Film crew on Grand Strand for new Golf Channel show

River Hills Golf and Country Club general manager Harris D’Antignac is getting more than he bargained for when he booked an NGA Hooters Tour Carolina Winter Series event being played on his course Tuesday through Thursday.

He’s getting a film crew on the Little River layout for at least the first two rounds, and his course will receive some national exposure on Golf Channel as early as May.

The same independent film crew that shot the Pipe Dream series for Golf Channel is filming tournament participant Robbie Biershenk of Greenville for a nine-episode Golf Channel series that is scheduled to begin airing in May titled “Chasing the Dream.”

“It’s a documentary-style show that shows the emotions and life story of a couple of golfers that are trying to chase their dream,” said Keith Allo, Golf Channel’s vice president of programming and original productions.

The other golfer is a mini-tour player based on the West Coast.

Pipe Dream followed homeless golfer Mark Burk’s attempts to reach the Champions Tour this past year, and Chasing the Dream has a similar theme as two younger golfers try to move up the ranks of professional golf.

Biershenk is in his mid-30s and the younger brother of Clemson alum Tommy Biershenk, who finally reached the PGA Tour at the age of 38 by tying for fifth at the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament Finals earlier this month.

In addition to playing mini-tours, he’s trying to make a success of Shank’s Golf Range and Learning Center in Greenville, which he purchased and began operating more than five years ago.

Biershenk participated on Golf Channel’s Big Break Indian Wells series this past spring, and was the seventh competitor eliminated out of 12. “That’s not why we chose him necessarily, but certainly he came to our attention during that show,” Allo said.

Though some home video-type footage has already been shot of Biershenk, the River Hills footage will be the first shot by a production crew. The show is meant to show the experiences and sacrifices necessary to move up golf’s professional ladder.

“We’ll be in and out of his life over the next five months,” Allo said. “It’s about following their journey, and whatever steps it takes them to get to that [next] level. We’re trying to make it about their journey, so we’re trying to not make something happen that wouldn’t happen naturally.

“The idea is we will film a lot there in Greenville where his driving range is, follow him to tournaments, and show his life as the owner of a driving range and interaction with his family. We’ll show him trying to make ends meet as well as trying to get as much practice time and rounds in to make a go as a professional golfer.”

The film crew is a combination of field producers, coordinating producers and show runners from the companies Friedman 360 and Jeff Margolis Productions of Los Angeles. Golf Channel is serving as the show’s executive producer and plans to have nine episodes on Tuesday nights consisting of eight 30-minute episodes and an hour-long finale.

Terrell adds assistant

Coastal Carolina University men’s golf coach Allen Terrell has a new assistant coach in J.T. Clendenin, the 2006-07 Big South Freshman Golfer of the Year while at Birmingham-Southern.

Clendenin spent the past 16 months as an assistant coach for the men’s and women’s teams at Shorter University. The women ended the regular season ranked No. 1 at the NAIA level and placed third at the NAIA National Championship, two strokes out of first. The Shorter men ended the 2010-11 season ranked ninth and placed 20th at the national championship.

Terrell said Clendenin will lead the program’s recruiting efforts. “In just a few years of experience, J.T. has already separated himself as one of the rising stars in the coaching profession,” Terrell said.

The Kennesaw, Ga., native finished his collegiate playing career at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, where he was regularly on the Dean’s List and earned a Sociology degree in 2010. Clendenin posted a 74.28 career scoring average over 99 college rounds, shooting in the 60’s 10 times and matching par or better 27 times. He recorded eight top-10s and a win, and played in a handful of NGA Hooters Tour and eGolf Tour pro events.

S.C. juniors among best

The South Carolina Junior Golf Association’s top players in 2011 are among the best in the nation.

McKenzie Talbert of North Augusta has earned the Beth Daniel Player of the Year award as the top female junior golfer in the Palmetto State for the third consecutive year, and Cody Proveaux of Leesville is the winner of the Jay Haas Player of the Year award as the state’s top male junior golfer. Both are Rolex Junior All-Americans who have committed to Clemson.

Talbert, 16 and a junior at Strom Thurmond High, is the only winner of the SCJGA player of the year honor for three consecutive years – male or female. Proveaux, a senior at Pelion High, joins PGA Tour member Kyle Thompson as the only two-time winner of the boys award.

Talbert played on the U.S. Junior Solheim Cup team and won numerous tournaments in 2011 including the Carolinas-Georgia Junior, Sea Pines Junior Heritage, S.C. Junior Match Play, Cheraw Fall Challenge and the Class AAA high school individual championship for the third consecutive year. Daniel will present her with the award at 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 21 at the Country Club of Charleston.

Her third consecutive victory Sunday in the 22nd Charles Tilghman Junior Championship at the Surf Golf & Beach Club earns Talbert points for the 2012 player of the year honor.

Proveaux was named the American Junior Golf Association Rolex Player of the Year after winning the Junior PGA Championship, Outback Invitational, Jimmy Self Festival of Flowers tourney and Class AA state high school tournament, and finishing second in the AJGA Rolex Tournament of Champions, AJGA HP Boys Championship, Southern Cross and Bobby Chapman Junior. Haas will present him the award at 10 a.m. on Dec. 30 at The Thornblade Club in Greer.

Wilson gives and receives

Former Myrtle Beach resident and PGA Master Professional Dr. Eric Wilson of Port St. Lucie, Fla., who has coached Special Olympics athletes for more than two decades, was named the recipient of the Conrad Rehling Award for his contributions to the growth of Special Olympics Golf.

Wilson was honored last month at the South Florida PGA Awards and Hall of Fame dinner at Parkland Golf & Country Club in Parkland, Fla.

Wilson and his wife, Marilyn, have traveled throughout the nation and to South Africa to train Special Olympics golf coaches and volunteers, and helped edit and develop the Special Olympics Golf Training program authored by Donna White.

He helped golf gain “medal status” in the 1995 Special Olympics World Games Golf Tournament, and has served as a rules official at three Special Olympics World Games in 1995, ’99 and 2003.

Wilson, 64, a Class A PGA member and native of Memphis, Tenn., is in his second year as executive director of golf operations at the Keiser University College of Golf in Port St. Lucie, Fla.

He moved to Myrtle Beach in 1997 to establish the Myrtle Beach campus of the San Diego Golf Academy (now Golf Academy of America), where he remained until 2008. He became the president of Golf Learning Systems in Myrtle Beach before moving in September 2009.

U.S. Kids concludes

The U.S. Kids Golf Myrtle Beach Tour wrapped up its eight-tournament fall/winter series that began in September with its tour championship at Barefoot Resort’s Dye Club on Saturday.

The event had 31 players ages 5-14 and Mason Richardson, 13, of Garden City shot the low 18-hole round with an 82 in cool and windy conditions. The next tour session begins Feb. 25 at the Hackler Course at Coastal Carolina. The tour is run by the Myrtle Beach Junior Golf Foundation (www.mbjgf.org).

To view Blondin’s blog, Green Reading, or Q&A Forum, Ask Al, go to TheSunNews.com.