RBC Heritage 50th opening ceremony, founder's spirit plays through the rain

Say it ain't so.

Say we didn't wait 50 years to get rained out.

It happened — or didn't happen — Monday morning at the Harbour Town Golf Links in Sea Pines for the opening ceremonies for the RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing.

And to think that the genius behind the PGA Tour event that made Hilton Head Island famous was said to have had a Faustian bargain with Satan himself to steer storm clouds away.

When pitch black clouds sat right on top of his famous folly — a candy striped lighthouse in a Mediterranean-style village scooped from Lowcountry pluff mud — someone said Charles Fraser had sold his soul to the devil. HIs wife, Mary, more accurately attributed the miracle of 1971 to the Presbyterian parson.

On Monday, Fraser's nephew, Simon Fraser, who has succeeded his father as chairman of the Heritage Classic Foundation, summed up the rain that canceled the 50th opening parade in his typical, understated way.

"It is what it is," Fraser said.

He spoke at an indoor ceremony held in the large Calibogue Club tent overlooking the 18th tee box. Tight formations of brown pelicans were playing through over the Calibogue Sound marsh beyond.

Apparently, records are not kept for such things, but some old-timers think this is only the third time the opening ceremony has been rained out.

I quipped to the head of the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce that with all the buildup to the 50th ceremony — with bagpipes screeching, the guvnah drawling, and a royal and ancient cannon blasting the sense out of anyone there while the current champion drives a golf ball into the Souind — this was not Chamber of Commerce weather.

"We can do better," said Bill Miles. "And we will do better. It will be nice during the week."

Tournament director Steve Wilmot, who has been doing this for 25 years, said we could blame him for the rain on our parade.

"For the first time, I was going to walk in the parade," he said.

He's always said there's no 'I' in "team." But now we know there is an "I" in "rain."

When Kimberly Gay, wife of 2009 Heritage champion Brian Gay, presented Wilmot a crystal bowl on behalf of all Heritage champions and their families, she said he can make touring families feel at home, but he cannot control the weather.

"We now know your weakness," she said.

After the ceremony, seven champions and the grandson of the first champion, Arnold Palmer, went out in the thick air and drove golf balls into the Sound, minus the sound of the ear-drum-killing cannon shot.

A photo-op was had by all.

But honorary tournament chairman Jim Chaffin, who was a young man on the Sea Pines staff when the first Heritage was held in 1969, said the tournament is not really about golf.

He said that come rain or shine it has built community. And it has been giving, with more than $38 million donated to charities since 1987.

He said the Heritage can now be seen as a miracle that resulted from imagination, courage, hard work and teamwork.

"They called it Fraser's folly," he said.

"Well, here we are. Here we are."

This story was originally published April 9, 2018 at 2:22 PM with the headline "RBC Heritage 50th opening ceremony, founder's spirit plays through the rain."