MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (April 15, 2026) — Picking up the winner’s check certainly will be easier than lifting the seascape trophy at this year’s ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic, which will conclude May 10 at the Dunes Golf and Beach Club.

The winner’s hardware is a 21-pound bronze plate, sculpted for the event by Bryan Rapp, 52, the director of the Master Sculpture Program at Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet since 2019.

The bronze plate, which measures 11” in diameter and sits atop a two-tiered granite base, was hoisted for the first time by New Zealander Ryan Fox last May after he chipped in on the first playoff hole to earn the title. “It was heavier than I thought it was going to be when the officials handed me the trophy,” Fox recalled. “But I was pretty pumped up at that point, so I probably could have handled it even if it were 100 pounds heavier.”

The trophy plate, which takes almost six months to create each year and includes design, molding, casting and outside foundry work, represents a timeless moment particular to the Myrtle Beach area. There are the flatter waves that roll in on the area shores, a glance of the dunes tucked against the tall wispy grass, and a lone palmetto palm tree, which is the key element of the state flag. On the reverse side is the inscription, “ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic.”

“I went down to the beach in Surfside and studied how the waves were breaking and the way the landscape looked,” said Rapp, who donated his time and talent through the support of Brookgreen Gardens. “I didn’t want to present something that wasn’t representative of our area. It’s an artist’s dream to be able to show his work and be associated with the area’s signature golf event. It’s fun to think that maybe someday one of the game’s great players will have my trophy in his house.”

Rapp’s work is also on permanent public display at the entrance to Coastal Carolina University, at the intersection of Route 544 and University Boulevard. His Chanticleer statue, which was commissioned by former school president David DeCenzo in 2016 and took three years to finish, weighs two tons and stands 12-feet tall.

The work was the crowning achievement of Rapp’s three years as an “artist in residence” at Coastal, which concluded in 2019. From there, he took a newly created position at Brookgreen Gardens, where his wife Kerry also works as the director of public gardens. The couple live the mission of the facility, which is to preserve art, nature and conservation.

But Rapp almost didn’t get to enjoy his love of sculpting. A native of Meadville, in western Pennsylvania, he was always interested in the fine arts. He enjoyed drawing in his younger days and aspired to work in commuter animation in Hollywood. He had the schooling, but was derailed by progressive Avascular Necrosis, a vascular disease that affected his left hip, at age 28.

“My leg wasn’t getting the blood flow it needed and my hip was rotting from the inside out,” says Rapp. “I was physically dependent on others and not able to walk without crutches or a cane for two years until I had a series of surgeries, the last being a hip replacement in 2010.  But it was during those sedentary years I discovered my love for sculpting art.

“My background was in creative writing at the University of West Virginia, so I still look at my artwork as telling a story. Every piece of clay is a paragraph. I think I could work on a single project for the rest of my life. I am my biggest critic. I always want to make my sculpting better. It’s kind of like two steps forward and one step back each time you look at your own work. You almost have to pull a project away from me.”

Rapp has lived in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Oklahoma, where he earned his master’s degree in fine arts at the University of Oklahoma, with the intention of becoming a art professor. This led to his being hired at Coastal Carolina after graduation from Oklahoma. It was his first visit to South Carolina.

He and Kerry knew of Brookgreen Gardens, first opened to the public in 1931, but never set foot inside the expansive property of more than 9,000 acres until he was hired by Robin Salman, vice president of art and historical collections and curator of sculpture.

The couple noticed the Brookgreen entrance in 2013 while driving south on Route 17 to his wife’s long-time friend’s home in Charleston. The couple wanted to stop, but his wife wanted to keep driving to meet a tight schedule. “We’ll be back,” she said prophetically.

It took 12 years, but the couple did come back to stay, just like she said.

Tickets for the ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic are available for purchase at www.myrtlebeachclassic.com.