Bill Sampson, a past Carolinas PGA Section Golf Professional of the Year, Bill Strausbaugh Award and President’s Plaque winner, is the PGA director of golf at Old Tabby Links in Okatie, S.C.

Old Tabby Links hosts approximately 10,000 rounds of golf per year and only has a few large tournaments each season. However, some of our smaller events, such as our Three-Club Challenge, have become popular amongst our 345 members. Our Three-Club Challenge is an event that allows men and women of all handicaps to play our TEE IT FORWARD tees with only three clubs over the course of a round of golf. We allow each player to choose which three clubs to use for the tournament and expect them to use one of the clubs during the tie-breaking shootout at the end of the tournament. The Three-Club Challenge exposes golf to beginners in a non-stress environment and allows everyone to have a chance to win. In fact, our low handicaps are rarely the winners of the events.

The Three-Club Challenge events have become very popular among our members, as we had 60 participants in 2012. The Challenge began as a very small event, but has grown with each passing year and has become a staple of our tournament program. We don’t charge the members for the actual event, but do have members donate the prizes each year. The male champion wins a bottle of scotch and a decanter, which is passed on from year to year, and the female champion wins chocolates in a fine glass bowl, which is also passed on each year. As the years have gone by, the number of beginner participants has grown, and in turn have bolstered our beginner golf programs and clinics; in fact our weekly clinic participation has tripled.