Hilton Head Sports

The Heritage Classic Foundation has extended its contract with Berkeley Hall Golf Club to host the Players Amateur through 2019. The event will be celebrating its 19th anniversary July 10-15.  This one-of-a-kind amateur golf tournament was created by players for the players and is made possible by generous contributions and donations from sponsors, volunteers and the host club. The Players Amateur has been played at Berkeley Hall since 2012.

The Heritage Classic Foundation has announced a new golf opportunity during this year’s RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing with the addition of the Tartan Invitational at Atlantic Dunes.

The Tartan Invitational is an exclusive 80-player event pairing each group with a special South Carolina personality. Honorary guests may be a PGA Tour professional, a musician, an athlete, an actor, or a politician. The event will take place on Wednesday, April 11, at Atlantic Dunes by Davis Love III, which was voted the 2017 Golf Course of the Year by the National Golf Course Owners Association.

RBC Heritage presented by Boeing tournament director Steve Wilmot recently was elected to be the vice chairman of the PGA Tour’s Tournament Advisory Council.

The Tournament Advisory Council’s (TAC) mission is to improve the business conditions for all PGA Tour tournaments by establishing and maintaining relationships between tournaments, the PGA Tour and PGA Tour players. The TAC is made up of PGA Tour tournament directors. Wilmot will serve a two-year term as vice chairman and then will become chairman during the PGA Tour Annual Meeting in December 2019.

The RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing always attracts a strong field, but it has been rare for the world’s top-ranked golfer to appear at Harbour Town Golf Links the week after the Masters.

It looks as though that trend will change this April, as world No. 1 Dustin Johnson has committed to play in the 50th annual tournament. A 17-time PGA Tour winner and the 2016 PGA Tour Player of the Year, Johnson was born in Columbia and attended Coastal Carolina, but he has not played in the Palmetto State’s only PGA Tour event since 2009.

GET OUT THERE: 6 OUTDOOR ADVENTURES YOU HAVE TO TRY

In the ordinary run of things, when we talk about the end of winter and the beginning of spring in the Lowcountry, we do so with tongue planted firmly in cheek. After all, this is the subtropics. What winter do we have to complain about?

This year was not the ordinary run of things. For crying out loud, it snowed. Like, actual snow that didn’t come from a machine.

EXPERT TO ADDRESS THE ISLAND’S BIKING FUTURE

During his three decades shaping national and international bicycle and pedestrian policy, Andy Clarke has seen cycling become an important economic driver and a growing response to concerns about the environment and public health. The planning and policy expert has helped lead the revolution of bike-friendly communities. One of the leaders of the Bicycle Friendly Community program — Hilton Head Island enjoys gold-level status — Clarke will serve as keynote speaker for the the Southeast Biking Symposium.

Bluffton auto racer Gus Dean speeds into the future

Since he started racing go-karts at age 6, Gus Dean has had a one-track mind — or, you might say, a racetrack mind.

The Bluffton native captured the American Kart Racing Association’s Junior II national championship in 2007, before he even became a teenager, and he’s been roaring through the auto racing ranks ever since.

USCB TRACK STAR HOPES TO SLED HIS WAY TO THE GAMES

It took some time for Darryl Dunham to warm up to the idea of skeleton racing because, well, sliding down a frozen track head first on a tiny sled sounded awfully cold to someone who has lived his entire life on the coast.

How cold? Try 20 degrees below zero.

The University of Alabama won the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate Golf Tournament last year. Cheyenne Knight was the individual champion in 2016 and 2017. The University of South Carolina's women's team hosted the event.

Long Cove Club, in partnership with Darius Rucker and the University of South Carolina, is hosting the seventh annual Darius Rucker Intercollegiate Golf Tournament from March 2-4, featuring feature top women’s collegiate teams from around the country.