How $50K in golf clubs stolen in Florida ended up in a Bluffton storage facility
A man faces charges across two states after tens of thousands of dollars worth of golf clubs stolen from a central Florida golf club were uncovered in his Bluffton-area storage unit, according to the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
Beaufort resident Patrick Michael Cureton, 26, was charged by local deputies Feb. 24 with two felony counts of receiving stolen goods, inmate records show. He also has outstanding arrest warrants in Osceola County, Florida, for burglary, grand larceny and criminal mischief, a BCSO incident report says.
His Florida warrants stem from an overnight theft of an estimated $50,000 worth of golf clubs from the Celebration Golf Club in Kissimmee, Florida, general manager Ryan Tamini told police last month. He assessed an additional $10,000 in damage to the building, according to the report. Collaborating with investigators from Florida, Beaufort County deputies found a trove of stolen golf merchandise in Cureton’s storage units at Monster Self Storage off Bluffton Parkway, the incident report says. Police linked the items not only to last month’s Celebration Golf Club burglary, but other previously unsolved thefts both locally and in Florida.
How he was caught
Surveillance footage from the Florida golf club in the early morning of Feb. 10 showed a “tall thin male” parking at the building and using a sledgehammer to shatter the doors into the club’s storage and office rooms. He wore gloves and a face mask, the police report says.
The video then captured the burglar taking several sets of golf clubs and placing them in a vehicle before driving away, according to the report, which also states that the Celebration manager said 20 sets of golf clubs were stolen from the storage room.
After tracking the license plate on the vehicle and contacting the apparent registered owner, Florida police discovered the plate had been stolen and affixed to the suspect’s vehicle, the report says. Investigators identified the suspect as Cureton after finding traffic camera footage showing his vehicle bearing its assigned license plate as it entered the neighborhood where the other plate’s theft was reported.
That same vehicle was spotted via traffic cameras the next day near Bluffton Parkway, according to the report. Police obtained Cureton’s cellphone records, which indicated he drove back to South Carolina using Interstate 95 after the burglary and then made multiple trips to Bluffton’s Monster Self Storage.
Deputies descend on Bluffton storage units
While conducting surveillance of Cureton at the Monster Self Storage facility on Feb. 23, the report says, a local deputy saw the suspect allegedly carrying several golf clubs from a storage unit into his vehicle.
Deputies later detained Cureton at the business and executed search warrants on both of his storage units, discovering “a large number of golf clubs,” according to the report. About 12 of those club sets matched the serial numbers of those stolen from the Florida golf club, a deputy noted.
In the other unit, the report says, investigators found several other sets of golf clubs and personal items reported stolen in previous BCSO cases. Those included an embroidered golf bag cover and scorecard holder, a PGA Tour credential card and tournament green sheet from a reported theft in 2025.
Inside Cureton’s vehicle, deputies allegedly recovered a set of golf clubs and other golf gear that was found to be stolen from a man in the Fort Lauderdale area, according to the incident report.
Pawning golf clubs in Orlando
A search of Cureton’s pawn history revealed he had pawned multiple golf clubs in the Orlando area, the report says, most recently in late December.
The report also shows several of Cureton’s text messages that were obtained by police. Some of those messages appear to document his selling of items from his storage units, “But she’s the one who paid 1200 on that set too so I got up and went back to my unit to make sure,” one of the messages read.
“So come with me lol But be ready tho we hittin a lick tomorrow night (sic),” read another text from Cureton to a person whom police had not identified. In slang, “hitting a lick” means making money through unethical means, usually burglary or robbery.
Cureton remained in custody at the Beaufort County Detention Center as of Thursday afternoon, according to inmate records. South Carolina law allows inmates to be held for up to 20 days while they await extradition to another state.
