AIKEN, S.C. – As the 2020 U.S. Amateur wound to a dramatic conclusion, three of the four semifinalists had more in common than their elite golf talent.
Three of the four – including eventual champion Tyler Strafaci – had competed in another prestigious amateur event just a few weeks earlier.
And for the record, Strafaci won that one, too.
That “other” event? The Palmetto Amateur, played annually at Palmetto Golf Club in Aiken, S.C.
The 46th Palmetto Amateur is set for July 7-10, when 78 of the top players from 14 states and 10 foreign countries will test the historic layout set literally in the heart of one of the South’s most charming cities. Strafaci, who shot 10-under-par 270 en route to a one-shot victory, won’t be back to defend his title. As so often happens within the amateur ranks, he has since joined the PGA Tour’s professional rank and file, cashing his first check as a pro at last month’s Memorial Tournament.
Historic Palmetto Golf Club will host the 46th Palmetto Amateur this week.
(Photo Courtesy of Palmetto Golf Club)
But as always, there will be plenty of talent in the field, and all four rounds are open to the public, free of charge. Among the favorites this year are Salisbury’s Nick Lyerly, Evan Brown from Chadd’s Ford, Pa., Jimmy Zheng from Auckland, New Zealand and Alex Goff from Kings Mountain.
Lyerly, a member of the UNC-Greensboro golf team, finished second in this year’s North Carolina Amateur, after a third-place showing a year ago. This year, he’ll be trying to improve on his T-4 finish at last year’s Palmetto Am.
Brown won the Rutherford Intercollegiate earlier this year, playing for the Loyola (Md.) University Greyhounds. Zheng, who came halfway around the world to play for Duke, claimed two amateur titles in his native New Zealand last year, including the Auckland Match Play. Goff, who plays collegiately at Kentucky, is the 2020 Kentucky – the state, not the university – Amateur champion and the runner-up in last year’s Southeastern Am.
(Photo by Bob Gillespie)
And as is customary – the Palmetto Am has always upheld the axiom of “giving back” to golf – one of the nation’s leading junior players is among the 2021 field.
Last year, Jonathan Griz, a top-50 Rolex AJGA junior from Hilton Head Island, won the North and South Junior at Pinehurst and the South Carolina State Amateur. That’s State Amateur, not state junior amateur. He has continued his outstanding play this year, finishing solo third in the Azalea Invitational at the Country Club of Charleston and posting a top-5 finish in the Junior Heritage.
Of course, the players won’t be the only “stars” at the Palmetto Amateur. Whenever golf enthusiasts discuss golf history, course architecture or any single facet contributing to the game’s capacity to inspire passion in its devotees, The Palmetto Club is likely to be part of the conversation.
The club’s own rich history is far too storied to be recounted here. But for starters, we’re talking about a club that, founded in 1982, is two years older than the United States Golf Association. The 19th club to join the USGA, Palmetto, no doubt, would have been a founding member, were it not for its location, a logical claim evidenced by the fact that it was the first club south of Baltimore to gain membership.
The present Palmetto layout is a masterpiece with many artists. Club founder Thomas Hitchcock, a prominent Long Island sportsman, laid out four holes to complement an equestrian sports club. (Golf and horses continue to be at the heart of Aiken’s social character today.)
Herbert Leeds, who authored Myopia Hunt Club just north of Boston – a course that hosted four U.S. Opens, all by 1908 – completed the first nine and laid out a second nine, and by 1895, a complete 18 holes had been constructed.
In 1932, as he was finishing work on Augusta National just across the Savannah River, Dr. Alister MacKenzie was hired to convert Palmetto’s sand greens to grass and lengthen the course. Since then, noted architects Rees Jones and Tom Doak have made subtle refinements to the course. And today, Gil Hanse, a Doak disciple, serves as the club’s resident architect.
The club is thought to be the second oldest 18-hole course in the country still occupying its original location, second only to Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton, Ill. The equally historic clubhouse, built in 1902, was designed by Stanford White, designer of the iconic Shinnecock Hills clubhouse.
Among the club’s early presidents were Eugene Grace, the former chairman of Bethlehem Steel, and George Herbert Walker, grandfather of President George H.W. Bush, great-grandfather of President George W. Bush, a former president of the USGA and the donor of the Walker Cup.
But at Palmetto, history, as revered and respected as it is, is not limited to the past. It’s a never-ending story and, next week, yet another chapter will be added with the playing of the 46th Palmetto Am.