COURSE REVIEW

At Myrtle Beach's Barefoot Resort Love Course, it's bombs away and risks galore

By Chris Baldwin,
Senior Writer

NORTH MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (March 5, 2007) — Davis Love III forces golfers to make a number of decisions on his first showcase golf design: the Love Course at Barefoot Resort.

Think of Love as Howie Mandel on "Deal or No Deal," turning up the drama on alternative after alternative — only 50 times less annoying.

Photo gallery: Barefoot Resort Love Course The perfect Myrtle Beach golf itinerary Planning a Myrtle Beach bachelor party Drink to golf: Myrtle Beach's best places to get sloshed

One choice Love never demands golfers make is to stow their driver, though.

Whether you're a want-to-be pro or a hopeless high handicapper, you're free to take out the big stick and bomb away. Heck, you're not just free to do it. You're encouraged with nearly the same gusto Paris Hilton is to dance on tables and make videos.

That's big part of the reason Barefoot Resort's Love Course is such an enjoyable Grand Strand golf play.

It's let 'er rip whenever and wherever over 7,047 yards of super-sized golf. You've heard of fairways wider than a 747? Well, Love gives you fairways seemingly bigger than two 747s side by side. Seriously, there are holes here where the worst slice golfer in the world off the tees would be very safely in play.

Welcome to the bomber's playground.

"It's set up similar to the way Davis Love himself plays," Barefoot Head Professional Mike Ross said. "It's very fair off the tee. You can get up on the tee and just bomb it.

"I guess if I was designing a golf course, I'd probably make it a good fit for my strengths as a player too."

Luckily for visitors to Myrtle Beach, most ordinary everyday golfers like to go for the big drive too. To their credit, Love and his design partner brother Mark didn't attempt to come up with some tricked out track that might impress the longstanding celebrity golf architects.

Instead, Love gives golfers the freedom to go for it.

And think about how and which way they want to do it. For Barefoot Love isn't just a free-swinging golf course. There's no way it could have nabbed the top spot in TravelGolf.com's first-ever Myrtle Beach Top 10 if that was the case.

Barefoot Love brings plenty of brain with that love for brawn. There's more risk-reward in this Carolina low country track than golfers in Las Vegas will find in the casinos. Thirteen of the 18 holes present clear choices where golfers must decide whether to go for a much more direct, danger-filled path to the green or to play it scorecard safe.

This is the stuff great rounds with your buddies are made of. Play Barefoot Love and you'll have tons to talk about — and rag each other on — in the clubhouse bar. Did you lose the bet when you tried a shot everyone in your group knew you'd never make? Or did you lose it by playing conservatively while your friend cut the corner on the lake?

Either way, you'll hear about it. Barefoot Resort Love is the type of course where you pick up a nickname.

"I lean toward the (sister) Fazio Course myself," said Long Island transplant Tom Kenney, who now lives in a Barefoot development. "This is a tough course for us normal guys because it's a little long.

"But the guys who can wallop the ball love it."

In truth, there's something to love for almost everyone. Barefoot Love doesn't just give golfers huge driving lanes and forced risk-reward choices, it delivers a little history. At least, recreated golf course style history.

No. 4, a very drivable 294-yard par 4 (though the fairway's a little smaller than most), leads up to a green set up on a ridge with broken up, standing brick walls and stone columns behind it. Some of the walls are completely covered in ivy.

It's a very cool effect. Even more so if your go-for-it drives lands short of the green and you're facing the very real prospect of sending your approach shot screaming just over the green and off the bricks. Or worse, into the thick ivy.

"Everyone wants to play the Love Course," local regular Jamie Ferrera said. "It's one all the visitors flock to get on. They see the course when they pull up, get a glance at the slave ruins. It's really eye-catching."

And completely fake. Those aren't ancient old brick walls crumbling. They're the recreation of the ruins of an old Plantation house where slaves were kept. Those walls only date back to 2000, the first year of the Love Course.

And you know what? It barely matters. They still give Barefoot Love a sense of history and theater.

This course is full of little satisfying touches. No. 6, a par 4 that curves around waterway and heavy bush area, has very low-lying brick walls right below the green. It only forces the slightest elevation on your iron approach and yet it creates some interesting shots.

"The difficulty in the Love Course comes in the green complexes," Ross said. "I've heard from some people that they remind them of some of the green complexes at Augusta National."

The greens are probably the last thing you're going to be talking about after a Barefoot Love round. That's how complete this course is.

Barefoot Resort Love Course verdict

You might play Barefoot Love because of the bombs-away fairways, the interesting visuals or even just all the hype it received on opening. But you'll remember the shot choices.

Take No. 8. Even if you absolutely launch the drive on this long par 5, you're still looking at significantly more than 200 yards to the green. But do you want to go for that tricky double-tired green with a huge waste area right in front of it? Turning it into a three-shot approach is the safer way, but Love tempts golfers to abandon caution again and again.

Risk, or no risk?

No. 13 — a 484 yard par 5 — practically screams at you to follow the dogleg right and risk seeing your ball floating down the stream that runs along the entire right side. Oh, there's room left to dodge any splashdown scares, but that adds another 60-70 yards to your approach.

That's the thing about Barefoot Love. It doesn't seem overly long by today's standards with the 7,000 yards on the scorecard. But there are some monster holes. How about capping your round with a nice 596-yarder with water in play?

If there's a knock against this course, it's the fact it's not exactly hidden in the Carolina countryside. There are a number of condo buildings visible on Barefoot Love. On No. 3, the first par 3, there's a huge one right across the street. On other holes, you're shooting straight into houses in the near distance.

Funny thing though, this golfer found Barefoot Love to still be a relaxing setting, more so than even the Barefoot Fazio Course, which is all but completely devoid of housing, but has traffic background noise.

Sometimes a golf course just works. There's certainly room for debate on whether Barefoot Love is No. 1 in all of the Grand Strand. But there's no question it's one of the very best.

Myrtle Beach dining

Barefoot Resort just opened a completely new, huge driving range with a golf school and a sports bar.

Greg Norman Grill (843-361-0000) is right before the Barefoot Resort turnoff off Kings Highway in the Barefoot Landing shopping complex and it's worth a stop.

When a famous athlete gets into food, you expect the worst, especially in a high-priced chain restaurant, but Greg Norman's eatery delivers surprisingly tasty selections. The salmon salad is particularly good. It's more reasonable at lunch and the views on the patio over the water are better then too.

Stay and play

Myrtle Beach has tons of hotels, but not a lot of the upscale ones most seasoned travelers expect. If you lean that way, the Marriott Grand Dunes is clearly the best, but the Sheraton Convention Center is in the same league (minus the ocean access) and often much cheaper.

Any opinions expressed above are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the management. The information in this story was accurate at the time of publication. All contact information, directions and prices should be confirmed directly with the golf course or resort before making reservations and/or travel plans.