Home Care In Blair, SC

AIKEN, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - An old tree farm in Aiken has become a golf course and will be open to members for a preview next week.

Zac Blair has golfed at a lot of courses in his career but he’s always dreamed of having one of his own.

Blair, a PGA golfer, and the tree farm developer says, “And I think the more cool places I saw, definitely piqued my interest, and I thought it would be something fun to do.”

He’s made many trips here in the last couple of years to watch an old tree farm become “The Tree Farm,” our area’s newest course, located in New Holland.

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“The property was pretty sweet, the area, I think in general, people love golf,” Blair says.

Blair says that’s one of the big reasons he built it here.

“It’s been awesome to see how I would say the locals in Aiken have been excited about the project,” Blair says.

He knows how important golf is in this area, especially in April.

Blair says, “That’s a cool time of the year, there’s a bunch of golf fans in from around the world, so we’ll see how it goes.”

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Blair says the course isn’t extremely challenging, because he just wants it to be a place to have a good time.

“You know, nothing crazy, in terms of it’s the hardest course you’ve ever played, but it’s just a fun place to bring people and play golf,” Blair says.

Blair has played a lot of courses, but this one is different: it’s his.

Blair says the course opens to members for preview play next week. He wants to open it up to more people during tournament week.

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AIKEN, South Carolina (ABC4 Sports) – It’s been a minute since we’ve seen Zac Blair playing in a PGA tour event.

He had shoulder surgery and he’s missed most of the last two years but he’s keeping himself busy.

He’s building a golf course in South Carolina called the Tree Farm, about 30 minutes away from Augusta.

“Found a cool piece of property for sale a handful of years ago and went out and looked at it with some friends and thought it was a pretty cool place,” said Blair. “Obviously the land was appealing, good soil for golf, good topography for golf. Midway through the build, start grassing next Monday, so it should grow in this summer and be ready next year for the Masters.”

Fans who travel to the Masters are always looking for places to play while they’re in Augusta, and starting next year Blair is hoping he can attract some of those golfers.

“Biggest golf sporting event in the world, you just have a crazy high influx of people traveling in for that week,” Blair said. “It’s definitely something that we kind of baked into the business model and expect it to be a high traffic week and we built it for people to see so that’s kind of a good week to do it.”

Blair has been on site many times over the past year, and this is his baby. He designed the holes, and he’s watching it come to fruition.

“I definitely knew it would be a lot of work, learned a lot along the way, so that’s been really fun for me,” said Blair. “Hopefully the goal for me would be able to do something in Utah in the next little while.”

This is a massive project with a lot of investors, and Blair isn’t sure when they will see a return on their investment.

“It depends on how good of a product that we build and we’re pretty confident that we’ve got a pretty good one cooking in the oven right now,” Blair said.

While course designing is definitely in his future, he hopes he’s not done playing on the PGA Tour just yet.

“Hope to continue to golf, this has been a nice little project to fill the void in terms of not being out on Tour the last 2 years with the shoulder injury,” said Blair. “But the plan is to definitely keep playing golf, it’s a pretty good day job.”

Blair is hoping to return to PGA tour events this summer.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - In the midst of one of the worst seasons in franchise history, the Stingrays made a move on Monday morning firing head coach Ryan Blair as the team sits in last place in the entire ECHL.

Assistant coach Brenden Kotyk will serve as the interim head coach for the remainder of the season while Ryan Bourque will take over as the interim assistant coach.

“It has been a very challenging season and it is time for a change,” Stingrays President Rob Concannon said in a statement. “We would like to thank Ryan for his hard work with the South Carolina Stingrays organization over the past three years and wish him nothing but the best.”

Blair was in the middle of his 3rd season with the organization. He was an assistant coach in 2019-20 and took over as the head coach before the 2020-21 season.

Last season Blair led the Rays to the Kelly Cup Finals after finishing in 4th place in the Eastern Conference during the regular season. The team upset top seed Florida and 2nd seed Greenville before falling to Fort Wayne in the championship series.

Kotyk, 30, began his coaching career as an assistant coach, joining the Stingrays organization last year after playing three years of professional hockey. The former defender spent the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons on the back end for the Toledo Walleye, appearing in 50 games during each campaign. The native of Regina, Saskatchewan began his pro career in 2017-18 with the AHL’s Hartford Wolfpack and also spent time in the ECHL with the Greenville Swamp Rabbits.

