Stephen Craig Behr Sr., a former head pro at Wild Dunes and a four-time Most Valuable Player for the College of Charleston men’s golf team, will be inducted into the South Carolina Golf Hall of Fame in January, capping a 45-year career built largely on courses along the state’s coast and midlands.
The Hall’s president, Frank Ford III, announced the selection on August 28 from Columbia. Behr, a native of Holly Hill, will receive the traditional white Hall coat — donated for the ceremony by BP Skinners Clothiers — at Forest Lake Club on January 16, 2027. He will join the roster as recognition of a competitive and teaching résumé that traces back to junior titles won in 1975 and 1977 and All-American honors in 1978.
Behr’s coastal chapter began at Kiawah Island Golf Resort from 1980 to 1982, where he worked in the bag room and later as an assistant under South Carolina golf legend and Hall of Famer Tommy Cuthbert. He spent 14 years at Wild Dunes on Isle of Palms, becoming head professional of the Links Course in 1987 and adding the Harbor Course from 1994 to 1996. During his College of Charleston playing days from 1978 through 1981, he earned NAIA District 6 all-conference honors every season and won the Chick Miler Invitational in 1977. He also represented South Carolina in the SC vs. GA Junior Matches in 1978.
He moved inland in 1996 to lead Florence Country Club, a nearly three-decade run that ended with his retirement earlier this year. The club was twice named South Carolina Golf Club of the Year during his tenure and hosted multiple SCGA and SCJGA events, including the Grant Bennett Junior Invitational, the South Carolina Amateur, the South Carolina Mid-Amateur, and PGA Tour Qualifying School stops for more than a decade. Behr himself qualified for the 2006 Verizon Heritage on the PGA Tour at Harbour Town Golf Links and made two Korn Ferry Tour fields; he also earned 16 SCPGA Palmetto Cup team selections, four SCPGA Pro-Pro titles, and two Carolinas PGA Pro-Pro championships.
The nomination came from his son, Stephen Behr Jr. — a Clemson All-American, Byron Nelson Award recipient, and, in 2020, the world’s top-ranked mid-amateur — who described his father with a single word centered on selflessness. The elder Behr has served as his son’s instructor throughout his career and has caddied for him at the U.S. Mid-Amateur, including a run to the 2024 semifinals. Bob Gillespie, a longtime South Carolina golf columnist, wrote in support of the nomination that Behr had grown into one of the region’s finest club professionals. Keith Wood, who worked under Behr at Florence before becoming head superintendent at Quail Hollow Club, credited Behr with taking him under his wing and teaching him how to work with the membership, the committee, and every kind of person who walked through the door. The South Carolina General Assembly passed a House resolution recognizing Behr’s retirement in April 2025 that laid out the same litany of milestones now being honored in Columbia.
