In hectic world of senior golf, Blythewood’s Hargett earns top SCGA honor
Eddie Hargett calls the schedule for highly skilled senior golfers “crazy,” and that definition fits the game in another context: the competition for the South Carolina Golf Association’s 2019 Senior Player of the Year race.
After a season worth of tournaments with varying formats against different qualities of competition and goodness-only-knows how many strokes, Hargett won the SCGA’s top award for golfers age 55 and older by all of 41/100th of a point.
That’s crazy.
Hargett (Blythewood) compiled 516.67 points in the SCGA formula that weighs tournament finishes and strength of field. Walter Todd Sr. (Laurens), who had earned the top senior award the past three years, had 516.26.
“What’s that? One missed or made putt?” Hargett asked rhetorically. And that one putt could be by any player that impacted the tournament leaderboard.
His strong year included one win, seven top-five finishes and eight times in the top 20. He qualified for the U.S. Senior Open and placed fifth in a pair of high-profile national amateur events, the North and South Senior and the Sunnehanna Senior. He finished fourth in the State Seniors and teamed with Todd to take sixth in the SCGA Senior Four-Ball.
“Schedules for senior golfers are a balancing act for guys like me who are working,” said Hargett, 59. “There are a lot of big national invitationals for seniors that you can get in once you build a resume. There are a lot more that I can play in. It’s just crazy.”
Hargett called making the Senior Open his best 2019 memory and qualifying for that national tournament his best round. Playing on an unfamiliar course in a rain storm in Maryland, he shot 4-under-par 66, missing only one fairway and hitting every green in regulation.
“That’s good in any conditions and unbelievable in that rain,” he said.
On the flip side, he finished the North and South Senior Amateur on Pinehurst No. 8 with back-to-back bogeys. “I would have won with a birdie (on the par-5 17th) and a par on 18,” he said.
Looking back over 2019, “I hit the ball overall better than I have in years, but I didn’t putt as well as I had been,” he said. “The game’s fluid; things come and go in cycles. The biggest thing is confidence, and I had confidence for the most part.”
Hargett works in sales and begins the new year with a different company in the same industry, and he said, “I’m working in my schedule and hope I can play in the top events, the ones I want to play.”
More certain is he will maintain his competitiveness and appreciate the friendships and camaraderie that golf provides.
“We play against each other and we want to win, but we’re great friends,” Hargett said. “Walter and I have played four-balls together, we’ve traveled to tournaments together and we’ve practiced together. It’s unique; we compete, then we go have a beer together.
“As we get older, I appreciate what golf has done for me. What other sport could I be playing at a high level at age 59? Besides that, you meet so many great people.”
Hargett will be among the honorees Saturday (Jan. 11) at Golf Day ceremonies at Columbia Country Club. Jordan Sease (Lexington) will receive the association’s player of the year award, and both Kevin King and Mike Lawrence will be inducted into the South Carolina Golf Hall of Fame.
Chip shots. Dawn Woodard (Greer) earned the WSCGA’s player of the year honor for the eighth time and Lea Anne Brown (Charleston) captured the senior player of the year honor for the sixth time. . . . Jodee Tindal (Rock Hill/College of Charleston) won the women’s title and Fulton Smith (Pinehurst, N.C./Wake Forest) led the men in the Carolinas Young Amateur tourney at Pinewild CC in Pinehurst, N.C. . . . A year after staging the U.S. Women’s Open at the CC of Charleston, the USGA will bring another national championship — the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur — to the Palmetto State in 2020. The tourney, for players 25 and older, will be played Aug. 29-Sept. 3 at Berkeley Hall Club in Bluffton.