Pro golf tour adding multi-year stop in Midlands. Here are the details
Professional golf is coming to the Midlands next year.
The Korn Ferry Tour is bringing an event to Woodcreek Golf Club in Elgin, 20 miles east of Columbia.
The Colonial Life Charity Classic will be May 11-17, 2026. An agreement is in place to have the event there for five years with Colonial Life as the title sponsor. It will be held the week after the PGA Tour's Myrtle Beach Classic this year.
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An official announcement was made Friday afternoon with Korn Ferry president Alex Baldwin, City of Columbia mayor Daniel Rickenmann and state senators and representatives in attendance.
'This is going to have an incredible impact across our community,' Rickenmann said. '… We are talking about seven to eight million dollars (per year) in our community. It also exposes our junior golfers that there is an opportunity, allowing them to be next to the next Scottie Scheffler or Justin Thomas or whoever their hero is.
'It also gives people an opportunity to explore the Midlands and get to see what we have in Richland County … and experience what we all know is a great community right here.'
The tournament will also have a charitable element, with proceeds going to the United Way.
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The Korn Ferry Tour, which was started in 1990, is a developmental league for the PGA Tour. In 2024, 30 Korn Ferry golfers earned PGA Tour cards. Some of the notable Korn Ferry Tour alumni include Scheffler, a three-time major winner, as well as Justin Thomas, Bryson DeChambeau, Jason Day, Zach Johnson, Bubba Watson and Tony Finau.
According to Baldwin, 82 percent of current PGA Tour members have played on the Korn Ferry Tour.
'You walk in the room here and five minutes here you can feel the excitement. I know we got a membership that is champing at the bit to be involved. And we couldn't be more excited,' Baldwin said.
This will be the Korn Ferry Tour's second event in South Carolina. The BMW Charity Pro-Am is held at the Thornblade Club in Greer. The also is an event in Raleigh, North Carolina, on the Tour's 26-event schedule.
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South Carolina also has two PGA Tour events — The RBC in Hilton Head Island and the ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic.
'Love of being a native of Columbia and proud of what is going on in this state. But there is a void in the Midlands for golf and didn't have a significant event,' Eventus CEO/president Gene Hallman said. 'We want to make this more than a golf tournament. We want to make it a social event.'
Hallman, an Irmo High graduate who got his masters at the University of South Carolina, founded Eventus and his company will oversee everything that goes on with the tournament outside of the ropes. He said plans are for various events during the week of the tournament such as concerts, celebrity pro-am and junior golf clinics.
Former PGA Tour and Korn Ferry player Chris Baker will be the tournament's director. Baker, an Iowa native, is recently retired from professional golf and lives at Woodcreek. Baker is thought to be the first former golfer to be a director of a professional golf event.
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Hallman's company has overseen events on the LPGA Tour, Champions Tour and United States golf events such as the U.S. Women's Open, US Senior Open and Walker Cup. His Alabama-based company also brought the Southeastern Conference baseball tournament to Hover, Alabama.
So, Hallman got the ball rolling on bringing the event to the Midlands. He made a phone call to his college buddy and former Hammond basketball coach Mark McClam and then Colonial Life president Tim Arnold on Jan. 11 to kick things off. Things went quickly from there and were wrapped up in April.
Once the sponsorship was secure, talks started with the PGA/Korn Ferry Tour began to ramp up. The Tour has 26 events and won't add any more. So, the Colonial Life Charity Classic will replace a current event on Korn Ferry's 26-event schedule.
The final piece was to secure the course to host an event of this stature. A call went out to Woodcreek owner Harold Pickrel, who bought the course5 1/2years ago and continued to make upgrades.
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Woodcreek Golf Club opened in 1997 and was designed by Tom Fazio. The course has hosted some mini tour events such as Hooters Tour and statewide golf events, but none of this magnitude.
Pickrel was definitely on board with it. He already has invested $5 million in the course and likely $2 million more to fine-tune some things, including building an amphitheater next to the clubhouse.
'I was quite honored to be offered an opportunity to host an event like this,' Pickrel said. 'We call this course one of the best-kept secrets around. To have a chance to show off our course to some of the best players in the world and other people to see it is special. It gives us notoriety.'
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The Nicklaus filter Jack Nicklaus has reached the age (85) and time around the PGA Tour (65 years) to speak freely. Very freely. He made that much clear during the broadcast Friday when television did a walk-and-talk with Ben Griffin as he played the 17th hole. 'I can't stand that, the interview on the golf course,' Nicklaus said when it was over. And he was just getting warmed up. 'Let me tell you how I think, how I feel,' he said. 'I mean, seriously, here's a guy who's leading the golf tournament, he's just hit the edge of the rough, he's got a very difficult shot on a very difficult hole, and you're talking to him about stuff that totally takes his mind off of what he was doing. 'How would you think (Ben) Hogan would respond to that question?' Nicklaus said. 'You would not have any teeth left if you did.' Nicklaus generally likes the advancements in the PGA Tour, understanding that times change. But he cares deeply about the integrity of competition. By the end of the week, he also said only what most people think. Scottie Scheffler was leading and eventually pulled away by playing the last eight holes with two birdies and six pars. Nicklaus said Scheffler did what he had to do with the competition chasing him. 'Ben Griffin's a nice player, Sepp Straka is a nice player, Nick Taylor is a nice player. Those were all the guys that were there basically coming down the stretch,' Nicklaus said. 'But he knows that those guys are not in his league. Now, if he would have had ... Xander (Schauffele) or somebody like that would have been there, he might have said: 'Well, that might be a little tougher. I might have to do something different.' He didn't have to.' Shades with a purpose The shades for which Ben Griffin is becoming known is not about style. Griffin, who won the Colonial and was runner-up to Scottie Scheffler at the Memorial, said he began seeing floaters a year ago and was told by his eye doctor that his retina was trying to detach itself. 'I had retinal holes, so I had to go get basically laser surgery to fill in those holes,' he said. 'I had eight retinal holes in both eyes, so I was at risk of losing vision maybe within five or six months had I not gotten the treatment.' He still sees floaters. The surgery was to maintain his level. The sunglasses help. 'When I wear sunglasses it's a little bit darker out, so I don't necessarily see the floaters as well,' Griffin said. 'So if it's really bright out and I'm not wearing the sunglasses, I look into the clouds or whatever and I see black stuff everywhere.' There's one other advantage. He says the glasses help reading greens. 'I love the ability to see the contrast a little bit better, then when it's really bright, it's kind of hard to see grain changes from time to time,' he said. 'So seeing contours is definitely a little bit easier I think with the sunglasses.' Divots The PGA Tour picked up another extension when Deere & Company agreed to a new deal that keeps title sponsorship of the John Deere Classic through 2030. ... Muirfield, which hasn't hosted the British Open since 2013, will hold the Women's British Amateur for the first time next year. The R&A also announced the British Amateur would be at Royal Liverpool. ... David Graham, the Australian great who won the 1979 PGA Championship at Oakland Hills and the 1981 U.S. Open at Merion, was selected as the Memorial honoree for 2026. ... Mexican brothers Carlos and Alvaro Ortiz both qualified and will play in the same U.S. Open for the second time. They also were at Torrey Pines in 2021. Stat of the week Max Moldovan is the only player to make it through U.S. Open qualifying in each of the last four years. Final word 'This old man, as long as he's around, is always here as a sounding board if you need it.' — Jack Nicklaus to the five Nicklaus Award winners from each level of college golf. ___ AP golf: recommended
