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The calendar says The Masters has come and gone almost two weeks ago, the feeling around Sea Pines Resort is it should have just concluded. These are, indeed, strange days around The Heritage, Hilton Head Island’s signature PGA Tour event.
Typically held the week following the year’s first major, The Heritage lost its spot following The Masters to the Valero Texas Open this year. Adding insult to injury, the change was due in large part to the fact The Heritage, which is staging its 43rd event on Hilton Head’s famed Harbour Town Golf Links this week, is without a title sponsor this year moving forward. Verizon, which had supported the event for several decades under one name or another, concluded its partnership with the tournament last year.
The calendar says The Masters has come and gone almost two weeks ago, the feeling around Sea Pines Resort is it should have just concluded. These are, indeed, strange days around The Heritage, Hilton Head Island’s signature PGA Tour event.
Typically held the week following the year’s first major, The Heritage lost its spot following The Masters to the Valero Texas Open this year. Adding insult to injury, the change was due in large part to the fact The Heritage, which is staging its 43rd event on Hilton Head’s famed Harbour Town Golf Links this week, is without a title sponsor this year moving forward. Verizon, which had supported the event for several decades under one name or another, concluded its partnership with the tournament last year.
Since that time, the Heritage Foundation, the organization that runs the tournament, along with the PGA Tour has been seeking a new benefactor to carry the event beyond this year. To date, nothing has come to fruition, leading to wide speculation, and around the South Carolina Lowcountry significant angst, that 2011 could be the unwelcomed finale to a tournament that has come to define this small coastal region.
It’s not a reality tournament organizers like to discuss, but a reality it is all the same.
“No question there is a different feeling around here,” said Heritage Tournament Director Steve Wilmot. “While the future is uncertain and we do not what will happen, we still have a tournament to put on and we are completely focused on that. At the same time, we are doing everything we can every day try and figure things out.”
Given its annual spot the week following The Masters, the Heritage has typically enjoyed a relatively strong field as players typically enjoy the relaxing weekend on Hilton Head following the stress of Augusta National. Yet despite the move one week back, the 2011 field remains strong, especially when it comes to International talent. Reigning U.S. Open champions Graeme McDowell headlines a Euro field that includes Luke Donald, Ian Poulter and Francesco Molinari.
Add to that popular Americans such as 5-time champion Davis Love III, 2010 winner Jim Furyk, yound sensation Rickie Fowler and long-hitter John Daly and you get one electric field to help promote an event that is attempting to find a sponsor to secure its future.
“I don’t think the new week on the schedule hurt us at all,” Wilmot said. “I still feel like we have as strong a field as we would have had with the usual date after the Masters. A lot of players understood we needed them to be here this year.”
Furyk, who makes his 11th return to Hilton Head and defends his title this week, agrees. Given the stress of an expanded PGA Tour slate, more competition from World Golf Championship events and the European Tour, coupled with a difficult economy, Furyk, and other PGA Tour veterans, have been pushing for more support of middle-tier events such as The Heritage.
“It’s been the talk on the tour for several years now,” Furyk said. “I would say the Heritage is one of those tournaments that we as players need to support to show sponsors what a good place it is to come and what a great tournament it is. We can say it all we want, but to show it is to be there.”
So here the PGA Tour is this week for the 43rd straight year. The Heritage was a tournament few thought could survive the test of time given its location and the relative lack of big business in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Yet, in part due to its location, its golf course and an overwhelming amount of community support, the tournament has, indeed, survived.
That is the story today, what the story will be following this week’s tournament is one yet to be told. That said, it’s safe to say that losing the Heritage would be as devasting to the PGA Tour as it would be to Hilton Head Island. It would mean big business is the only business. It would mean the little man can’t find a place at the big table. More disappointing, it would mean the silencing of a very long history of golf that began with Arnold Palmer winning the first ever event in 1969. It would mean the end of a lineage that has included champions such as Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Greg Norman, Love III, Payne Stewart and Furyk.
That’s not something folks around here want to think about. It’s also not something that should be allowed to happen.
“I certainly do not want to see this end on my watch,” Wilmot said.
There are a lot of people pulling for that not to happen as Heritage Week gets off and running.
