He's been to every tournament since, until this year, when a stroke in January put him in a hospital bed for the last few months.

"He's in the bed, but he knows everything that's going on," his wife Nell Smith said. "I take him the Packets every day. ... I just hate that (he) can't be there."

Smith's condition has stabilized since his stroke, and he's making slow progress, his wife said.

He still can't fully speak, eat or move his right side. But he can communicate through facial expressions, and he can still laugh, she said.

Smith first came to the island in the mid-'50s when Fraser hired him to head up the marketing efforts for the brand new resort he carved out of a hidden South Carolina island. The Sea Pines model eventually would pave the way for the boom of development across Hilton Head, but the advertising budget in those days was small. Smith flew around the country trying to persuade reporters to write about the new community.

The big break came in 1969 with the first Heritage Classic, which took place before the now famous Harbour Town lighthouse was fully constructed.

Media interest was sparse at first.

"They don't cover brand new tournaments often in swamps," Smith told The Island Packet in 2006. But at that first tournament, Arnold Palmer rose to the top of the pack and was poised to break his streak of 14-months without a tournament victory.

"If he wins," Smith remembered telling Fraser, "it's a major coup for us to make this tournament (successful)."

Palmer came out on top, and reporters got a fresh story to sink their teeth into.

After that, Sports Illustrated ran a large feature on Harbour Town Golf Links, and other publications followed suit.

In those early days, the island population was sparse, and everyone was hoping the tournament would succeed, said Bonnie Hunt, who came to work for the tournament in 1970. It was a close-knit group, she said.

"I enjoyed working with John," she said at this year's tournament. "He was well thought of."

The Smiths now live in Beaufort but were involved in many other aspects of the early days of Sea Pines. Nell Smith, for example, ran the first gift shop in Harbour Town, which is still in operation, though she sold it a decade ago. By next year's Heritage, she hopes John is able to enjoy the tournament as he always did.

"He's alert and with it," she said. "I think he's going to make it."