Myrtle Beach golf community rallies to aid longtime executive, former PGA Tour member
The Myrtle Beach golf community is banding together for an event Thursday that will help a couple of its members who are experiencing serious medical issues.
The industry has done this many times before with individual events to help those in need.
But what makes this event different is it is essentially the beginning of an initiative to create a fund that will assist more people in the golf market in the future.
Come Out Swinging for Jim & Hugh is an event Thursday at Pine Lakes Country Club that will raise money to help Tidewater Golf Club teaching professional and former PGA Tour player Hugh Royer III and longtime area golf executive Jim Woodring.
Royer has had multiple surgeries to remove basal cell carcinoma and still has more radiation treatments and reconstructive surgery coming. Woodring, who has spent decades as a marketing executive with Myrtle Beach National, National Golf Management and Founders Group International, continues to recover from a stroke suffered in January.
The Pine Lakes event will serve as a kickoff for a foundation being created called Myrtle Beach Golf Cares.
“I think with the events of this year it certainly occurred to me that it’s a wake-up call for us to get ahead of events like this,” said Bill Golden, president of the Golf Tourism Solutions marketing and promotion agency that represents most Grand Strand courses and golf package providers. “It’s nice to react to things and have events like we’re having Thursday. . . . but let’s create something that will be governed in a way that makes people comfortable and we’re ahead of these types of scenarios and people have an outlet in times of crisis.
“Let’s raise enough money that this becomes a meaningful way for families to provide some support to family members.”
The Myrtle Beach Golf Cares foundation will fall under the umbrella of the non-profit Project Golf, an initiative created by Golf Tourism Solutions that has causes including the promotion of junior golf.
Tournaments and a variety of other fundraising events and initiatives are being planned, and the Myrtle Beach Golf Cares fund will be overseen by a small board consisting of individuals outside the golf industry – possibly in the fields of healthcare, insurance, law, accounting, etc. Individuals in need can apply for support from the fund and the board will determine recipients.
The next planned event is a golf outing in conjunction with the Myrtle Beach Hall of Fame induction ceremony in the fall at Pine Lakes.
“We owe this to ourselves,” Golden said.
Come Out Swinging for Jim & Hugh is a charity skins game, cocktail reception and silent auction. Golf is $50 and begins at noon Thursday at Pine Lakes and the reception is $50 and is from 5-8 p.m. Anyone is welcome to participate in either.
The reception includes heavy hors d’oeuvres, open bar and a raffle.
There will be an anticipated 40 silent auction items including golf and hotel packages at high-end resorts, Grand Strand restaurants gift certificates, signed memorabilia including items from Dustin Johnson and Arnold Palmer, Hootie & the Blowfish Monday After the Masters VIP packages, a round for three with Paige Spiranac, New York Yankees and NASCAR tickets, and other items.
Visit facebook.com/events/206852090036286/ to register or for more information, or contact Lisa Carbone at 843-282-2651 or lisa.carbone@golftourismsolutions.com.
Royer recovering
Royer, 54, won four times on what is now the Web.com Tour and was a full-time member of the PGA Tour for three years from 1996-98.
He believes years of playing and teaching golf in the sun greatly contributed to the development of his cancer.
He had basal cell carcinoma removed near the right side of his nose four years ago, and believed the cancer had been completely removed.
But a bump appeared on the right side of his nose a couple years ago, and after being told several times by doctors and nurses over a couple years that it was nothing serious, and being given treatments for less serious diagnoses, the bump grew and cancer was finally discovered through a biopsy by Myrtle Beach ear, nose and throat doctor Daniel Rosner.
Royer said Rosner began a surgery but discovered the cancer was much more invasive than he anticipated and referred Royer to a couple doctors including Evan Grayboyes at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, where Royer continues to receive treatment. “That man saved my life,” Royer said of Rosner.
Royer said the cancer had extended within a centimeter of his brain. He had three surgeries in less than four weeks totaling nearly 20 hours to remove it, and doctors believe they got it all. The surgeries took most of Royer’s nose and much of his right cheek.
He has since had a nine-hour reconstructive surgery that involved taking a bone from his ribs and ligaments and muscle from his right thigh to rebuild his nose, and fat from his stomach to repair the cheek. Skin has been stretched from his forehead over his nose. “They rebuilt my face,” Royer said. “It’s amazing what they can do.”
Royer has had six radiation treatments and has 24 remaining, and he has at least one and possibly more reconstructive surgeries to go.
Royer did not have health insurance and isn’t expected to be able to return to hands-on instruction until late October or November. He can’t spend much time outside and is doing some online lessons.
Royer moved to Myrtle Beach in 2007 to open a golf school at Long Bay Club, and a couple meetings with Woodring sealed the deal. “Jim is the reason [wife] Heather and I are in Myrtle Beach, he’s the reason we came,” Royer said. “He talked us into coming here and we liked him so much and trusted him that we moved to Myrtle Beach.
“He’s been a stalwart of Myrtle Beach golf for a long time. He’s important to our business.”
Royer hopes to attend the benefit at Pine Lakes on Thursday between daily radiation treatments at MUSC to thank participants. “I want to do it just because it’s a way to say thank you to people, and it means that much,” said Royer, who has recently heard from current or former PGA Tour members including Ernie Els, Glen Day and John Maginnes. “What [Golf Tourism Solutions] has done and the community has done is amazing. I hope it’s the start of a new trend in Myrtle Beach in the golf business. Everybody has come together so quickly it’s mind-blowing.”
Royer said after he recovers he plans to be a speaker to remind golfers they need to protect themselves from skin cancer.
“I’ve had an eye-opening experience," Royer said. "I’m not the most religious person in the world, but I’m going to tell you, God put me on this earth for a reason. I thought it was to play golf but I think it’s for something else. I think it’s to help people take care of yourself. You have to be careful and you have to watch.”
This story was originally published June 18, 2018 at 8:12 PM with the headline "Myrtle Beach golf community rallies to aid longtime executive, former PGA Tour member."