Par Excellence
By Ken Griner '77
Published in The Raider magazine, Fall 2005, pp.4-5

The Savannah Christian Upper School Golf Team has won seven state championships in the last eight years

Since 1998, SCPS has brought home high school golf’s ultimate prize – the state championship – every year except 2003.

“We won every golf tournament we played that year except the state title,” recalls Doyle Kelley, head coach for all seven titles. “That may have been our most phenomenal year, and not winning the title may have been my fault. The core team was sophomores, and all season I told them to just go out and play. But, before the state championship, I told them the whole year was for nothing if we didn’t win the title, and they tightened up.”

The team once played a tournament on the Sea Island Club Ocean Course the afternoon immediately after the Southeastern Conference championship – the same day, same course, and same tees as the morning SEC matches.

Former Red Raider standout Brian Harman recalls, “When we finished and I checked the SEC scoreboard, our team score was better than three teams and my individual score of 69 was tied for the lowest score.”

Not bad when high schoolers post scores that could compete, at least for a day, in one of the nation’s best college conferences.

UGA VI, Nancy and Brian Harman on the SCPS campus signing with the University of Georgia in November 2004

Harman is now a member of the University of Georgia golf team, trading his Savannah Christian red and black for the same colors at Georgia and joining a defending national championship team with four preseason All-Americans.

“Brian is the most talented guy I’ve brought in,” said Chris Haack, head coach at UGA. “He can carry a team on any given week.”

The Bulldog head coach has seen his share of talent. Prior to his nine seasons at UGA where he has directed his team to two national championships and four SEC titles, Haack spent fifteen years as a driving force for the American Junior Golf Association.

The summer of 2005 capped one of the most incredible years of any amateur player. Harman was part of the United States team that recaptured the Walker Cup, amateur golf’s equivalent to The Ryder Cup. The U.S. win ended the Great Britain/Ireland team’s three match winning streak.

At eighteen years and eight months, Harman was the youngest American ever to play in Walker Cup competition history, which dates back to 1922. Many skeptics thought the U.S. team was too young and lacked experience.

However, the left-handed golfer from Savannah surpassed expectations, finishing as the only undefeated player from either side of the Atlantic, with a 2-0-1.

“The Walker Cup was a great experience, and nothing can top playing for your country,” said Harman, who has a way of handling what others would consider pressure to meet expectations. “It didn’t add pressure on me to perform well because I already put so much pressure on myself to win.”

“What Brian did was equivalent to Cheryl Haworth competing in the Olympics, as he was chosen as one of the top ten amateur golfers from the U.S.,” said Tim Guidera, a sportswriter with The Savannah Morning News who has covered Brian since middle school.

When asked what one accomplishment made Harman unique, Guidera says, “No one moment stands out because there are so many. Two years ago he made a 70-foot putt on the final hole to win an AJGA major by one stroke. More than once he has hit the flagstick on the final hole to close out matches in national tournaments. And his performance in the Walker Cup, no one could imagine an eighteen year old doing what he did.”

The Savannah Christian golfer has been increasingly mentioned with the game’s elite players -- Tiger, Phil and Brian -- as in Woods, Mickelson and Harman. Their names are the only ones to appear on the USGA’s “Player Of The Year Trophy” in back to back seasons. Brian outdid Tiger and Phil in 2003, becoming the first golfer to win three AJGA major championships in the same calendar year.

However, says Harman, “The ultimate compliment to me would be for my name to be on the leader board on Sunday and the rest of the field get scared.”

Harman also shares a trophy won by Georgia’s greatest golfer, Bobby Jones, both U.S. Junior Amateur winners. They also share historic ground, but with different outcomes.

The February before winning The Grand Slam in 1930, Jones played in the Savannah Open at the Savannah Golf Club. On the final round, Jones hit a shot out of bounds on the next to last hole, losing the tournament to twenty-two year old Horton Smith. Smith was the last man to ever beat Jones and later the first man to win the Augusta National Invitational, now known as The Masters.

On the other hand, Harman won the Georgia State Amateur at the Savannah Golf Club this past summer with a final round 3-under par 68, becoming only the fourth player from Savannah to win the state amateur and the first since Tim O’Neal in 1997.

Harman then clinched an impressive six-shot victory in the Players Amateur in Bluffton, S.C., a national event that attracted 12 of the top 30 amateurs in the country. He became the tournament’s youngest winner, and tied its scoring record with former British Open champion Ben Curtis.

Harman’s talent has gained him both opportunity and attention. In 2004, Greg Norman asked to play with the then junior from Savannah in the MCI Heritage. Harman missed the cut at Harbour Town, but came back in August at the Buick Championship in Cromwell, Connecticut, firing rounds of 73, 67, 71, and 73. He was recently selected Best Junior Golfer by Sports Illustrated and the top incoming freshman in college golf by Golfweek Magazine.

Harman’s sizzling college debut performance squelched any doubters as he shared medalist honors and led his bulldog team to a 15-shot victory at the 17th annual Ping/Golfweek Fall Preview in September.

2005 SCPS Seniors (L-R) Justin Smith, Wills Smith, Chase MacFarland, and Brian Harman

Harman credits his high school teammates with helping improve his game. “You always want to win and do your best, and with a great team, you are pushed to play well and work hard.”

Former teammate Chase MacFarland signed with The University of North Carolina Tar Heels, where, unlike high school, he plans to devote all of his athletic time to golf. While at SCPS, MacFarland ran cross-country and played basketball, leaving little time to work on his golf skills before spring season began.

Even so, MacFarland’s won first in the 2003 Region Golf Championship, first in two Callaway Junior Golf series at Clemson and Duke, and selection as a Callaway Junior Golf Series Player of the Year.

Coach Kelley compares MacFarland to Ernie Els, but notes that winning a title in ACC play will be anything but easy. While SEC’s Georgia is ranked number one going into this season, the ACC has four teams ranked in the top twenty -- Duke, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and Clemson.

Two other 2005 SCPS team members have moved from Raiders to Pirates. Incoming freshmen Wills Smith and Justin Smith have joined former Raider and All-American senior Tripp Coggins in the Armstrong Atlantic State University Pirate program. With Coggin’s assistance, the Pirates are one of the best Division II programs in the nation, winning second at the 2005 NCAA D-II Championship.

Emboldened by these and other SCPS golf leaders and legends, our current Raider golf team is already driving hard to carry on the SCPS state championship legacy. We look forward to watching them excel, as well as keeping up Raider golf alumni across the course of their careers.

Visit our upper school golf page for more information and photos of SCPS golf.