balls. During this time Sears became the leading golf retailer in the nation.

 

It was also at this same time he moved his family to Arizona and founded Arizona Airways with Bob Goldwater. Bulla reflected, We were a little before our time in founding the airline. America West and Southwest Airlines are really doing well here now.

 

In Arizona, he helped design a half dozen courses. He won 42 sectional titles, including 10 PGA Chapter Opens and four Arizona Section Opens.

 

Today, at 86, he walks three miles a day and can be found most every day at Ocotillo Country Club in Chandler, Arizona.

 

In January of this year (2000) the Carolinas Golf Reporters Association inducted him into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame. A fitting tribute to a man that took every opportunity the American dream had to offer.

As one might expect from a man who has made a good living in the promotion business, Bill Hensley is a font of one-liners.

 

"I once won the 10th flight of a club championship and was runner-up a year later."

"I was expelled from Dana Rader’s golf school."

"I have made four holes-in-one and at least that many birdies."

"I have taken my classic three-piece, over-the-top swing to 14 foreign countries and hold the record for double bogeys in eight of those countries."

"I probably hold the world’s record for bets lost in foreign currencies."

 

It’s a good thing that Hensley, now 75, can laugh and self-deprecate about a golf game that leaves a lot to be desired and is a source of almost constant ridicule from his peers in the golf writing and promotion business, not, it must be noted, that those peers can necessarily produce anything better.

 

Hensley graduated from Wake Forest when it was still located north of Raleigh. Carol, before she became Mrs. Hensley, went out with a young WFU golfer with a first name of Arnold and a last name of Palmer.

 

"She dated the world’s best golfer and married the worst," says Hensley.

 

Feeling he was not going to get anywhere with sports as a participant, the tall and athletic looking Hensley decided to become a sports writer with the Asheville Citizen-Times. However, after writing a piece about the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Hensley joined the FBI for a couple of years until Jim Weaver, who would ultimately become the commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference, asked him to become sports information director at Wake Forest. He eventually took the same position at North Carolina State. His salary at the time was $7,000. On Hensley's departure from the FBI he noted, "It didn't take me long to realize the bad guys I was chasing had guns too."

 

After N.C. State, Hensley took positions with R.S. Dickson Company, Wachovia Bank, and Paramount’s Carowinds, the massive amusement park just south of Charlotte. After several years promoting roller coasters and their adjuncts, Hensley opened his own shop, providing services for a variety of clients - but he always felt a pull towards the game he loved.

 

"I suppose I just started to take on more and more golf and tourism clients to the point where promoting golf became my business," Hensley says. "Since that point, it’s never seemed like work."

 

Hensley also served for six years as North Carolina’s director of tourism from 1965-1971. In that capacity, he organized the state’s first golf guide and initiated a national advertising campaign designed to attract golfers to North Carolina . He routinely invited golf writers to the state from around the country. The fact that so many golfers visit North Carolina today can be attributed to Hensley’s work in the early 1970s.

 

Hensley’s clients from his private practice include the Old North State Club on Badin Lake , Ballantyne Resort in Charlotte , Elk River near Boone, Pinehurst Resort and Country Club, Pebble Beach Golf Links, Hound Ears, plus Pine Needles and Mid Pines.

 

"I don’t take bad clients," Hensley recently told Ron Green, former sports columnist for the Charlotte Observer. "One reason I’ve been successful in public relations is that I’ve only promoted courses and resorts that were worth promoting."

 

Hensley will once again help Pine Needles this year when the U.S. Women’s Open returns to the famed resort. He has also helped with promotions and press relations for several championships including last year’s U.S. Senior Men’s Championship at Charlotte Country Club.

 

One of Hensley’s more noted and important contributions to the game has been the initiation of the North Carolina Golf Panel for North Carolina Magazine. The panel, which includes golf writers, business people, and others in the golf industry, rates private, resort, and public golf courses in North Carolina and produces a top 100 list each year. Even though he claims to be semi-retired, new and established golf courses continually call on Hensley to help them with promotion.

 

"Bill brings extensive knowledge of the golf travel industry to the table," says Holly Spofford Bell, Director of Sales and Marketing with Pine Needles and Mid Pines. "With all his contacts around the country, he helps us communicate changes and other important events that happen at these properties. Plus all the work he does to promote golf in North Carolina helps everyone in the golf industry."

 

Bell adds that even the crack cadre of PGA and LPGA teaching professionals at Pine Needles have so far been unable to fix Hensley’s golf game.

 

And so it was for his significant contributions to the promotion of the game that Hensley was recently admitted to the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame.

