Two of the best female golfers in the Myrtle Beach area will join forces in college
The two greatest golfers in the history of the St. James High girls golf program plan to join forces once again, this time on the College of Charleston women’s golf team.
Smith Knaffle is transferring to Charleston after spending two years at South Carolina, and St. James rising senior Adrian Anderson has committed to the Cougars.
Knaffle still has four years of eligibility based on a redshirt season in 2020-21 and extra year granted by the NCAA due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I loved South Carolina’s university and I loved being a student there but the golf just wasn’t a good fit for me,” Knaffle said. “I met some really amazing people and I definitely grew as a person, but golf-wise I wasn’t happy and it just didn’t work out.
“I knew I wanted to still be close to home so I was looking at a few different options and College of Charleston stuck with me. Even though it’s a mid-major program they have a good team year in and year out. . . . and as an accounting major with a lot of eligibility left I’ll be able to get a masters. It’s a good fit all the way around because at the end of the day education is the most important to me and the scholarship he was able to give me is going to help further my education and my academics. I’m just really excited to be a Cougar. I think it’s going to be a really nice fit.”
A new start for Knaffle
Knaffle played in three events as a freshman at South Carolina in 2019-20, shot a low round of 72 twice in nine rounds and had a scoring average of 78.4.
She missed the fall season due to a positive COVID test result and chose to transfer before the start of the spring season, so she didn’t play at all as a sophomore.
Knaffle believes the coronavirus test was a false positive. She said it was a saliva test on campus, and she promptly received a pair of negative results with nasal swab tests away from school but the university wouldn’t accept those results, and by the time she cleared all protocols she had already missed several events, she said.
“I was perfectly healthy. I never had it,” Knaffle said. “I ended up missing my entire fall season because of it.”
Knaffle will have several friends on the CofC team from junior golf including Jodee Tindal of Rock HIll and Emily Dunlap of Greenville.
She said she feels good about her game this summer. “I feel like I’ve made a lot of gains and I’m ready to go for the fall,” Knaffle said.
Knaffle was heavily recruited out of St. James, with Clemson, Coastal Carolina, Florida State, Furman and Virginia Tech among the schools pursuing her.
Anderson makes her decision
Anderson was named the 2020 junior girls player of the year by both the Carolinas Golf Association and South Carolina Junior Golf Association with wins in the Women’s SCGA Junior Girls State Championship and the Peggy Kirk Bell Girls Golf Tour National Invitational, and she still leads the 2021 rankings of each organization.
Last year, Anderson was hoping to attend Furman. But she said she never received a formal offer, though she was expecting one soon based on her interaction with Furman head coach Jeff Hull.
Anderson plans to have a pre-med major such as biology or health sciences, and also considered attending Coastal Carolina, East Carolina and Georgia Southern.
“I chose College of Charleston because I felt I would fit in nicely with the school and team, and I want to go to MUSC for my future career in medicine so living in Charleston will be a nice transition to med school,” Anderson said. “. . . Once I talked to them I knew it was the place for me.”
The status of the Cougars golf team
Jamie Futrell is entering his 25th season as CofC head coach. Since 2006 the Cougars have won four conference championships, including the Colonial Athletic Association in 2014, 2015 and 2018, and made eight NCAA Regional appearances, most recently in 2018 and 2021.
The CofC golf house and practice facility is located at The Links at Stono Ferry, but the program has access to numerous courses in the Charleston area including highly regarded properties including The Golf Club at Briar’s Creek, Yeamans Hall Club, Daniel Island Club, and Kiawah Island Resort courses.
“The courses we play down there are incredible,” Knaffle said.
