(A) The Department of Motor Vehicles may issue a special "South Carolina: First In Golf" motor vehicle license plate to establish a special fund to be used by the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism to provide grants to promote the South Carolina Junior Golf Association.

The fee for this special license plate is seventy dollars every two years in addition to the regular motor vehicle license fee set forth in Article 5, Chapter 3 of this title. The special license plate must be of the same size and general design of a regular motor vehicle license plate and must be imprinted with the words South Carolina: First in Golf". The plates must be issued or revalidated for a biennial period which expires twenty-four months from the month they are issued.

(B) The fees collected pursuant to this section must be distributed to a special "South Carolina: First In Golf" fund established within and administered by the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism to promote the South Carolina Junior Golf Association. The distribution is forty dollars to the fund and thirty dollars placed by the Comptroller General into the State Highway Fund as established by § 57-11-20, to be distributed as provided in § 11-43-167.

(C) Before the Department of Motor Vehicles produces and distributes a special license plate pursuant to this section, it must receive:

(1) four hundred prepaid applications for the special license plate or a deposit of four thousand dollars from the individual or organization seeking issuance of the license plate. If a deposit of four thousand dollars is made by an individual or organization pursuant to this section, the department must refund the four thousand dollars once an equivalent amount of license plate fees is collected for that organization’s license plate. If the equivalent amount is not collected within four years of the first issuance of the license plate, then the department must retain the deposit; and

(2) a plan to market the sale of the special license plate which must be approved by the department.

(D) If the department receives less than three hundred biennial applications and renewals for a particular special license plate, it shall not produce additional special license plates in that series. The department shall continue to issue special license plates of that series until the existing inventory is exhausted.