Hugh Royer III learned the game of golf from his father, and often traveled with him as a child during Hugh Royer Jr.’s playing career that included 14 seasons on the PGA Tour.
The lessons and early experiences in the game proved to be fruitful.
He’s now joining his late father in the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame.
Royer III, who played on the PGA Tour himself and spent 15 years as a teaching pro on the Grand Strand, will be inducted into the hall during a ceremony March 14 at Atlanta Athletic Club.
Royer is part of a four-person class of 2026, along with Louis Brown, Frank Culpepper, and Dan Van Horn. Royer and Brown, who won the 2024 U.S. Senior Amateur Championship, were friends and regular competitors as juniors.
Royer’s father was a member of the PGA Tour in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, had an accomplished club pro career that included being president of the Georgia PGA, and coached Columbus State University to multiple NCAA Division II national championships. Royer Jr. died in 2014.
“It’s frustrating because I would have liked for my dad to see it,” Royer said of his induction. “But it’s cool. I’m going in with a buddy of mine, Louis Brown, we played golf together every Monday when we were kids. . . . We battled each other every week to see who would win [events] and who would finish second, so going in together is a pretty good thing. We’ve talked on the phone and it’s been kind of fun.”
The Georgia Hall of Fame has some other prestigious names, including Bobby Jones.
“To go in the same hall of fame as Bobby Jones, that’s as big a thrill as going in with my dad,” Royer said.
Royer was teaching at the International Junior Golf Academy in Hilton Head Island before moving to the Grand Strand in 2007 to open the Champions Golf Academy at Long Bay Club in Longs.
He was later an instructor at Shaftesbury Glen Golf & Fish Club and Possum Trot Golf Club, and was teaching at Tidewater Golf Club before moving to Florida in December 2021.
Building a legacy
Royer is a native of Columbus, Georgia.
After a stellar junior career, he played at Mississippi State for two years, earning a win and seven top-10 finishes, before transferring to his hometown and competing for Columbus State University, where he won three events in 1985 including the NCAA Division II National Championship.
As an amateur, Royer won the Georgia Amateur and Southeastern Amateur in 1986. At the age of 22 in September 1986, he underwent open-heart surgery, recovered, and won both the Azalea Amateur Invitational and Western Amateur in 1987. He was the fifth-ranked amateur in the U.S. in 1986 and ’87.
Professionally, he competed on the South African Tour, winning once with multiple runner-up finishes.
He won four times in 143 events on the Korn Ferry Tour – the PGA Tour’s subsidiary circuit – twice in both 1993 and ’95.
Royer was a full-time member of the PGA Tour from 1996-98 and had four top-10s in 98 career events.
Royer was still an active player before leaving the area and won the 2019 Sunbelt Senior Tour’s Match Play Championship at the Surf Golf and Beach Club.
As an instructor, Royer taught several players who reached the highest levels of the game.
I.K. Kim won the U.S. Girls Junior Championship under his tutelage at the IJGA, and he helped former Myrtle Beach resident Kris Blanks, Kevin Kisner of Aiken and Scott Brown of North Augusta reach the PGA Tour.
Royer moved to Minneola, Florida in 2020 and is an instructor at the IJGA campus outside Orlando, where he works largely in the short-term program with prospective full-time students.
A new purpose
Royer has had a second lease on life and new purpose over the past decade.
He spent 10 months away from the game in 2018-19 while battling basal cell carcinoma predominantly on the right side of his face that he said came within a centimeter of reaching his brain.
He had multiple surgeries encompassing dozens of hours to remove the cancer and reconstruct much of the right side of his face, with numerous hours of radiation.
Following his initial surgery and subsequent treatment, Royer embarked on a skin cancer awareness and prevention campaign with the motto “Protect Your Skin If You Want To Win,” with support from the Skin Cancer Foundation.
Royer believes years of playing and teaching golf in the sun greatly contributed to the development of his cancer, and he wants others to avoid his ordeal.
Royer said he had his ninth facial surgery in July 2022, this one on the parotid salivary gland in his cheek.
“Everything that had been done reconstructively, it started to kind of fall,” Royer said. “So I went back up there [to Boston] and saw them and they said you’ve got all this cancer in this gland. So they did surgery and took it out.”
His next six-month checkup at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston is in March, and after five full years of positive checkups he’ll be deemed cancer-free.
“I feel fine,” Royer said.
The four inductees will bring the total number of Georgia Golf Hall of Fame members to 143. It began inducting members in 1989 and is located in Augusta.
Royer, who was inducted into the Columbus State University Athletic Hall of Fame in 2000, will be part of the fourth father-son duo or trio in the Georgia hall, joining Davis Love Jr. and Davis Love III; George Sargent, Harold Sargent and Jack Sargent; and P. Dan Yates Jr. and Danny Yates.
