Myrtle Beach World Amateur as eventful as ever in 2016

The biggest news from last week’s 33rd Myrtle Beach World Amateur Handicap Championship was the cancellation of the Friday championship round for flight winners for the first time in the history of the event because of weather.

The championship round has been played since the third World Am in 1986.

That wasn’t the only notable happening from the tournament, however, as whenever you have more than 3,000 amateurs playing by USGA rules in a tournament, something interesting is bound to happen.

▪  Mark Ehlich of Locust, N.C., who has owned a second home at Myrtlewood Golf Club for several years, decided to play in the World Am for the first time this year.

The 11.6 handicap played in Flight 18 and started his tournament Monday on the 120-yard par-3 13th hole at Legends Resort’s Moorland Course.

One of his playing partners determined the order of play based on the direction a tee was pointing after being tossed in the air, and it was pointed at Ehlich. “I was like, ‘Aw [shoot], I don’t want to go first. I don’t want to embarrass myself.’ ” Ehlich said.

So the 57-year-old corporate office manager for Cogentrix Energy Power Management LLC in Charlotte promptly took a 9-iron and hit his inaugural World Am shot directly into the hole for an ace.

“I hit the shot and everybody was like, ‘Oh, that looks good.’ And it flew right in the hole. It didn’t even bounce,” Ehlich explained.

The hole in one was Ehlich’s third, and he also has a double eagle to his credit. “Which was even more exciting,” he said. “I can’t golf worth a darn but I’m lucky.”

Ehlich ended up shooting a 93 in the opening round, which included wind, rain and delays. “It went downhill after that. I led the tournament for about 10 minutes,” said Ehlich, who shot the low round of his flight with an 81 at River Club on Tuesday and tied for 14th in his flight.

Ehlich said he tried to buy an obligatory round of drinks for his playing partners following the round but there were no takers. “We were soaking wet and miserable by the time we finished,” he said. “I don’t even know if the other guys drank.”

▪  Ehlich’s ace was one of four holes in one in the opening round alone, and one of eight for the tournament overall. Tournament director Jeff Monday said there are normally three or four aces during the week. “Eight was substantially more than we generally have,” he said.

▪  Fred Pugh of Columbia is a 33-year World Am participant who no doubt has had his share of highlights in the tournament.

Wednesday at Tidewater Golf Club and Plantation was not one of those highlights.

When you combine a difficult golf course with several hazards and forced carries, and a group of super senior players ages 70 and older with high handicaps of about 26 and higher, you just might get some astronomical numbers.

That was the case for Pugh and a number of others in Flight 58. There were four scores of 146 or worse in the flight at Tidewater, with Pugh’s 166 that featured nine-hole splits of 92 and 74 being the most impressive.

It was good for a net 130 for the semi-retired manufacturer's representative and alto saxophone player. The low score that day was a 94.

Though fellow Flight 58 member Robert Elliott never matched Pugh’s 166 in a single round, he did average 156.25 for his four rounds, which may be equally impressive.

▪  There are always some interesting rules violations, but the most notable rules situations that reached the tournament rules committee this year involved players saving themselves from disqualification by playing two balls on the same hole, which is permitted in situations by Rule 3-3.

Rules Committee co-chairman Lew Gach said one player hit a drive that his playing partners all agreed was in the fairway. But with soft fairway conditions the ball likely plugged and could not be found.

The player dropped a ball in the area the group assumed the ball had landed and finished the hole from there. But he also hit a second ball from the tee box with the required stroke and distance penalty for a lost ball. Had he not played the second ball he would have been disqualified.

Gach said had there been abnormal ground conditions such as standing water or ground under repair, the player could have taken a free drop at the point of entry into the abnormal conditions under Rule 25-1. But there’s no relief for soggy ground that is playable. “This is just an unfortunate part of playing on the living, growing entity outside,” Gach said.

Another golfer played a second ball after there was a disagreement on whether or not his ball was out of bounds. It was deemed after the round by the golf course professional staff that his ball was indeed out of bounds, but he took the required stroke and distance penalty on his second ball and avoided a DQ for a violation of Rule 15 for playing the wrong ball.

There were the customary DQs for scorecard violations, including players leaving the course without turning in their card, a player forgetting to post a score on a hole and a player failing to sign the scorecard.

But Gach and tournament director Jeff Monday said there were fewer rules issues and handicap DQs and adjustments than in recent years.

“It was fairly quiet and people are doing a good job using Rule 3-3 to their advantage, and I think they’re learning the rules as well,” Gach said.

▪  Karaoke replaced a band this year for live entertainment one night in the convention center ballroom, and there were no reported injuries. “I was a little nervous about that but people responded well to it,” Monday said. “It was just a smooth week all around, weather aside.”

