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Sports Illustrated returned to its roots when it became the title sponsor of the World Amateur Handicap Championship, and golf’s largest media company will be staying home for two more years.

Sports Illustrated Golf Group has reached an agreement with Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday to continue on as the title sponsor of the World Am. The two-year deal runs through the 2013 event and the tournament name will remain the Golf.com World Amateur Handicap Championship. 

America’s premier sports publication, Sports Illustrated was founded at Pine Lakes Country Club in 1954, and SI Golf Group’s partnership with the tournament reunited the magazine with the Myrtle Beach golf community.  In its first two years as sponsor, SIGG helped the event attract new sponsors, including Callaway and Goslings Rum, and celebrities such as David Feherty to the event.

SI Golf Group is comprised of SI Golf Plus, Golf Magazine and Golf.com, three of the game’s most popular media outlets. As part of the agreement, the World Am will receive exposure through those outlets to help grow the event.

“We are thrilled to be moving forward with Sports Illustrated Golf Group,” Dave Macpherson, the World Am’s tournament director, said. “We’ve seen increased interest from new players as a result of our partnership, and we will continue building on that momentum. SI Golf Group brings national cache and exposure to the event that is invaluable.”

SIGG will also continue to bring its editorial staff to the event to participate in its popular PGA Tour Confidential program. PGA Tour Confidential is a weekly feature on Golf.com that comes to the World Am in the form of a roundtable discussion that also includes an audience Q&A with the game’s ultimate insiders.

The 29th annual World Am will be played August 27-31, 2012 on more than 60 Myrtle Beach golf courses. The 72-hole event is open to all players with a verifiable USGA handicap and has four divisions – men, senior men, super senior men and women. Players are placed in tightly grouped flights based on age and handicap with each flight winner advancing to the World Championship Playoff.

Participants will play a different Myrtle Beach golf course each day and the Grand Strand’s best layouts welcome players from all 50 states and more than 20 foreign countries.  Bobby Perkinson, a four-handicap from Alcoa, Tn., became the event’s first two-time champion when he shot a net 70 to win the World Championship Playoff at TPC Myrtle Beach in 2011.

The good times at the Golf.com World Am don’t end with the day’s last putt. Each night players gather at the World’s Largest 19th Hole, a golf expo that features free food and drinks, tournament leader boards and some of the biggest names and personalities in golf.

Sports Illustrated Golf Group is the fourth title sponsor in the event’s 29-year history, joining Spalding, DuPont and PGA Tour Superstore.

UPDATE: Take advantage of today's $399 special entry into the 2012 World Am, SIGN UP NOW! To retrieve your player ID and 2012 password in advance of entering the tournament, please click here.

The World Amateur Handicap Championship is selling entries into the 2012 tournament for $399 this Tuesday, December 20, only. The special offer will be limited to the first 399 players who sign up for the event and the price is good for new and old players alike.

The special offer will begin at 10 a.m. EST and end at 4:30 p.m. EST on Tuesday (unless the allotment sells out earlier). Entries will be accepted online and a live link will be posted on the homepage and within this blog. We will also send an email Tuesday morning letting everyone know the limited entry period is open. Past players will recieve their player ID and 2012 password in the Tuesday email.

The 29th annual World Amateur Handicap Championship will be played August 27-31, 2012 on 60+ Myrtle Beach area golf courses. More than 3,000 golfers are expected to participate for the right to crowned World Champion.

This is a one-day offer and not the official opening of entries for the 2012 event. We will formally open entries in late January or early February.

While you are opening presents and eating cookies during the holiday season, we have a little additional food for thought.

The World Am enacted a local rule approving the use of distance measuring devices a few years ago, but the rise in smartphone use has made DMDs more problematic than the tournament (and some players) would prefer.  While most distance measuring devices don’t run afoul of the Rules of Golf, any device that has the ability to measure slope, wind speed or direction is non-conforming and the penalty is disqualification.

The issue of non-conforming DMDs doesn’t get a lot of mainstream media attention, but Golfweek’s Jim Achenbach penned a column in the November 25 issue of the magazine on the headaches smartphones are causing. The story is recommended reading .

Among the highlights:

“Prohibited functions of DMDs or smartphones include the measurement of ground slope (uphill, downhill or sidehill) wind velocity and directional orientation.”

Keep in mind that directional orientation means a compass of any sort. Again, the ability to measure those variables don’t have to be part of the DMD on your smartphone for it to be non-conforming. If your phone is capable measuring any of those variables you are in violation.

“Some rangefinders from major optical manufacturers are non-conforming right out of the box because they perform prohibited functions. Prominent examples are the Bushnell Tour V2 Slope Edition and the Leupold XG-4. Even if a local rule is in effect, they cannot be used. Penalty: disqualification.”

We as a tournament staff will do all we can to educate players about having a conforming DMD, but the burden, ultimately, falls on you, the players, to make sure your equipment is compliance with USGA rules.

Generally speaking, we love the functionality DMDs provide, but we hate to have these issues come before the rules committee during tournament week.

So make sure you do your homework.

Bobby Perkinson of Alcoa, Tn., shot a gross 74 and a net 70 at TPC Myrtle Beach to defend his title at the Golf.com World Amateur Handicap Championship.

Perkinson is the first player in the 28-year history of the World Am to win the title twice, and he earned it with a strong par on his closing hole the ninth, TPC’s toughest. Perkinson unsheathed a 7-wood in the middle of the ninth fairway and delivered the shot of the tournament when the ball came to a rest 10 feet from the cup.

