This CCU golfer is lighting up competitors, courses and cigars in his return to the team
States Fort fired up a victory cigar last week.
For this occasion – the 2020 Coastal Carolina graduate’s first individual collegiate win – Fort chose an Illusione Haut 10 toro from Nicaragua.
It was a fitting celebration considering just a few months ago Fort was working as a cigar salesman while his CCU teammates were playing their three-event fall season.
“It was definitely well-deserved,” CCU men’s golf coach Jim Garren said. “I’m super proud of him. It’s a young person that made a commitment to do something and stuck by it without me being over there to look over his shoulder.”
Breaking through with a win
Fort graduated in May after four years in the CCU program, but he’s taking advantage of the NCAA ruling that gave spring sports athletes an extra year of eligibility.
Last summer, when the Chanticleers’ fall schedule was in flux due to the coronavirus and Fort was no longer eligible for undergraduate financial aid, he decided to skip the fall semester, work as a wholesale cigar broker and focus on becoming a better player away from the team.
He was the best player by far last week in his return to college competition in CCU’s first spring event, the AGT (Any Given Tuesday) Intercollegiate hosted by Charleston Southern at Kiawah Island Resort’s Oak Point course. He shot a 7-under-par 65 in the final round to win by four shots with an 11-under 205 total.
The 65 matched his career low and is tied for the seventh-lowest 18-hole score by an individual in CCU history, and his 70-70-65–205 is tied for the 11th-best 54-hole score in program history.
His play helped Coastal win the tournament by 13 shots over runner-up Kennesaw State with a 37-under 827 that included an 18-under 270 in the final round – both are the second-lowest scores in program history and the final round set a record for the lowest 18-hole score against par.
“It was incredible. Walking up 18 fairway after I had already hit my approach shot up near the green [Garren] said, ‘Enjoy the walk,’ I said, ‘Really?’ He said, ‘Yeah, [the lead is] comfortable,’ ” recalled Fort, who intentionally avoided knowing where he and the team stood on the leaderboard.
“By the time I got up there that’s when it all set in. It was like, ‘Oh wow, everyone in the groups in front of me shot in the 60s and we have a massive lead. This is incredible.’ Because I think that’s why we compete, we compete for the team. The individual win, that’s a bonus. That’s what I worked for. But the team win is what matters and that’s what really validated everything.
“That was the most exciting piece was getting to say, ‘We took it really low. We shot a school record.’ ”
The Chants play next in the Florida Gator Invitational from Feb. 12-14 against one of the toughest fields in college golf. “This is a big week for him. If he carries it over into the Gator, I could see a really big spring coming from him,” Garren said.
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A six-month trial run
Fort, of Evans, Georgia, was ranked as high as 98th nationally in the Golfweek Boy’s Junior ranking prior to attending CCU, and had scoring averages of 75.25 is six events as a freshman in Conway, 73.93 in nine tournaments as sophomore, and 74.10 in 10 tournaments as a junior.
He was ranked among the top 200 collegiate golfers in the country last March when the season was canceled due to COVID-19, with a pair of top-10s in seven events and 72.79 scoring average, which was second on the team to Zack Taylor.
He continued to play well into the summer, finishing fourth in the Golfweek Myrtle Beach Collegiate and sixth in the Southeastern Amateur.
“It was a bummer to see the season get cut off for guys like him and Zack because you had seen the improvement,” Garren said. “So coming back and winning individually justifies that decision to come back, not to mention he makes our team better. We’re a postseason golf team with him.”
Fort didn’t believe he was ready for professional golf last summer, and opted to dedicate himself to improving over six months to simulate life as a pro before rejoining the team.
“That was a piece of it to say like, ‘OK, let’s take a six-month trial run and see if this is something I want to do. See if I can support myself, have a job, practice, stay on top of my game and be ready to compete,’ ” Fort said. “. . . I didn’t want to be stuck taking extremely strenuous MBA or Master’s of Accountancy classes that whether they’re streaming or in person, that’s just a massive time toll that’s going to take up a lot of time and mental space as well.”
He’s seen enough results to believe his level of play last week can be sustained.
“I worked really, really hard over the six months in the fall, not really specific on just my golf game, but a lot of it was mental, a lot of it was physical,” Fort said. “I spent a lot of time in the gym. I ended up picking up 10 or 15 pounds and that kind of helped mentally to say, ‘All right, my body is ready for this, this is what I’ve trained for, this is what I can do.’ There was no question of ‘Am I physically ready to do this?’ ”
Fort is 5-foot-7 and played last season at about 140 pounds. The nearly 15 additional pounds has helped him add nearly 15 yards off the tee, making him the second longest hitter in CCU’s starting lineup behind Taylor.
“I have picked up some distance but mainly I’ve picked up a lot of control,” Fort said. “I’ve always equated it to speed equals distance. The faster you are the farther the ball is going to go. But strength equals control. If you’re in control of your body, you’re going to be in control of the club better, and you’re going to have a better idea of where that golf ball is going to go. That is what helped a lot.”
Fort said he gained confidence when his game held up through a multitude of intra-squad qualifying rounds in January to determine CCU’s early spring starting lineup.
“That’s what really took it to the next level and sharpened everything up to where I could see the fruits of all the labor I’d put in, in the gym, with my diet, with maintaining my skills, and everything just kind of culminated last week and I’m really hoping just to keep it rolling,” he said.
Planning a strong finish
Fort graduated in May with degrees in accounting and marketing, was a 2018-19 and 2019-20 Golf Coaches Association of America All-America Scholar, which required him to have a stroke average below 76 and GPA of 3.2 or better, and has been a regular on CCU Dean’s and President’s academic lists.
He is taking MBA classes, though he doesn’t intend to complete the master’s degree because he plans to turn pro after the season.
“These classes will make a difference though,” Fort said. “It’s going to be valuable knowledge. I’m taking classes in the real estate market, sustainability, and social responsibility, so they’re useful classes I’ll end up using anyway, so I can’t complain. I’m excited to learn, I’m excited to be back in classes and I’m grateful for it, honestly.”
Fort is a cigar broker for the Big Country Cigars Brokers of Lexington, Georgia, which represents and distributes smaller cigar brands. He averaged working a few hours a day three to four days per week in the summer and fall, and played, practiced and trained around the work hours most days.
The company has been supportive of his aspirations to play collegiate and pro golf. “Golf was always No. 1,” Fort said. “They were very accommodating with my schedule.”
The Chants have a busy spring with six tournaments prior to the Sun Belt Conference Championship in Arkansas, including CCU’s General Hackler Championship from March 14-16 at The Dunes Golf and Beach Club in Myrtle Beach.
“I knew I wanted to compete in the postseason. I knew I wanted to compete for another conference championship,” said Fort, who was part of CCU’s 2018 Sun Belt title team. “We were so close two years ago to repeating and I know we’ve got the talent and the team to do it this year. I definitely wanted to do that again and have another postseason run as well because I think that’s what this team deserves and I think we’re good enough to make it to the national championship and compete.”
Fort believes he has a lot more to accomplish individually at CCU, as well.
“I’m grateful for my time at Coastal,” said Fort, who hopes to find financial backers to support a pro career. “Those four years, if that had been all the Lord had for me then that would have been it, and that’s fine. But obviously I was supposed to come back, the opportunity presented itself and I’m just going to try to make the most of it.”
This story was originally published February 4, 2021 at 11:06 AM.
