08/13/2026
This Throwback Thursday, we’re going back to the spring of 1971, when Midland Valley Golf Club hosted the first half of one of the more unusual ACC Golf Championships in conference history.
The 1971 ACC Men’s Golf Championship was a 72-hole event, but unlike a typical tournament, all four rounds weren’t played at the same course, or even in the same month.
The first two rounds were played right here at Midland Valley on April 16 and 17. Then, after a 23-day break, the championship resumed nearly 500 miles away at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Maryland, on May 10 and 11.
The tournament brought some of the best college golfers in the country to Midland Valley, including Wake Forest star Lanny Wadkins. Wadkins shot rounds of 73 and 69 at Midland Valley and eventually finished second overall with a four-round score of 292. Just a few years later, he began a highly successful professional career that included 21 PGA Tour victories and the 1977 PGA Championship.
Wake Forest dominated the team competition, placing four golfers among the top three spots on the individual leaderboard and capturing the ACC Championship with a team score of 1,468.
The individual title, however, went to North Carolina senior Marty West. West opened with rounds of 72 and 72 at Midland Valley before shooting 73 and 70 in Maryland to finish at one-under-par 287, five shots ahead of Wadkins.
There was also a little extra history surrounding the tournament. The University of South Carolina was still a member of the ACC in 1971, making this one of the Gamecocks’ final conference championships before leaving the league later that year.
More than 50 years later, the 1971 ACC Championship remains another unique chapter in Midland Valley’s history, bringing some of college golf’s best players to the course as part of a tournament unlike almost any other.