▪  The championship round cancellation due to Tropical Storm Hermine came after the staffs of the tournament and Barefoot Resort Dye Club made every attempt to give the flight winners a chance to compete, and a few holes were played in challenging conditions.

“I really just feel bad for the group because they all deserved that chance to experience that final round and they didn’t get that full experience,” Monday said. “From the time those players got there they knew we were giving it our best shot. Not every golf course would have done that. The pride they take in hosting that round really showed that day.”

Wachesaw reopens

The member-owned private Wachesaw Plantation Club has completed a renovation project that featured work on greens including a transition from bentgrass to Champion ultradwarf Bermudagrass, an expansion back to their original sizes and the recontouring of some.

The course closed on June 1 and had a ceremony Friday to mark its reopening that included some of the longest-tenured members hitting putts on the 18th green.

Wachesaw Plantation is a Tom Fazio design that opened in 1986 and Fazio Design was consulted for the changes. A committee and consultants chose the Champion Bermuda, which replaced bentgrass that had been on the greens since 1993, according to four-year Wachesaw general manager Chris Freeman.

“It had just run its lifespan, and bent is very difficult to sustain in this climate,” Freeman said. “The new greens are awesome. They’ve come out outstanding. They’ve been ready to play on for a couple weeks now.”

Freeman said the club will not overseed any part of the course for the winter and will consider painting the greens. “I think the main pluses for the Champion is it provides a consistent speed year-round and we won’t have to worry about the summer diseases the bent was susceptible to,” Freeman said.

Greens have been expanded 20 to 30 percent, Freeman said, and six greens were fairly significantly recontoured to account for what are expected to be consistently faster green speeds – Freeman said the club hopes to maintain Stimpmeter speeds of 10 to 11.

Freeman said some greens had become excessively severe, including the 18th along the Waccamaw River. The green has been shifted to the right to create an area of rough between the green and water to its left, and the slope to the left has been lessened about 60 percent.

During the renovation project, the club repaired and replaced a number of bunkers, top-dressed fairways multiple times to firm them, repaired portions of cart path, and enhanced landscaping throughout with flowers and manicuring.

“This was an essential step we needed to take for our future,” Freeman said. “We believe had we not converted the greens this year we would have lost the bentgrass due to the extreme heat and humidity. We feel we would have been in very poor condition had we not done the renovation this year.”

The club also removed a number of trees to enhance the view of the river on the 18th hole. “It had overgrown over the past 30 years and taken away the view so we’ve opened that up again,” Freeman said.

Wachesaw Plantation pro Joe Gagliano and his staff organized a few thousand outside rounds for his members in the area while the course was closed.

Wachesaw can be played by guests staying in member-owned cottages on the property, and the course occasionally accepts package play from a few select providers. It also hosts a number of charity events on Mondays during the course of the year that are open to the public.

Barnett comes close

Braeden Barnett of Galivants Ferry recorded the second most points Sunday in a Drive, Chip & Putt regional at Pinehurst Resort, but he was a victim of circumstance.

Barnett amassed 154 points in the skills competition, which was 24 more points than any other competitor with the exception of one. Barnett had the misfortune of being in the same division as Clinton Daly of Charlotte, N.C., who advanced in the boys age 12-13 division with 164 points to the finals at Augusta National Golf Club on April 2, 2017, the Sunday before the 81st Masters Tournament.

The winners in each of eight age/gender divisions qualified for the finals, and each division had 10 competitors, so Barnett recorded a higher score than 78 of the other 79 competitors. He’s the regional’s alternate in the boys 12-13 division in the event Daly does not compete in the finals.

Walker Devers of Murrells Inlet had also advanced to the Pinehurst regional from a sub-regional at Fort Jackson in Columbia and finished fifth in the boys 14-15 division with 103 points. The competition for juniors ages 7-15 is in its fourth year and is a joint initiative by the Masters Tournament Foundation, United States Golf Association and PGA of America.

Junior event on tap

The entry deadline is Tuesday for the 2016 South Carolina Golf Center Junior Classic from Sept. 10-11 at Shaftesbury Glen Golf & Fish Club. The event is open to golfers ages 7-17 and is being run in conjunction with the S.C. Junior Golf Association and Carolinas Golf Association.

The entry fee is $150 for players ages 13-17, who will play 36 holes, and $120 for players ages 7-12, who will play 18 holes over two days. Each participant will receive a golf bag as a gift.

Call the S.C. Golf Center at 843-369-3112 or email info@scgolfcenter.com for more information.

This story was originally published September 5, 2016 at 8:13 PM with the headline "Myrtle Beach World Amateur as eventful as ever in 2016."