Five Spartans Set for 80th S.C. Amateur Championship
8/3/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
Spartanburg, S.C. – When the 80th South Carolina Amateur Championship gets underway Thursday morning, a contingent of five USC Upstate men's golfers will take to the course vying for the title as the best amateur player in the state.
The S.C. Amateur Championship will be played on the Dye Course at Colleton River Plantation in Bluffton Thursday-Sunday and will be a 72-hole tournament. The Dye Course plays at 7,121 yards and was rated as one the America's Top 100 courses in 2007.
Upstate golfers Tyler Comer (Pacolet Mills, Broome HS), Nelson Dickson (Spartanburg, Boiling Springs HS), Adam Goins (Gaffney, Gaffney HS), McKenzie Oref (Easley, Easley HS) and Brad Sill (Spartanburg, Dorman HS) will be five players in the field of 142 battling for state supremacy. Sill and Oref have found some success in the tournament, each making the cut in previous tournaments. Sill finished 40th in the 2009 championship and 63rd last year, while Oref took home 64th-place in 2009.
Former Upstate great Josh Gallman has been the top Spartan finisher in recent years, finishing second in both 2008 and 2009. Taylor Hough, who played in the program when the athletics department was a member of NAIA, won the amateur championship in 1993 after he finished his education at then-USC Spartanburg.
All five Upstate golfers competing in the S.C. Amateur Championship this week helped lead the Spartans on the course last year. Goins became the first freshman golfer to win an individual tournament title when he shot 7-under-par at the Caribbean Classic, helping lead the Spartans to the team championship as well. He ranked fourth on the team with a 74.7 stroke average. Sill led the team with a 74.2 stroke average and claimed two top-10 and one top-5 finish on the year. Comer ranked third on the team with a 74.6 stroke average, while claiming a top-10 finish. Oref and Dickson also saw time in the lineup, with Oref tying for sixth on the team with a 75.5 stroke average, while Dickson, playing his first competitive year of college golf, was seventh at 76.7.