Bourque, 31, will begin his professional coaching career with the Stingrays after completing a nine-year professional hockey career ending after the 2019-20 season. The former forward appeared in one game for the NHL’s New York Rangers and spent 585 games in the AHL with the Connecticut Whale, Hartford Wolf Pack, Hershey Bears, Bridgeport Sound Tigers, and Charlotte Checkers. Since retiring from professional hockey, Bourque has been involved in player and skill development in the Boston area.

The native of Topsfield, MA is the son of five-time Norris Trophy winner, Stanley Cup Champion, and Hall of Famer Ray Bourque.

Kotyk’s first game as head coach will be Friday when the Rays host Greenville.

Copyright 2022 WCSC. All rights reserved.

Blair Hardin will get a different perspective on gamedays this season. It’s not by design.

The fifth-year River Bluff High School football coach will be watching from the press box as his team plays this season after rupturing his patella tendon last month in a church kickball game.

“I wish I had a better story to tell you, but I don’t,” Hardin said with a laugh Thursday when sharing how he suffered the injury.

Hardin had surgery a day after the injury. Full recovery will take a year, he said. He won’t be able to walk for at least the next two months, he said. When he can return to the sidelines isn’t clear just yet.

River Bluff opens the season at Lugoff-Elgin on Aug. 19.

Hardin just got cleared to do rehab twice a week. He must keep his leg elevated, which is tough —especially for sleeping — though he hasn’t done much of that since the injury.

“It is not a good injury. It is a long recovery,” Hardin said. “We will take it day by day. I will be in the training room with my players every day. But we will get through it.”

Thursday was the first test for Hardin to see what it’s like to not be on the sidelines. The Gators hosted a four-way scrimmage with Blythewood, Camden and Airport. Road games will be another challenge, as he won’t be able to ride with the team on the bus.

Assistant coaches Ryan Sharpe (offense) and James Reynolds (defense) acted as head coaches on the field Thursday.

Hardin was situated in the press box with his leg elevated on a chair and bottled water next to his play sheet. He was quite vocal throughout the night, lamenting when his team wasn’t lined up correctly or after a missed tackle.

After the scrimmage ended, Hardin slowly made his way to his walker and took the elevator down to the field. A utility vehicle picked him up and took him to talk to his players.

“It is different. … I don’t like not being around my team and coaches. That is what I miss the most,” Hardin said. “I got to talk to them at the end and coach them up top. It is an adjustment, but we will learn and keep going.

“We are fortunate to have great coaches, great people and communicators to our players. I have to rely on them for everything. They take me home. They pick me up. Fortunately we have great guys and I have a great support system with my wife, and we are going to get through it.”

River Bluff has another four-way scrimmage Monday at Greenwood with Byrnes and Seneca. The Gators will play in the Lexington Sportsarama on Aug. 12 before the season opener.

River Bluff is coming off a 2-8 season but returns 16 starters.

This story was originally published August 8, 2022, 6:00 AM.

BLUFFTON, SC (WTOC) - It’s never too late to change your career path, and for this week’s WTOC Top Teacher, that meant changing jobs to do what she always wanted.

Maria Blair teaches 3rd Grade at Coosa Elementary School. She took the long way to the classroom.

“I wanted to do it when I was younger, when I was in high school, but they encouraged me to go into business because teaching doesn’t pay,” Blair said.

After working for a couple of decades in the business world, she still felt the urge to become a teacher tugging at her heart.

"So at that point in my life, my kids were in high school, my husband said ‘it’s okay,’ so I quit and went back to school and became a teacher.

WTOC: "How was it during that transition? Did you ever have one of those moments where you are thinking, ‘what am I doing?’

Blair: “No, I did not. As soon as I went into the classroom, I was like 'this is always what I should have been doing.”

Blair’s mission is to make each of her students at Coosa Elementary realize how awesome they are, building a relationship with each of them.

“It’s the most important. If you don’t know what makes them tick, you’re not going to know how to teach them. You have to know what do they like, what don’t they like,” she said.

She gets just as excited as her children do when they learn something new.

“I feel like when they get that ‘aha moment,’ and you see that happiness on their face, it just makes my heart full,” Blair said.

Blair says she’s a morning person, getting up everyday at 4:30 a.m. and getting to work at 6:30 a.m. She loves planning the day and trying to find new ways to help her children learn.

If you’re interested in nominating a Top Teacher, click here for more information.

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