How many shots would it take Rory McIlroy to hit a golf ball the 187-mile length of South Carolina’s coast?

Golf Coast

Charleston

Number of courses in area: 35

Most notable: The Ocean Course, Kiawah Island

Fun fact: Golf came to Charleston before the United States was a country. According to a document in the National Archives of Scotland, golf clubs were shipped in 1739 from Scotland to Charleston businessman William Wallace. In 1743, 432 balls and 96 clubs were shipped to another Charleston businessman, David Deas. Golf was first played in peninsular Charleston at Harleston Green.

Hilton Head

Number of courses in area: 61

Most notable: Harbour Town Golf Links

Fun fact: The Heritage Golf Classic (now known as the RBC Heritage presented by Boeing) was first played at Harbour Town Golf Links on Thanksgiving weekend in 1969 with Arnold Palmer scoring a three-shot victory on a golf course designed by Pete Dye in conjunction with Jack Nicklaus. Nicklaus finished in a tie for sixth in the first Heritage and won in 1975.

Myrtle Beach

Number of courses in area: 95

Most notable: The Dunes Golf and Beach Club

Fun fact: Sports Illustrated magazine can trace its beginnings to 1954 and Pine Lakes Country Club when Henry Luce, the publisher of Time, Life and Fortune magazines, sent a group of more than 60 employees to Myrtle Beach where they played golf and brainstormed to come up with sales and marketing ideas for a new sports publication.

If the world’s No. 1-ranked golfer were to use his average distance off the tee for every shot (305.9 yards), McIlroy could do it in about 1,076 swings.

On shot No. 41 McIlory would find himself at world-renowned Harbour Town Golf Links on Hilton Head Island. On his 357th shot, he probably would pause and reflect on one of his crowning achievements, an 8-shot victory in the 2012 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course. Stroke 966 would find McIlroy in Myrtle Beach at the famed Dunes Club.

Along the way, he would pass within a few shots left (the Atlantic Ocean being to his right) of 191 of South Carolina’s approximately 368 public and private golf courses.

“I don’t think there’s a stronger package in terms of three distinct destinations in a four-hour stretch than coastal South Carolina,” said Joe Passov, who writes a monthly travel column for Golf Magazine and oversees the publication’s golf course rankings. “I’m a huge fan of coastal South Carolina. It’s a pretty easy endorsement for me to give.”

Golf Digest, in ranking the 10 Best Golf States based on top public courses per capita, says South Carolina is No. 2 behind Hawaii and is home to three of the golf world’s most popular hubs, Myrtle Beach, Hilton Head and Kiawah Island.

“By most accounts, tourism is the largest industry in the state with an economic impact of more than $18 billion a year. Golf is a niche market, but it is the biggest niche in tourism,” said Duane Parrish, director of South Carolina Parks, Recreation and Tourism.

The most recent statewide golf economic impact study, conducted by Dudley Jackson of PRT for the South Carolina Golf Course Owners Association in 2011, stated that golf courses and off-course expenditures of visiting golfers had a total economic impact in South Carolina of $2.7 billion. It also said golf provided 34,785 jobs in the state, accounting for $872 million in personal income, along with $312 million in federal, state and local taxes. Green fees and club membership dues generated $12.6 million in admission tax revenue alone, accounting for 38 percent of state admission tax collections. It was noted that the impact of real estate sales in golf communities and off-site purchases of golf equipment by local golfers were not included in those totals.

The top golf destinations in the state were Myrtle Beach (51 percent), Hilton Head (16 percent) and Charleston (13 percent).

The study revealed that the PGA Tour’s RBC Heritage, played on Harbour Town Golf Links on Hilton Head Island, injects $81 million annually into the economy.

The 2012 PGA Championship, played at Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course, had an estimated economic impact of $193 million. The PGA Championship will return to the Ocean Course in 2021.

Parrish said he expects another golf economic impact study to be commissioned within the next year.

“When the next one is done, I feel the numbers will be even better,” he said.

Parrish said the economic recession took its toll on golf, not just in South Carolina but nationally.

“There are many, many factors in play,” Parrish said. “The Baby Boomers put their clubs in the garage in the recession and they haven’t taken them out for a variety of reasons. The downfall of Tiger Woods. A lot of things have played into that. It’s a national issue.

“From a state perspective, we’ve done pretty well. We have been flat when the rest of the country has been down. We’re now trending up where the rest of the country is still trying to get flat.”