Perkinson ran the putt 5 feet by, but made the nervy comebacker for par, good for a net birdie, securing the title.

Perkinson bested a playoff field of 76 golfers on a sun splashed day in Myrtle Beach, besting three players tied for second. (FULL RESULTS)

Perkinson’s triumph capped an idyllic week at the 28th annual Golf.com World Am. After Hurricane Irene brushed the Grand Strand last weekend, the weather was nearly perfect as 3,000 golfers from 47 states and 25 countries came to Myrtle Beach to compete in the event.

A 3.5-handicap, Perkinson won flight 55 to advance to the World Championship Playoff. 

The weather for this year’s event was perfect, with morning temperatures in the 60s and 70s and nary a drop of rain to be found.TPC Myrtle Beach, one of only three 5-star courses in the Carolinas and the host of the 2000 Senior Tour Championship, hosted the championship round for the second consecutive year. 

Robert Whaley and Ron Arledge, both from Jacksonville, Fla., won the International Pairs event and along with it a trip to Scotland next year.

Scott Weaver of Portsmouth, Va. and Don Weaver of Mulberry, Fla. won the Cory Lemke Parent-Child Championship, a tournament for any combination of parent and child participating in the World Amateur. Before tragically losing his life in a 2006 motorcycle accident, Lemke competed in the World Am with his father, Mark Lemke and won his flight in 2002 at the age of 15.

The World Championship Playoff is the culmination of the Golf.com World Am, a 72-hole, net stroke play tournament. Players are arranged into flights according to their handicap and at the conclusion of the four rounds, all flight winners advanced to the 18-hole world championship playoff.

The World Am features five competitive divisions, ranging from men and women 49 years-of-age and under to the super seniors 70 years-of-age and older. Players with handicaps as low as three and as high as 34 have won the GOLF.com World Amateur Handicap Championship.

The World Am web site offers a daily glimpse at the World Am with updated standings, news releases and photographs from the 27th annual tournament. For more information on the 2010 GOLF.com World Amateur Handicap Championship, visit WorldAmGolf.com.

Always scheduled the week before Labor Day, the 28th annual GOLF.com World Amateur Handicap Championship will be held August 27 – August 31, 2012.

The World Championship Playoff at the 2011 Golf.com World Amateur Handicap Championship is underway. A field that started with 3,000 golfers has been narrowed to 80 as players compete for the right to be crowned world champion.

Grow The Game (GTG) Golf, a smart phone application and event management system that enables live scoring in a variety of formats, is providing live championship round scoring. GTG’s live scoring can be accessed via a web-connected computer and through a cross-platform smart phone application using mobile devices (iPhone, Android, and Blackberry) and via non-mobile devices including iPad, iTouch and Samsung Galaxy Tab.

To follow the final round of the World Am, go to www.gtggolf.com via computer or mobile device and register. Then, enter the event code: WORLDAM11 and join the event. The “Scorecard” tab will display real time individual hole-by-hole scorecards for the top 20 players of the World Am. The “Leaderboard” tab will display the real time leaderboard in gross and net formats for the entire field of the championship round.

LIVE SCORING

Golf Magazine columnist and noted funnyman David Feherty will headline the entertainment at the World's Largest 19th Hole tonight. Feherty will take the main stage at 7:15 p.m.! Don't be late and get ready for an evening of laughs (and a lot of random drawing prizes!).

They’ve called themselves the Myrtle Misfits, the Duffers and names that aren’t fit to print on a family website. Nothing has stuck. The only tag that has stuck to Victor Ferreira, Greg Davis, Dennis Navin and their group is a much more meaningful one: friends.

Following a round in the 1991 Golf.com World Amateur Handicap Championship, the trio met at the hotel pool where they were staying and became friends faster than Michael Phelps swims an Olympic race. They come from different areas of the country and walks of life – Ferreira is from Scottsdale, Davis from Narrows, Va. and Navin from Tewksbury, Ma. – but the World Am and a love of golf helped start a 20-year friendship.

“We all share a lot of the same values and interests,” Ferreira said. “We’ve been to see each other’s homes, met girlfriends, spouses, kids and there is a bond there now that can’t be broken.”

Ferreira, Davis and Navin, who joke that they are celebrating their 20th anniversary this year, form the core of a group of buddies that stay in touch throughout the year with communication reaching a fever pitch in the months leading up to the tournament.

Trash is talked, bets are placed, and pride is on the line. One friend who was unable to attend this year has even been placing bets via phone to stay in touch with the action. 

To make sure everyone knows what’s going on in the two condos the group share, Ferreira brings a printed leaderboard with everyone’s name and handicap. The leaderboard hangs on a condo wall, totaling up scores and serving as an unrelenting reminder of who is winning and losing their personal matches.

Great as is it is to claim bragging rights amongst the group, Ferreira accomplished an even more memorable first in 2010 – he won his flight and advanced to the World Championship Playoff at TPC Myrtle Beach. He was the first among the group to advance to the championship round and it’s a memory he won’t soon forget.

“You definitely come down for the fun and fellowship, but I was fortunate to win my flight,” said Ferreira. “For anybody who hasn’t come down here to play in this event, the thrill to win your flight and go to Friday, you can’t even describe the feeling of adrenaline, excitement. That’s a feeling I’ll never forget. That is one of my prized moments in all my time playing golf.”

When Ferreira advanced to the World Championship Playoff, several friends were there to watch, with one notable exception.

“I went to play golf,” a laughing Davis said. “I actually played well that day.”