Matt Scabery’s three-decade career in the golf industry had a scandalous beginning.
On a basketball court.
Scabery played on the Savannah College of Art and Design’s NCAA Division III basketball team while earning a degree in graphic arts in the early 1990s.
A teammate who worked part time on the bag drop at Deer Creek Golf Course at The Landings in Savannah recruited him to play for Deer Creek in a regular pickup game against teams of employees at The Landings’ other three courses.
The winners had their tabs paid for at a bar/restaurant by the losing teams following the games.
“We ended up beating the crap out of the other teams, and they called us as a forfeit because I didn’t work there,” Scabery said.
Deer Creek head pro Jeff Howerton professed that he had hired Scabery earlier in the day, and begged Scabery to work one day a week to back up the lie.
“I said, ‘Do I get to play all the golf I want?’ “ Scabery recalled. “He said, ‘Hell yeah.’ So I said, ‘Alright, deal.’ So that’s what kind of started the whole roll of the career. Just a pickup basketball game that I wasn’t even supposed to be playing.”
He started on the Deer Creek bag drop and moved into the pro shop to cover for the pros when they wanted to play golf in the afternoon. “That’s where I got my taste of it.”
Thus began the golf career of the longtime golf shop manager and operations leader at Tidewater Golf Club, for which he has been recognized as the 2026 Myrtle Beach Area Golf Course Owners Association Employee of the Year.
“For more than three decades, Matt has consistently embodied the professionalism, integrity, and dedication that define the very best of South Carolina’s golf industry,” Tidewater general manager and head pro Chris Cooper said in his nomination submission to the MBAGCOA. “. . . His character, humility, work ethic, and unwavering commitment to others have helped define not only what Tidewater Golf Club represents, but also the very best of the Myrtle Beach area’s golf industry.”
Beachwood Golf Club in North Myrtle Beach is the course owners association’s 2026 Golf Course of the Year.
Matt Scabery
Scabery is a lifelong resident of North Myrtle Beach who worked part time at his family’s restaurant on Main Street – Hardwick’s Cafeteria – from the age of 7 until his parents closed it in 1999 after 50 years in operation.
Growing up, Scabery played golf with his father and uncles on Mondays when the restaurant was closed. “That was just our thing to do as a family. We played once a week all year long up and down the beach,” he said.
But he never considered entering the industry professionally until the night of the pickup basketball game, though he knew the job would be a good fit because of the daily interaction with customers.
“I’ve always enjoyed working with the public, and that’s just from growing up in the restaurant. That’s something you did,” Scabery said.
After college, he worked at Eastport Golf Club in Little River for about a year before being hired as an assistant pro by Gator Hole Golf Club head pro Gene Weldon at the behest of owner Phil Tilghman, the former mayor of North Myrtle Beach who regularly ate at Hardwick’s.
He worked at Gator Hole until it closed in 1999 and moved to Tidewater.
He left Tidewater to join Weldon at the new Thistle Golf Club as the club manager for 2 ½ years from 2009-11 before new owners took over and he returned to Tidewater, taking a job on the maintenance crew at first and gaining a better understanding of and appreciation for the requirements for course conditions.
“Family. That puts it in a nutshell right there. Tidewater is family,” Scabery said of his decision to return to Tidewater. “They all are, from maintenance, F&B, guys who work in the shop, the guys we have out on the bag drop and serve as rangers. They’re all family.”
After a year in maintenance, then course owner Bill Cassels suggested to Cooper that Scabery become the first assistant in the pro shop, where he has remained.
He oversees golf shop operations, purchasing and merchandising, inventory, tournament operations, staff leadership and other duties.
As the operations leader at Tidewater he helps oversee any projects on Tidewater’s buildings and grounds, which includes a pending rebuilding of the Bogey’s Grab N’ Go snack bar building near the parking lot. It is scheduled to be demolished and rebuilt this winter.
Scabery is part of a cohesive team at Tidewater. Cooper has been at the course for 28 years. Accountant Michele Marlowe has been there since 1999. Shannon Duncan has been working in food and beverage for 31 years. Superintendent Shaun Donahue has been there for multiple decades, and Simon Wilson has been on the maintenance staff since 1988, prior to the 1990 opening.
“They say I’m being humble but it’s true. There are so many other people at that golf shop that keep Tidewater where it’s at. They make me look good because of all the stuff they do,” Scabery said. “. . . There’s a lot of people who I think deserve more recognition than me. The list goes on.”
The family aspect of Tidewater is actual, as well, as Scabery’s son Maxon has worked on the bag drop for several years in addition to his job with Sumter Utilities.
Tidewater is owned by an investment group affiliated with KemperSports, which took over operation of the course in August 2023.