Golf is included in South Carolina’s international marketing done by PRT and Coastal South Carolina USA, which focuses on the three coastal destinations.

Parrish said PRT spends 20 to 25 percent of its advertising budget specifically on golf. It’s not all on coastal golf, he said, because there are other great golf courses in other parts of the state.

South Carolina has a wealth of golf courses, many of which are considered among the finest in the country.

Three courses are included in Golf Magazine’s Top 100 Courses in the U.S. — the Ocean Course (No. 25); Harbour Town (No. 42); and the private Yeamans Hall Club in Hanahan (66).

America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses compiled by Golf Digest has the Ocean Course ranked third among the nation’s public courses, with Harbour Town at No. 19 and the Caledonia Golf and Fish Club on Pawley’s Island ranked No. 73.

In Golf Digest’s rankings of all U.S. courses — public and private — the Ocean Course is No. 20 and Yeamans Hall is No. 64. Other state courses in the rankings are Harbour Town (106); Sage Valley, Graniteville (107); Cassique-Kiawah Island (117); Long Cove, Hilton Head (139); Secession, Beaufort (171); May River at Palmetto Bluff, Bluffton (175); Chanticleer, Greenville (190); and Chechessee Creek, Okatie (197).

“Any time you can put a natural body of water next to a golf hole, you have something special,” said Bradley Klein, the author of several golf architecture books and a senior writer for Golfweek magazine. “We’re used to it being the ocean, but in the case of those three distinct South Carolina destinations you also have the opportunity to play along the tidal marsh and the Intracoastal Waterway. That’s something special.

“Obviously, the Myrtle Beach market is special because of its accessibility and value. Charleston has a more old world feel to it, tied to both the design heritage and access to downtown and King Street. And the Hilton Head area, which extends north into Beaufort, has a charm and ease that draws a lot of people for wintertime residences.”

Charleston: Birthplace of American golf

No one would argue that Kiawah Island, Seabrook Island and Wild Dunes aren’t world-class golf resorts. But is Charleston itself a golf destination? The popular golf resorts are a 45-minute drive from downtown Charleston, but there are plenty of top quality golf courses sprinkled throughout the area.

Unlike Myrtle Beach to the north and Hilton Head to the south, golf isn’t the reason most visitors head to Charleston. History, food, architecture, beaches and cultural events are top reasons tourists list for visiting the Holy City.

But golf is very much in the fabric of Charleston, with the first golf clubs and balls shipped to America, specifically Charleston, in 1739. More recently, the 1991 Ryder Cup Matches and 2012 PGA Championship, both held at Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course, made Charleston an international destination for golf.

“Charleston is a very multi-dimensional destination and is a wonderful destination with great golf. For us to present ourselves as a pure golf destination would be unfair to the visitor and to the destination,” explained Gary Edwards of Coastal South Carolina USA, an organization that markets tourism internationally for Charleston, Myrtle Beach and Hilton Head.

Passov said Charleston vexes him.

“It’s home to some great golf, clearly. It’s home to trophy golf in the form of Kiawah, starting with the Ocean Course. But Kiawah’s other golf offerings would be all-stars anywhere else,” Passov said. “Wild Dunes, the Links Course, maybe not as acclaimed as it once was due to the development and due to the beach erosion but it’s still a very good place to play. And there are some under-the-radar bargain courses in the area that the rest of the country doesn’t know about.

“But the reason Charleston vexes me is because of the non-golf attractions. Sometimes it’s hard to think about a pure golf vacation in Charleston. It’s so much fun spending time in Charleston with the culture, the arts, with the restaurants, with the history, with the views down by The Battery. I almost tell people to split your vacation into two separate sections. When you go to Charleston, do a top-quality resort, and then go spend a couple of days in the city and immerse yourself in one of the nation’s best cities.”

Bradley Klein, the author of several golf architecture books and a senior writer for Golfweek magazine, praises not only the resorts, but also the 36-hole Daniel Island Club.

“The charm of downtown Charleston is a major factor. I love it, everybody I know loves going there. It’s a very sophisticated small city with very easy access to golf and quality shopping. That’s great,” Klein said.

Much of the marketing of Charleston as a golf destination began 20 years ago when the Charleston Golf Course Owners Association and the Convention and Visitors Bureau started Charleston Golf Inc., said Terry Sedalik, executive director of the Charleston Golf Course Owners Association. The two organizations pooled money and petitioned for matching grants. Out of that grew Charleston Golf Guide (charlestongolfguide.com), a one-stop location for tee times, hotels and package deals.

