Carlisle Recipient of Prestigious Golf Award

AIKEN, S.C. – USC Aiken golf coach Michael Carlisle was honored on Tuesday evening with the Thomas Hithcock and William C. Whitney Award at the Players Dinner for the 34th Palmetto Amateur Tournament.

Carlisle is the first recipient of the award. The award recognizes an individual who has made significant contributions to the game of golf in the Aiken area.

Carlisle began his golfing career in Aiken at a young age, including playing on a championship team at Aiken High School. He played college golf at Elon and at Clemson University, where he lettered.

He played professional golf for a short period but returned to the amateur ranks where he won a number of local championships including the Palmetto Golf Club Championship, the Cadillac Cup three times, the Palmetto Amateur three times and the ’93 South Carolina Mid-Amateur.

While he has had a very successful amateur career, his greatest impact has been on the mentoring and coaching of young golfers. He has directed for many years the Augusta Area Junior Golf Association, which gives young golfers the opportunity to experience tournament golf on a number of courses in the Augusta-Aiken area. 

His performance as coach of the USCA golf team is unmatched and has generated significant recognition for the program with his team winning three back-to-back NCAA Division II National Championships. His teams are known for both their golfing prowess and their sportsmanship.

USC Aiken under Carlisle in the NCAA Division II Tournament has three NCAA Division II National Championships (2004, 2005, 2006) and three NCAA Division II runner-up finishes (1995, 1996 and 1999).

In the past six years, USC Aiken has five NCAA National Championships on three team titles and two individual crowns.

In the 2008 spring season, USC Aiken finished seventh as a team at the NCAA Division II Championship Tournament, but Jeff Goff became the school’s second ever NCAA Individual Champion.

Goff joined Dane Burkhart as the only Pacers to claim individual medalist honors at the NCAA Championship Tournament in program history.

USC Aiken, who was ranked first for much of the 2008-09 golf season, claimed four regular season tournaments in the 2008-09 season.

The Pacers won two tournaments each during the fall and spring. USC Aiken opened the 2008-09 year by taking team honors at the Kiawah Island Invitational in Kiawah Island, S.C.

The Pacers also won the highly competitive NCAA Division II Aflac/Cougar Invitational hosted by Columbus State in Oct. of 2008.

USC Aiken acquired two NCAA Division I tournament wins in the spring of 2009. The Pacers opened their spring campaign by taking top honors as a team at both the Wexford Plantation Intercollegiate hosted by Francis Marion and the 12th Annual Cleveland Golf Palmetto Intercollegiate at the Palmetto Golf Club in Aiken, S.C.

Award Background

Thomas Hitchcock first came to Aiken in the 1870’s and was one of the earliest members of what became to be known over the years as the Winter Colony. The Winter Colony primarily came from the northeast and they came south to enjoy the milder weather during the winter. They would be described as people of means who enjoyed an active social and sporting life. As the Winter Colony grew in Aiken, they built homes that they called cottages but we would now characterize as large homes. The sporting life they enjoyed included horses, polo, hunting, tennis and the increasingly popular game of golf. Facilities for enjoying these pursuits, in most cases, did not exist in Aiken so they had to be built.

In 1892 Thomas Hitchcock laid out four holes where the current 16th, 17th and 18th are now located. In 1895 Hitchcock purchased additional land and five more holes were added. The design of these holes was done by Hitchcock, H.C. Leeds and Jimmy Mackrell. Mackrell was Palmetto’s first golf professional. In 1895 additional land was purchased by William C. Whitney to enable the completion of an 18-hole layout by the same individuals. The course was a winter course and there were no local members.

The course had sand greens until 1933 when Dr. Alister MacKenzie was asked to redesign the greens, convert them to grass and add approximately 500 yards to the length. At that time MacKenzie was working on Augusta National and approximately a dozen members of Palmetto were charter members of the Augusta National. One of the most interesting items we ran across was an article by Dr. Alister MacKenzie in the American Golfer Magazine in 1933. He quoted the Chairman of Bobby Jones Executive Committee at the Augusta National as saying, “We have only one serious complaint …the layout you designed at Aiken is liked so well that the Aiken colony does not seem to be the least bit interested in coming over to the Augusta National.”

There is great appreciation of the contribution to golf in Aiken made by Thomas Hitchcock and William C. Whitney, who were responsible for making the Palmetto Golf Club a reality. Our research has shown that the Palmetto is the 2nd oldest 18-hole golf course in the United States at its original location.

The Thomas Hitchcock/ William C. Whitney Award
The previous comments illustrate the important contributions Hitchcock and Whitney made to golf in Aiken. In establishing this Award we wanted to recognize an individual who in their activities had very positively impacted the game of golf in our area.

**Palmetto Amateur Media Relations Contributed to this Report**