MYRTLE BEACH GOLF

Myrtle Beach's Chris McCalmont
Makes Big Move to GolfWeb

By Shane Sharp,
Contributing Writer

  MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. - If you're reading this article, you're a visitor to this website. And if you are a visitor to this website, you love golf and the Internet. Imagine merging the two - in perfect harmony - into a fruitful career.

That is just what Chris McCalmont, public relations associate with LHWH in Myrtle Beach, is doing. McCalmont has parlayed his love and knowledge of golf, and his writing and editorial skills into an Associate Editor position at the CBS affiliated GolfWeb, which recently merged with PGATOUR.com

As of August 27, McCalmont will be leaving the friendly confines of LHWH, where he helped generate editorial coverage for such area courses as Legends Resorts, Tidewater and Pawleys Plantation, to assume his editorial duties at GolfWeb - a challenge this former journalism student accepts like a birdie on a tough par-5.

"My main responsibility at GolfWeb - it is known for its up-to-the-minute coverage - will be working on maintaining the site, which entails taking the stories off the wire and editing them and putting them up on the site," says McCalmont. "I will also be creating links to players, putting pictures up, and writing headlines. In addition I'll be working with freelancers, updating sections of the site such as travel and equipment, and doing some writing when the opportunity presents itself."

Too good to be true, you say. Well, McCalmont is not just sliding into this dream position on his laurels - this 25-year-old from Pittsburgh has put in his time in the trenches. A self-described class nerd and jock in high school, McCalmont wrote for his high school newspaper, college newspaper at Ohio University, and interned with Scripps Howard News Service in Washington, D.C., and Golf Digest's trade magazine - Golf Shop Operations, in Trumbull, Conn.

But after covering a variety of sports ranging from hockey to the Olympics, McCalmont fell victim to the mesmerizing spell cast by the game of golf.

"I started playing golf in elementary school, and then I played off and on for a while," says McCalmont about his first endeavors into the game. "In high school it's something I played in the summer."

But taking a page out of former Ohio State linebacker Andy Katzenmoyer's book, McCalmont decided to explore the "academic" side of golf during his final years at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

"The last two years in college I took a class in golf," admits McCalmont, unable to keep from chuckling. "But I actually decided to get into golf writing when I interned for Golf Shop Operations.

McCalmont fell head over spikes in love with the game while on location at the PGA Championship at Winged Foot in 1997, and during multiple visits to the World Series of Golf tournament at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, where he and his family moved in 1984.

"Golf has taken over as my favorite sport to watch, play and write about," adds McCalmont

If golf is your life, living in Myrtle Beach is the equivalent of a hoops junkie residing in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill vicinity. But McCalmont looks forward to his sojourn to the white sandy beaches of Ft. Lauderdale - GolfWeb's online headquarters.

"I am excited to be moving to south Florida," says McCalmont. "Myrtle Beach was great...a middle class kind of beach with lots of great people and top of the line golf courses. But when you walk along the beach in Lauderdale you can really see the difference."

And south Florida and GolfWeb are excited about grabbing one of the up and coming golf journalists out there today.

Chris McCalmont can be reached at GolfWeb at (954) 351-2120.