South Carolina Sports In South Carolina

South Carolina has no major professional franchise of the NFL, NHL, NBA, or MLB located in the state; however the NFL's Carolina Panthers (based in Charlotte, North Carolina) represents both Carolinas, played their first season in Clemson, South Carolina, and the team's training camp takes place every year at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. College sports in particular are very big in South Carolina. Clemson University's Tigers and the University of South Carolina's Gamecocks regularly draw more than 80,000 spectators at the schools' home football games. Smaller universities located in South Carolina also have very competitive sports programs, including the Citadel, Presbyterian College ,Furman, Coastal Carolina, Wofford, College of Charleston, Winthrop, North Greenville University, Lander University, and SC State. South Carolina does have several minor league professional teams that play baseball, hockey, and other sports in the state. Columbia, Greenville, Charleston, Myrtle Beach/Conway, and Florence all have or have had minor league professional sports teams.

NASCAR racing was born in the South, and South Carolina has in the past hosted some very important NASCAR races, mainly at the Darlington Raceway. Darlington Raceway still has the one NASCAR race weekend, usually Mother's Day weekend. All three of NASCAR's main series come to Darlington including Craftsmen Trucks, Busch Cars, and NEXTEL Cup cars.

South Carolina is known as a golfing paradise. Myrtle Beach/Grand Strand has more than a hundred golf courses. Myrtle Beach has more public golf courses per capita than any other place in the country. [11] Some have hosted PGA and LGPA events in the past, but most have been designed for the casual golfer. Hilton Head & Kiawah Island has several very nice golf courses and hosts professional events every year. The upstate of South Carolina also has many nice golf courses, most of the nicer courses are private including the Cliff's courses and Cross Creek Plantation (the Cliff's courses host the annual BMW PRO/AM that brings many celebrities and professionals to South Carolina. Cross Creek Plantation located in Seneca, also private hosted a PGA Qualifier in the 90's). Oconee Country Club also in Seneca, is an extremely nice course, very well-kept, and is open to the public. In 2007, "The Ocean Course" On Kiawah Island was ranked #1 in Golf Digest Magazine's "America's 50 Toughest Golf Courses"[12] and #38 on their "America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses"[13].

Watersports are also an extremely popular activity in South Carolina. With a large coast line, South Carolina has many different beach activities such as surfing, boogie boarding, deep sea fishing, and shrimping. The Pee Dee region of the state offers exceptional fishing. Some of the largest catfish ever caught were caught in the Santee Lakes. The Upstate of South Carolina also offers outstanding water activities. The Midlands region also offers water-based recreation revolving around Lakes Marion and Murray and such rivers as the Congaree, Saluda, Broad, and Edisto.

While there are no race tracks with betting in South Carolina there is significant horse training activity, particularly in Aiken and Camden, which hold steeplechase races.

Content Source: Wikipedia