Scabary and his wife of 32 years, Trina, have a second son, Carter, and Scabery spent 12 years mentoring local youth through the Boy Scouts.
The criteria for employee of the year includes: professionalism, integrity, and outstanding service; exceptional quality of work and results; outstanding contribution to local and state communities; and significant contribution to the game.
Beachwood Golf Club
A reinvestment into Beachwood by its owners over the past three years that has significantly improved the property’s aesthetics and course conditions helped the club earn course of the year honors.
Under the guidance of superintendent Nic Sparks, the 6,700-yard Gene Hamm design that opened in 1968 has undergone a transformation.
Sparks, 29, an Horry-Georgetown Technical College graduate, spent four years in maintenance at private golf clubs before becoming a head superintendent for the first time at Beachwood.
He hired an all-new 10-person maintenance crew with the exception of the mechanic, who remained from the previous crew.
Over the past three years, maintenance equipment has been replaced, and areas around the clubhouse, on the outskirts of holes and between holes that had become overgrown have been cleared with pine straw, opening up views of several holes.
Significant work has been done on greens, bunkers, tee boxes, drainage and irrigation, and eradicating weeds has been a focus.
Trees have been removed to improve grass growing conditions and added for aesthetics and hole strategy purposes.
Numerous native and waste areas have been added with ornamental grasses, plants, bushes and flowers, which include azaleas, amelias and magnolias.
All the work has been done without closing the course.
Beachwood has some amenities that some other courses in the market don’t have.
It has a sizable range with grass and mats, a chipping and putting green, and has teaching pros Jim Campbell, a PGA Life Member, and Trevor Muffley, a North Myrtle Beach native and pro since 2009, providing lessons.
Al Cloyd’s Al’s Custom Golf club fitting and repair business is also there. Cloyd has a covered and nearly enclosed hitting bay with the latest technology for fittings, and a club repair building.
The criteria for golf course of the year includes: exceptional quality of the course; exceptional quality of ownership and management; outstanding contribution to the community; and significant contribution to the game.
The late SC state senator Dick Elliott was a leader of the investment group that built the course, and his son, Rick Elliott, has become the managing partner and is a member of the course’s board of directors. Elliott also owns and operates Eagle Nest Golf Club and operates Azalea Sands Golf Club through a lease agreement.
General Manager Kevin Lawson has been at Beachwood nearly two decades and has 37 years of experience in the Myrtle Beach golf industry, while head pro Larry Panther has been at the course five years and is a PGA HOPE and ADM Modern Coach certified instructor.
Beachwood hosts more than a half dozen local non-profit charity tournaments annually that includes a Folds of Honor tournament that is held every Flag Day.
Other tournaments include the Jerome Randall Foundation that provides scholarships to under-privileged Horry County youth, Swing Fore the Kids tournament that provides for the critical needs of local under-privileged youth, and Julie’s Kids tournament that provides area foster children with basic necessities.
Beachwood also donates over $50,000 annually to area tournaments and charities, according to course operators.
The course has also been a U.S. Kids Golf host facility for the past two years, supports introduction to golf initiatives including PGA HOPE for veterans and Project Golf for beginners and youth, supports Coastal Recovery Center for individuals in substance abuse recovery, and has hosted night Glow Golf events on a few occasions.
Beachwood now advances to the competition for course of the year in the state.
The National Golf Course Owners Association implemented the course of the year award in 1996 and the MBAGCOA has since nominated courses from the Myrtle Beach area.
Past recipients of the Strand award include Prestwick Country Club (2025), Pawleys Plantation (2024), Rivers Edge Golf Club (2023), Tidewater Golf Club (2022), TPC Myrtle Beach (2019), Meadowlands Golf Club (2018), Man O’ War Golf Club (2017), Litchfield Country Club (2016), River Oaks (2015), Moorland Course at Legends Resort (2014), The Dye Club at Barefoot Resort (2013), The Dunes Golf & Beach Club (2012), Founders Club at Pawleys Island (2011), Sandpiper Bay (2010), Shaftesbury Glen (2009), Grande Dunes Resort Course (2008), Wachesaw Plantation East (2007), Burning Ridge (2006), TPC Myrtle Beach (2005), Indian Wells Golf Club (2004), World Tour Golf Links (2003), Wild Wing Plantation (2002), Blackmoor (2001), Tradition Golf Club (2000), Bay Tree Golf Plantation (1999), Arrowhead Country Club (1998) and King’s North at Myrtle Beach National (1996).
Several Myrtle Beach regional winners – Prestwick, Tidewater, Burning Ridge, TPC, Wild Wing, Tradition, Arrowhead, King’s North and Grande Dunes – also captured the state award. The Grande Dunes Resort Course was named the national course of the year in 2009.
