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Golf History Timeline David Strawn won the Southern Conference championship in 1969 and 1970 and reached the finals of the U.S. Amateur in Toledo, Ohio, in 1973. In 1961, the transition to the new campus was completed when the last of the women moved on campus. By this time, the golf team was practicing on Furman's course and playing home matches at the nearby Green Valley Country Club. In 1962, the team began to play its home matches on the Furman course. During the early sixties, the men's team enjoyed several winning seasons, placing third in the Southern Conference in 1960 and second in 1962. In 1962, Walt Smith won the Southern Conference title. In 1965 and 1966, Furman basketball legend Frank Selvy, then an assistant basketball coach, coached the golf team. Bob Hitch was hired as golf course director in 1966, and he later served as coach. The first thing Hitch did was to build a pro shop, which provided a place to greet prospective players and also allowed the university to open the course to the public. He built a driving range and a cart shed, and purchased several carts. As more scholarship money became available, he urged that the golf program be upgraded. Under Gary "Doc" Meredith, who served as men's golf coach for nine years, Furman golfers reached new heights. In 1969, the team won a record 19 matches and placed second in the Southern Conference. In 1970, the team finished first in the Southern Conference tournament in Pinehurst, N.C. David Strawn, an outstanding golfer, won Southern Conference individual championships in both 1969 and 1970. Now an attorney in Charlotte, N.C., Strawn made national headlines when he reached the finals of the 1973 U.S. Amateur at Inverness in Toledo, Ohio. Led by such strong players as Tommy Gaul, Bo Leslie, Frank Ford, Ken Ezell, and Keith Storms, Furman continued to dominate the Southern Conference throughout most of the 1970s. Ezell won the league's individual title in 1975, 1976 and 1977. In 1977, the team competed in the NCAA Championships in Hamilton, N.Y., and finished in 18th place. The 1970s will always be remembered as the time when women's golf started at Furman. Not only did the Lady Paladin golfers compete for the first time in 1972, but in their first season of play they became a national contender. The women won all of their 11 regular-season matches and then went on to place eleventh in the National Intercollegiate Women's Golf Championship in Las Cruces, N.M. Ruth Reid, former chair of the health and physical education department, says that the first team was organized mainly because of the interest of two women: Gwen Hyatt, a junior, and Beth Solomon, a high school student who wanted to come to Furman. "Gwen had played competitive golf through her country club, and her mother was a golfer," says Reid. "Beth was impressed with our beautiful golf course. Her father was a golf pro, and he owned a golf course." Reid set up some matches and recruited several other Furman students who had played at country clubs to make up the rest of the team. She found a little money in the physical education budget to pay the team's travel expenses. "Our team wiped everybody out," she says. "Because of the type of school Furman was, we attracted girls who had played competitively at the country club. So we made a big splash." The early 1950s – President John L. Plyler decided that the new Furman campus would be the perfect place for a golf course. 1955 - Carl Clawson, Furman's new resident engineer and manager of the physical plant, and a construction crew made up mostly of Furman employees began to build the first nine holes. Spring of 1956 - The first nine holes opened for play. 1959 – The back nine was finished. 1975 - O'Neal Owen, a certified golf course greens superintendent, was hired to bring the course up to USGA standards. He redesigned some bunkers, added others and built new tees on several holes to lengthen the course. 1977 - The tees and greens were irrigated. 1985 - Furman brought in a turf grass specialist to assist with the conversion of the greens to bent grass. 1988 - Furman installed an irrigation system that provides water for the entire course. 1995 – Betsy King, Beth Daniel and Dottie Pepper contributed $25,000 each toward building a new practice facility and the REK Center for Intercollegiate Golf. The practice facility features a putting green, chipping green, fairway and greenside bunkers, and a covered, heated tee area. The REK Center, also funded with a gift from an anonymous donor, contains locker rooms, coaches' offices, a meeting area, and a lobby. The lobby is dedicated to the memory of Connie Timmons, longtime hostess of the Furman Pro-Am breakfast. 2008 - The Furman Golf Club was renovated by Kris Spence. This most recent renovation encompassed redesigning all of the green complexes and changing from bent grass to Champion Bermuda, repositioning each of the fairway bunkers to bring them into play for the modern era, and adding approximately 200 yards to the championship layout. Spence, who has renovated several Donald Ross designs in the Carolinas, added many Ross characteristics to the Furman course. March of 2012 - An extensive renovation of the REK practice area began. Four new Champion Bermuda grass greens were added and the existing bent grass was reconditioned, as well. The approximately seven-acre area, which was designed by Scot Sherman, provides players with multiple short game practice possibilities and an opportunity to play multi-directional par-3 holes. Beth Daniel, whose total LPGA earnings exceed $8.4 million, has won 32 professional victories and two U.S. Amateur Championships. After graduating from Furman in 1987, Dottie Pepper established herself as one of the top stars on the LPGA tour, then retired and began a career as an analyst with the Golf Channel.