Myrtle Beach: The supermarket of golf

When it comes to marketing itself as a golf destination, no one can come close to Myrtle Beach. Numbers. Variety. Quality. The Grand Strand has it all.

“It’s something I’ve said for quite a while. It’s the supermarket of golf,” said Passov. “It’s honestly everything a vacationing golfer could want in a golf experience. The value is absolutely tremendous because Myrtle Beach was the pioneer in golf packages. And over the years they’ve refined and perfected them.”

Passov said the quality of the golf courses built over the past 20 years has taken Myrtle Beach from a value-oriented getaway into a tremendous value for all golfers.

Courses like Grande Dunes, Barefoot Landing, Caldeonia and True Blue offer tremendous variety and quality, noted Klein. “It wasn’t that way 30 years ago,” he said.

Pine Lakes, built in 1927, was the first golf course in Myrtle Beach. The next course didn’t come along until The Dunes Golf and Beach Club was built in 1949 by Robert Trent Jones. Slowly more and more courses were built.

Another thing that made Myrtle Beach a recognizable golf destination was the idea in 1954 to hold a testimonial dinner for Jones and invite golf writers from around the country. It evolved into an annual event as writers on their way to cover the Masters in Augusta would play various courses throughout the Myrtle Beach area, finishing at The Dunes Club.

Cecil Brandon, a retired advertising executive and one of the former principals of Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday, said that event went on for approximately 50 years.

“It’s not so much what you say about yourself; it’s what somebody else says about you,” Brandon said.

“What really made Myrtle Beach grow was when Buster Bryan and Jim Hackler started Golf-O-Tel (a package for golf, breakfast and a room for six nights).”

Golf-O-Tel eventually merged with another promotional collaboration, Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday. Golf courses and hotels worked together to market the area and all benefitted. Brandon said there were 127 courses in Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday when he retired. Today, Myrtle Beach Holiday has approximately 80 member courses that produce almost 3 million rounds of golf each year. Golf’s Grand Strand stretches from Georgetown across the border into North Carolina.

The Chamber of Commerce also helped promote the area as a golf destination. One of its most successful efforts was the Myrtle Beach Can-Am Days Festival held in March or April. Canadian visitors, many of them golfers, were encouraged to visit, enjoy the beaches, play golf and get away from the cold.

The recent recession hit golf hard. Many areas of the country were overbuilt for golf, including Myrtle Beach. Approximately 20 Grand Strand courses were closed in the mid-2000s and a few more courses have closed recently, including Waterway Hills.

But Myrtle Beach still stands tall as one of the top golf destinations in the world.

Hilton Head: Real estate drove golf boom

No one gives a second thought today to the idea of using real state to sell golf. But that was a novel concept in the late 1950s when Charles Fraser approached his father with the idea. The Frasers were part of a group from Georgia who had purchased a portion of Hilton Head Island for the logging rights.

After spending some time at the logging camp, Fraser sold his father on the idea of a real estate development centered around golf that would become Sea Pines Resort.

“Charles was primarily the visionary behind residential development, not just from selling homes on the beach, but using golf as a marketing component to selling real estate,” said Cary Corbitt, director of the sports division of Sea Pines Resort.

“Charles had the golf courses laid out primarily to sell real estate. At that time, he had no idea golf was ever going to become the dominant force it would become.”

The first golf course on Hilton Head Island was built in 1962, the Sea Pines Ocean Course, and the genie was out of the bottle. More courses followed, at Sea Pines, at Palmetto Dunes, at Port Royal and so forth.

But the real explosion came in the late 1960s. Fraser had the idea of building a golf course and holding a PGA Tour event which became The Heritage Classic. He also had the idea for a marina with an iconic red and white lighthouse.

“Charles chose Jack Nicklaus, who was at the height of his playing career, to design the course and Jack recommended an up-and-comer (architect) Pete Dye. Pete became the architect and Jack became the design consultant,” Corbitt said.

“The golf tournament took place on Thanksgiving weekend in 1969 and Arnold Palmer won it. Arnold had been in a drought, won the golf tournament, and that just catapulted Sea Pines into stardom.”

Palmer’s victory was followed by other greats of the game including Nicklaus himself, Johnny Miller, Hale Irwin, Tom Watson, Fuzzy Zoeller, Nick Faldo and Bernhard Langer.

Hilton Head is more low-key than Myrtle Beach, said Passov, who lived on Hilton Head Island for five years.

