Sep. 25—Golf hasn’t been around Aiken as long as some of the equestrian sports, but the area is still a mecca for those who love the game.
With more than a dozen courses — and some new ones on the way — there is something to suit everyone with public, semiprivate and private options.
Aiken County also has been blessed with many great players and teams that have represented the area well on the regional, national and international stages.
Palmetto Golf Club
Thomas Hitchcock is credited with bringing golf to Aiken.
In 1892, Hitchcock laid out four holes on the property off Berrie Road. Palmetto Golf Club soon evolved into a 9-hole layout and then a full-fledged 18-hole course by 1895.
Palmetto is recognized as the oldest continually operated golf course at its original location in the Southeast. It also is second only to Chicago Golf Club for the same distinction nationwide.
While Hitchcock, Herbert Leeds and James Mackrell get credit for the early design of Palmetto, the course underwent a significant transformation in the early 1930s.
That’s when Dr. Alister MacKenzie, who was in the area to design Augusta National Golf Club, converted the sand greens to grass.
Palmetto has seen plenty of restoration work in the decades since MacKenzie visited, but is still faithful to its original design. Noted golf architects Tom Doak and Gil Hanse have consulted on restoration work, and today the course features many of MacKenzie’s design characteristics.
Aiken Golf Club
Aiken Golf Club started out as an 11-hole layout that was created in 1912 as an amenity for the nearby Highland Park Hotel.
John R. Inglis, the club’s pro from 1915-1939, finished off the course design to make it an 18-hole layout. Inglis designed the seven-hole loop — now Nos. 8 through 14.
In 1916, Aiken Golf Club gained fame as the first in the nation to offer women’s tees. Mary Dunn, the first female golf professional in the U.S., made the recommendation during a visit to the club.
The City of Aiken took ownership and renamed the course Aiken Golf Club in the late 1930s. That lasted for 20 years until Jim McNair Sr. purchased the course and changed the name to Highland Park Country Club.
Under McNair’s direction, Highland Park was a family destination with a club that offered such amenities as dining and swimming. He passed ownership to his son, Jim Jr., in the 1980s.
The public course, though, lacked proper infrastructure and was in need of a makeover. In the late 1990s, McNair Jr. hopped on a bulldozer and made significant changes.
The course is relatively short by modern standards — right at 6,000 yards from the tips — and there weren’t any good options to increase its length. So McNair made the green complexes challenging by putting plenty of contours in them.
And he changed the name back to Aiken Golf Club.
Bobby Knowles
No amateur player with ties to Aiken has accomplished more than Robert W. Knowles Jr.
Affectionately known as Bobby, he was a native of Cambridge, Mass., and was the great-grandson of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
He made his name from golf, playing in an era when prize money was minimal and the top players often remained amateurs.
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A winner of more than 100 tournaments, including the French, New England and Massachusetts amateurs and the South Carolina state amateur twice.
For those feats, he is enshrined in the South Carolina Golf Hall of Fame, the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame, the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame and the Aiken County Sports Hall of Fame.
Knowles was a two-time participant in the Masters. Even though he wasn’t a factor in those tournaments, in 1951 and 1952, Augusta National and Masters Chairman Clifford Roberts invited him to take over the Scoring Committee in 1953. Knowles was the chair for 35 years.
Knowles played a prominent role in developing the “over and under” scoring system that debuted in 1960 at the Masters.
“I can’t say I invented it — Cliff Roberts had the most to do with it — but I did have some involvement with it,” Knowles said in an interview before his death in 2003.
Kevin Kisner
Many professional golfers have called Aiken home at some point in their careers, but none have had the success that Kevin Kisner has achieved.
A standout player at the junior and college levels, Kisner struggled to make his mark in professional golf. After years of trying to find his place in the game, Kisner found a foothold in 2015 and didn’t look back.
He had gained notoriety for losing three playoffs on the PGA Tour, but he broke through in 2015 to win The RSM Classic.
Two years later, he added a victory at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, for his second PGA Tour win.
His biggest professional victory came in 2019 when he captured the World Golf Championships-Match Play event.
His fourth PGA Tour win came in 2021 in Greensboro, and it was in a six-man playoff.
Kisner has amassed nearly $30 million in career earnings. He’s known for saying “this ain’t no hobby” when talking about his game.
Kisner played in eight consecutive Masters from 2016-2023, and his best finish at Augusta National was a tie for 21st in 2019. He’s also been a part of two winning Presidents Cup teams.
More recently, Kisner has been an analyst in the TV booth for several events carried by NBC.
Michael Carlisle
Aiken’s junior golf scene has produced some amazing talent. Go back to the 1970s and Jim McNair Sr. at Highland Park guided many of the area’s best to play collegiately at Clemson.
In the 1980s and 1990s it was Jackie Seawell at Woodside who regularly turned out college-level talent, including the likes of Kevin Kisner.
Now, Michael Carlisle is helping nurture young talent.
Carlisle — who traces his junior roots to McNair and Highland Park — led USC Aiken men’s golf team to three consecutive Division II national championships from 2004 to 2006. Carlisle was inducted into the Golf Coaches Association of America Hall of Fame in 2010.
Carlisle oversaw a standout group of Pacers, led by Dane Burkhart and Scott Brown, that was a dominant force on the national scene for many years.
A decorated winner on the local, state and regional levels, Carlisle is also known locally for running the Aiken-Augusta Junior Golf Association.
