Aug. 4—It was a busy Saturday at Palmetto Golf Club, the open parking spots a little farther down the pine straw as members got to the course early to beat the heat and dodge any potential storms.
Though tee times were hard to come by in the morning, there was space in the early afternoon to shoehorn in a group of friends for a trip down memory lane.
Six former South Aiken golfers came together for a friendly reunion, exchanging handshakes and hugs as they caught up before heading over to the first tee.
Teams were decided, the format was agreed upon, side games were set up, and handicaps were established, though that last part required a lot more discussion than the other three.
They lined up together for a quick group photo before teeing off, prompting the oft-repeated joke when people are trying to squeeze into frame.
“Act like we like each other, right?”
No — act like you won a state championship together.
The six former T-Breds — Ben Dangerfield, Ian Price and Eric Radford on one team, Robert Cross, Patrick Cunning, and Jayson Hinkson on the other — then stepped to the first tee and one after the other sent balls flying down the first fairway.
It’s been 20 years since they won the Class AAAA state championship, and now there are families and careers that occupy a lot of the time they used to devote to golf, but it was clear Saturday that these guys still have plenty of game.
There was no championship on the line Saturday, but these T-Breds hadn’t lost their competitive edge. Bad weather chased them off the course after 15 holes, a stretch during which Cunning was 7-under par to lead his team to victory — which then made the pre-round angling for more strokes understandable.
Cunning’s game looks to be in fine form, to say the least, heading into next month’s City of Aiken Amateur Championship. He’s won the Regular division six times in the tournament’s 14-year history, earning the reputation of tournament favorite every time he’s in the field.
South Aiken had developed itself an unfortunate reputation leading up to the 2004 state championship. The T-Breds were a well-respected program around the state, with five state championships already under their belt, but some struggles in their home town left head coach Jeremy West a bit perplexed during the most important stretch of the season.
The T-Breds led both the Joe Wyatt Memorial at Houndslake Country Club and the Southern Cross at Palmetto after one round, only to falter on day two to finish third and fifth, respectively. Easley won both titles and was understandably deemed the favorite heading into the state championship tournament at Furman.
Still, West and the T-Breds were worried about one goal — break the state scoring record. They surged to a 12-stroke lead after the first two rounds, posting two of their best scores of the entire year.
But they had started hot before. The question in the final round revolved around how they would finish.
For the third round in a row, everyone came to play.
The puzzle that was so difficult to solve in previous weeks was an easy one at state, and this time there was no final-round letdown. South Aiken finished eight strokes ahead of Easley to clinch the T-Breds’ sixth title (they’ve since added two more in 2012-13) overall and third in five years.
It wasn’t a new state record, but it didn’t matter.
Cunning, the senior team captain, was the medalist after beating T.L. Hanna’s Phillip Mollica in a playoff on the second hole, Radford tied for sixth to join him on the All-State team, and Hinkson finished in the top 20.
But it was Cross, the senior alternate who hadn’t started in any of the big tournaments that season, that they still talk about as being the clincher. He shot a final-round 75, second only on the team to Cunning’s 72, to help make sure there would be no second-guessing this time around.
Cunning had the championship experience, having played as a freshman on South Aiken’s 2001 title team that used his score alongside Kevin Kisner’s, Dane Burkhart’s and Alex Hamilton’s for a 13-shot victory that prompted then-coach Donnie Holland to call them the best in program history.
This one put its name up there near the top of the list with a true team performance at the state championship tournament, not counting a score higher than 77 throughout all three rounds.
That permanently embedded them in South Aiken’s rich golf history, something they got the chance to re-live on a hot Saturday 20 years later.