“From Day 1, it was developed with good taste and low key in mind. No billboards. No neon. Just those forested plantations, the beach areas. It’s all pretty gorgeous,” she said.

“When I think of Hilton Head golf, I think of two things. One is Harbour Town, that being on everybody’s must-play list. Second, I think of the many, many excellent private golf developments. There are so many beautiful gated communities with golf courses designed by the top architects of the game.”

The Heritage, televised each April on CBS, does a lot for Hilton Head in terms of marketing and the South Carolina Lowcountry Golf Course Owners Association, of which Corbitt is president, helps in promoting the area which is much more expansive than the island itself and reaches out to surrounding locations such as Bluffton and Beaufort.

In a soaring eulogy to the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, President Barack Obama spoke of grace’s power to heal, the nation’s enduring racial divide, and how last week’s killings in Emanuel AME Church offered a chance for a grieving country “to find our best selves.”

Live Map: Street closings and events for Friday

The Post and Courier is tracking street closings and other events around town as the President and others arrive in Charleston to attend the funeral service for Rev. Clementa Pinckney.

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The president’s 38-minute oratory Friday reached deep into history, probing the lingering wounds of slavery and desegregation while celebrating Pinckney’s long-standing devotion to his ministry and the poor.

Bringing the crowd to its feet time and again, Obama called for continued efforts to furl the Confederate battle flag.

He decried the nation’s blindness “to the unique mayhem that gun violence inflicts on us.”

And, in one of the eulogy’s most surprising moments, he paused for eight seconds, looked down somberly, and sang “Amazing Grace.”

After the services, Obama, his wife, Michelle, Vice President Joe Biden, and his wife, Jill, had private meetings with the victims’ families.

Malcolm Graham, a former North Carolina state senator and brother of victim Cynthia Hurd, said the tone was solemn. “It was yet another citizen voicing his concern for us,” Graham said. But, “In this case, it was the president of the United States. We felt real good about him doing that.” Chris Singleton, the son of Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, said the meeting was “breathtaking.”

It was the first time Obama has visited Charleston since his first presidential campaign in 2008. And it came just 10 days after a white gunman was accused of opening fire in a Bible study class at Emanuel AME Church, killing Pinckney and eight others. It also came amid an increasingly heated debate over gun violence and racially charged incidents involving police, including the fatal shooting in April of Walter Scott in North Charleston.

But the mood throughout the services and afterward was joyful, even as the throng left the arena and plunged into the withering June sun. “What I like about the speech is the president didn’t spare the bitter medicine,” said North Charleston minister Nelson Rivers III, a vice president with the National Action Network. “The president went there. He went to the issue of race.”

Packed ‘sanctuary’

Anticipation of the president’s visit was palpable throughout the week, and for many people, the services began hours before first light.

The Rev. Curtis Capers of Summerville was among those first to line up in Marion Square at 3:30 a.m. Three hours later, the line extended from Calhoun Street, up Meeting Street and about 100 yards around on Hutson Street. Capers, pastor of Honey Hill Baptist Church in Cottageville, said he came to pay his respects to Pinckney and other victims. “They were doing what God required them to do,” Capers said of their attendance in a Bible study class. “I believe they were ready to meet their Heavenly Father.”

Hundreds brought water, chairs, umbrellas and other supplies to help them through another hot summer morning until the TD Arena’s doors opened. By 10 a.m., lines outside the arena — steps away from Mother Emanuel — had broken down beyond the police barriers. “The gates of heaven won’t be like this,” a mourner said when he reached the arena gates. “They will be narrower, but there will be fewer.”

At 11 a.m., more than 5,900 people packed the arena, a record according to the College of Charleston, and hundreds of people were turned away. Inside, women in white dresses and men in black suits clapped their hands as a band played a joyful spiritual medley, and then “Amazing Grace.” Organizers handed out programs, which included two poems from Pinckney’s daughters, Eliana and Malana. The Rev. Norvel Goff, the interim pastor of Emanuel AME Church, drew standing ovations for his invocation: “This is no longer the TD Arena. We have transformed it into a sanctuary.”

The tributes began even as Air Force One was in the air and flying toward Charleston. Several dignitaries were introduced, including U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, both of whom received standing ovations. When a woman yelled “Hillary!” from the audience,” Goff, the presiding elder, reminded everyone that they were in a sanctuary.

