Island Packet Verizon Heritage 2008 Coverage | Harbour Town, Sea Pines Resort, Hilton Head Island, SC

Originally published Wednesday, April 12th, 2006

The Verizon Heritage began in 1969 as a risky venture by Sea Pines president and developer Charles Fraser.

Since then, tournament organizers on and near Hilton Head Island have deemed golf a venture worth the risk. For as the Heritage grew into one of the most venerable events on the PGA Tour, Beaufort County became an alluring venue for big-time events.

"There was nothing down there then. Hell, you'd step on alligators," the late golf writer Charles Price once said. Price worked as an adviser to Fraser and Sea Pines during the first few years of the Heritage. He had his doubts as to whether Fraser's vision of creating a PGA Tour stop to rouse interest in his development would actually work.

But ...

"Golf put Hilton Head Island on the map. Some people said it was tennis, or it was this or that, but it was golf. It made the island just as it made Pinehurst," Price said.

The Heritage also played a role in helping Savannah land the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf, a Champions Tour event that moved to its new home on Hutchinson Island from St. Augustine, Fla., in 2003. For the fourth consecutive season, it will be played the week after the Heritage.

The Heritage Foundation had hoped to run a new senior tour event in Savannah. Although the PGA Tour decided to move an existing tournament there instead, Tim Iley, executive director of the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf, said the Heritage has lent valuable advice and support.

The Heritage remains the only major professional tournament on Hilton Head Island, but for much of its 35-year run, it has not been the only game in town.

The Champions Tour held an event at Shipyard Plantation in the 1980s, before the original Sea Pines Company brought the Senior International Golf Championship to Harbour Town for a brief stint that ended with Sea Pines' financial woes.

Those troubles also put the Heritage itself in jeopardy. But despite its brief period of insolvency, which ended when the Heritage Classic Foundation was established in the late 1980s as a charitable organization to run the PGA Tour event, the tournament has been a golf magnet for southern Beaufort County.

The PGA Tour held the 1989 Nabisco Championships (now the Tour Championship) at Harbour Town in 1989, two years after the Senior PGA Tour's Hilton Head Seniors International departed.

In 1991, the Amoco Centel Open, for pros between the ages of 40 and 50, attracted such notables as Tom Kite, Johnny Miller, Fuzzy Zoeller and six other major championship winners. It was played at Hilton Head National.

Southern Beaufort County also was an annual whistle stop on the LPGA tour. Moss Creek, located just before the bridge connecting Hilton Head to the mainland, played host to the CPC International from 1976 to 1983 and again in 1985. The event was discontinued after problems securing a sponsor and a change in the club's ownership.

And Colleton River's Jack Nicklaus Course played host to the Wendy's Three Tour Challenge in 1993.

The S.C. Golf Association has held the South Carolina Amateur in southern Beaufort County in 2001 and 2002, events won by former island resident and current PGA Tour player D.J. Trahan. And the Carolinas Golf Association staged the 2004 Carolinas Amateur at Chechessee Creek Club and the 2005 Carolinas Open at Old Tabby Links on Spring Island.

College, amateur and junior golf also have strong presences. The Palmetto Dunes Collegiate Invitational once brought a top crop of college golfers, including Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, to Palmetto Dunes and Palmetto Hall until it was discontinued in 2001.

Long Cove Club, another Pete Dye creation, played host to the 2003 U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur and the 1991 U.S. Men's Mid-Amateur and the 2005 American Junior Golf Association's Rolex Championship.

The Players Amateur started in 2000 and sports one of the strongest fields in amateur golf. Past champions of the Belfair event include Ben Curtis, the 2003 British Open winner, Bill Haas and Camilo Villegas.

This past September, Berkeley Hall, which features two Tom Fazio-designed courses, became the first club to play host to both the men's and women's USGA State Team Championships in the same year.