Dave Downing, CGCS, and Clay DuBose, CGCS, will serve as directors on a board to establish and administer the new Myrtle Beach Golf Hall of Fame. With more than 100 courses in the area, Myrtle Beach, SC, is one of the busiest golf regions in the country.
Downing, with Signature Golf Group, is current president of the GCSAA. He will serve the golf hall of fame board as a director-at-large in a non-voting capacity through 2011. DuBose is golf course superintendent and general manager at Tradition Golf Club.
Both are members of the Carolinas Golf Course Superintendents Association. Downing is a Carolinas GCSA past-president. Carolinas GCSA executive director, Chuck Borman, says their appointments to the hall of fame board represent further recognition of the golf course superintendent’s integral role in the vitality of the game. “It just confirms the growing awareness that superintendents do a lot more than take care of golf course conditions,” Borman says. “They are professionals engaged in the business of golf and are working constantly on behalf of the game as a whole, not just the grass.”
The new board will establish bylaws and guidelines, review membership nominations submitted annually and select the most qualified candidates. Many Grand Strand golf organizations are represented on the board. The entire list of board members is: Clay DuBose, CGCS, Palmetto GCSA past-president; Tracy Conner, Tee Time Network general manager; David Durant, Myrtle Beach Golf Course Owners Association president; A.J. Gohil, Grand Strand Golf Directors Association president; Ron Schmid, Carolinas PGA Section executive director; John Springs, Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday Board chairman; Bob Swezey, Burroughs and Chapin executive vice-president of resort and golf operations. Swezey will serve as the executive director of the Myrtle Beach Golf Hall of Fame board.
The Hall of Fame will be located in Pine Lakes International Country Club’s new Hall of Fame Garden adjacent to the newly renovated clubhouse, and is scheduled to open in March 2009 in conjunction with the reopening of Pine Lakes. Four to six inductees will be honored in the inaugural year, and additional inductions will begin in April 2010.