Speakers and members of the clergy sat in a long row that stretched across the arena floor. On the far left was a sign: “Wrong Church, Wrong People, Wrong Day.” One by one, the speakers went to the lectern, adorned with a purple church banner. They spoke of the potential of the tragedy to create positive change.

“His sacrifice must lead to reconciliation,” said state Sen. Gerald Malloy, who represents counties in the Pee Dee. “Clementa Pinckney’s last act as a Christian and as a senator was to open his doors to someone he did not know.” The Rev. John R. Bryant, senior bishop of the AME Church, had people on their feet after he said, “Someone should have told that young man … he wanted to start a race war. But he came to the wrong place.”

They stood again when Bryant credited the governor for her bold move to remove the flag from the Statehouse grounds. “Joy comes in the morning,” Bryant said. “Touch the person next to you and say, ‘Good morning.’ ”

Anticipation grew as the speakers went over their allotted time and word spread that the president and vice president had arrived.

‘Things not seen’

Since he was elected the nation’s first African-American president, Obama has been called on frequently to serve as consoler-in-chief: Three months after Obama was sworn in, a man killed 13 people at an immigration center in Binghamton, New York; seven months later, an Army psychiatrist fatally shot 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas; a year later, a 22-year-old opened fire at a Tucson supermarket, killing six and wounding 11, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords; six months later, a man shot and killed 12 people in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater; in 2012, a gunman shot 20 first-graders and six adults in Newtown, Conn.

When Obama took the podium Friday afternoon, he quickly introduced the eulogy’s central theme: Pinckney, the president said, was “a man who believed in things not seen, a man who believed there were better days ahead.”

Noting Pinckney’s smile and “reassuring baritone,” Obama described Pinckney’s remarkable career. “He was in the pulpit by 13, pastor by 18, public servant by 23,” and how as a state senator for Allendale, Beaufort, Charleston, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper counties, he “represented a sprawling swath of Lowcountry, a place that has long been one of the most neglected in America, a place still racked by poverty and inadequate schools, a place where children can still go hungry and the sick can go without treatment — a place that needed someone like Clem.”

Pinckney, he added, “embodied a politics that was neither mean nor small. He conducted himself quietly and kindly and diligently.”

Obama then shifted toward the killings and their surprising aftermath. “To the families of the fallen, the nation shares in your grief. Our pain cuts that much deeper because it happened in a church. The church is and always has been the center of the African-American life.”

The president touched on Charleston’s response, led by the families of the victims.

“The alleged killer could never have anticipated how the families would respond,” he said. “Amid unspeakable grief,” they spoke about forgiveness and love. The arena came to its feet, and an organ played a few notes. “Blinded by hatred, he failed to comprehend what Rev. Pinckney so well understood — the power of God’s grace.”

The crowd stood for another ovation as he spoke of Mother Emanuel — “a church built by blacks seeking liberty, burned to the ground because its founders sought to end slavery only to rise up again, a phoenix from these ashes.” Then, he took aim at the Confederate flag.

“For too long, we were blind to the pain that the Confederate flag stirred into many of our citizens,” he said, lauding Gov. Nikki Haley’s call to remove the flag from the Statehouse grounds. “As we all have to acknowledge, the flag has always represented more than ancestral pride. For many, black and white, that flag was a reminder of systematic oppression and racial subjugation. We see that now.”

He said putting the Confederate flag in its proper place was a first step toward healing the nation’s wounds, but “I don’t think God wants to stop there.” He spoke about how racial bias “can infect us even when we don’t realize it,” drawing one of the biggest cheers when he described the “subtle impulse to call Johnny back for a job interview but not Jamal.”

Near the end, he returned to the personal impact the shootings had on him. “An open heart. That’s what I felt this week. An open heart.” He spoke of grace, and of how “if we can find that grace, anything is possible.” His voice lowered then, and he paused and led the arena in “Amazing Grace.” The crowd erupted in song and cheers. And his voice rose over the cheers as he said,

“Clementa Pinckney found that grace …

“Cynthia Hurd found that grace …

“Susie Jackson found that grace …

“Ethel Lance found that grace …

“DePayne Middleton Doctor found that grace …

“Tywanza Sanders found that grace …

“Daniel L. Simmons Sr. found that grace …

“Sharonda Coleman-Singleton found that grace …

“Myra Thompson found that grace.”

Robert Behre, Glenn Smith, Jennifer Berry Hawes, Hanna Raskin, Brenda Ringe, Christina Elmore and Melissa Boughton and Jeff Hartsell contributed to this report.