 

Fellow members of the hall include talented and accomplished golfers like Harvie Ward and Peggy Kirk Bell. But despite Hensley’s relative lack of skill with a golf club in his hands, Hensley’s induction is definitely deserved. It’s not a stretch to say that North Carolina would not be one of the top golf destinations in the United States without the efforts of the husband of Arnold Palmer’s former girlfriend.

 

Bill Hensley was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 2000.

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.

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

In his heyday, Charles B. (Charlie) Smith Sr. of Gastonia, North Carolina was ranked the No. 3 amateur in the country, trailing only Jack Nicklaus and Deane Beman. He was Carolinas Golf of the year in 1961 and 1963. He took up the game with a borrowed set of clubs of left-handed clubs in high school, his farther passed down a right handed set and his game flourished. Smith won the inaugural Donald Ross Invitational in 1948 and the Southern Conference championship in 1952, as a senior at The Citadel.

 

In 1960, he won the North & South and Southern Amateur titles, and played on the U.S. Walker Cup teams in 1961 and 63. In 1962, Smith added the Eastern Amateur to his list of victories and won the Carolina Amateur two years after older brother Dave lost in the final. The brothers won The Dunes Club National 4-Ball titles in 1962 and in 1964, the year Charlie added a second Azalea Amateur to his first from 1958. He played in the The Masters Tournament four straight years (1962-65) missing the cut three times by a single stroke. He also played in the U.S. Open at Oakmont Hills in 1961 and Oakmont in 1962. He was a three-time quarter-finalist in the U.S. Amateur.

Add Penfield roots in golf broadcasting likely developed the day he interviewed Sam Snead and Ben Hogan in Pinehurst. He was interning at WPTF Radio in Raleigh and a Duke University student at the time. From his Duke days in the late 1930 into the new millennium, his association with sports was unwavering and highlighted by accomplishments. A native of Meriden, Connecticut, his career embraced football, baseball, and basketball, among other sports, with a distinguished longevity as a broadcaster, writer, and publicist.

 

But it was in golf that his professional participation endured. His voice was familiar to golf fans tuned into broadcasts of the Greensboro Open from 1953 into the 1990 and of the Vantage Championship from its beginning. His live coverage, as well as analysis and general reporting, included the Masters. He was working when Ben Hogan donned the green jacket in 1953 and was on hand that fateful day in 1968 when Roberto DiVicenzo singed and incorrect scorecard.  His dedication to golf never waned. He continued staging tournaments for charitable causes and promoting the sport in general well into his 80s from his home in Asheboro. A charter member of the Carolinas Golf Reporters Association, he was later honored with a lifetime membership.

An NAIA All-American at High Point College, Roger Watson was elected to the NAIA Hall of Fame in 1981.  After graduation in 1966, his first job as a Professional was for Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame member Buck Adams, at the Country Club of North Carolina in Pinehurst.  Later he became the Head Professional and Golf Director at MacGregor Downs Country Club in Cary for ten years.  As a young Club Professional, he won the 1969 North Carolina Open.

 

Watson’s greatest years as a player came in the mid-1970s.  The first of those years was 1974, when he won the PGA Club Professionals Championship in Pinehurst, making a 90-foot putt on the 72nd hole to tie Sam Snead, then defeating Snead in a playoff.  He successfully defended the title in 1975.  He won the Carolinas PGA Championship in both 1975 and 1976, and was a member of the PGA Cup Team in both of those years.

 

Since 1985, Watson’s efforts have been focused on developing and managing new golf courses in the Carolinas and Virginia, keeping the game alive for future generations.

 

Roger Watson was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 1981.

 

L.B. Floyd was born in Lake City, SC in 1920. He is the father of PGA Tour professional Raymond Floyd and former LPGA Tour member Marlene Floyd. He retired from the US Army at Fort Bragg, NC, where he managed Stryker Golf Course. He bought Green Valley CC in Fayetteville in the mid-1950s and expanded it to 18 holes. Floyd did most of the design and work on the additional nine himself. Sold Green Valley and built Cypress Lakes Golf Course with co-owner, Al Prewitt, giving Fayetteville and Cumberland County its first truly public course. Credited with changing the face of golf in the area and generally known as its Patriarch of Golf.

Former winner of the Carolinas PGA Section’s Palmer Maples; Teacher of the Year Award and former Golfweek Father of the Year Award winner. Respected teacher of the game who dedicated himself to helping young players, including Chip Beck and Neal Lancaster of the PGA Tour and Todd Gleaton, of the Nike Tour, who won twice in 1997. Credited with helping several regional players earn college scholarships in golf. Has the distinction of having two pupils, Raymond Floyd and Chip Beck, finish 1-2 in the 1986 US Open.

Helped found and operate the annual L.B. Floyd/Dogwood Festival Charity Classic, one of the largest annual money-raisers for needy children in the area