FEATURE STORY

Five for fall(ing): Five things to watch this fall golf season in the Grand Strand

While temperatures will hover in the mid-80s along the Grand Strand until October, the passing of Labor Day weekend and the World Amateur signifies the end of the beach season and the beginning of the peak fall golf season.

In smoke-filled sports bars from Boston to Cleveland and neighborhood pubs across Quebec and Ontario, plans are being firmed, confirmed, and re-confirmed. In just a matter of weeks, planes will be boarded, mini-vans loaded and hordes of khaki-clad, collared shirt clones will descend upon courses from Brunswick County to Pawleys Island.

The 120 some courses of the Grand Strand await. So here are five key things to look for this fall golf season.

Grass getting greener

A frigid winter and the wettest spring in history wreaked havoc on local putting surfaces. A number of courses had major green restoration projects planned before the inclement weather. Others have scrambled to make spot repairs before the fall golf season.

In the North Strand, Farmstead Golf Links recently reopened after making repairs on five of its TifEagle Bermuda greens. In the South Strand, Blackmoor Golf Club replaced all 18 of its aging TifDwarf Bermuda greens with TifEagle. The popular Gary Player designed course reopened Aug. 10 with new putting surfaces, green collars and bunkers on holes one, three and 11.

If TifEagle sounds familiar, it should. Over the past five years, a number of courses have converted their greens to new heat tolerant strands of UltraDwarf Bermuda, such as TifEagle or Champion. Among the higher profile courses to make the switch are the Tidewater Golf Club (Cherry Grove Beach) and True Blue (Pawleys Island).

Course closures compound

If you are really up to date on your Grand Strand golf news, you know the storied Dunes Club -- a Robert Trent Jones Sr. design -- is closed until December while Rees Jones dolls the place up a bit. If you are up on your news from the summer, you know Robber's Roost has closed while its owners decide its fate.

Meanwhile Marsh Harbour remains closed and shows little sign of opening next year, much less this fall as once pontificated on these pages by owner LaDane Williamson. One source close to MyrtleBeachGolf.com said the grass on the fairways has grown up over two feet and only the greens are being mowed occasionally.

As for Williamson other closed circuit, Ocean Harbour, even the most optimistic Grand Strand pundits have abandoned all hope of a Renaissance (except the LaDane Golf Web site, which still states "Ocean Harbour Golf Links is closed to the public at this time for renovations.)

While Ocean Harbour, Marsh Harbour and Robber's Roost ultimately could go the way of la Gator Hole (read: shopping mall), the imminent re-opening of the Dunes Club is another matter. That Jones has been retained to restore his father's seminal work is a clear sign the owners wish to re-establish the course's place among the top tracks in the Southeastern United States. Jones has been trusted with some of the country's most historically significant golf courses and just completed a magnificent redesign of the No. 7 course at Pinehurst Resort.

Know your maintenance schedules

Words like "overseeding" and "aerifying" are two of the most dreaded words in the lexicon of the traveling golfer. Both terms come into play along the Grand Strand in the fall. Most, if not all, Myrtle Beach area courses use Bermuda grass on tee boxes, fairways and rough, and the vast majority also use the warm weather grass on greens (a handful of courses have bentgrass greens.)

Bermuda fairways, tees and rough are overseeded with rye or another strand of cool weather grass for the winter and spring. Bermuda greens are overseeded with Poa Trivialis -- a lush, cool weather grass that actually rolls as good if not better than Bermuda. Most courses overseed in late October but a few have pushed it back until early November so as not to interfere with peak season play.

• Grand Strand fall golf guide • Pawleys Plantation review • Myrtlebeach golf course reviews • More Myrtle Beach golf features

Maintenance schedules are rarely published, and when they are, they are often subject to change. Group leaders: Do yourself a favor and call the courses you plan to play a few weeks in advance of your trip. Ask to speak with the director of golf or head professional.

If you've played the course before, tell him you are a big fan, a repeat customer, and you want to know the fall maintenance schedule. If it is the first time you've scheduled the course, tell him you've heard great things about the facility, you'd like to become a repeat customer, and ask for the fall maintenance schedule. The vast majority of the time, these industry professionals will shoot you straight.

Getting around getting better

More than 90 percent of visitors to the Myrtle Beach area use an automobile as their mode of transportation, according to the Myrtle Beach area Chamber of Commerce. With more than 13 million annual visitors layered atop the region's burgeoning local traffic levels, the Grand Strand's aging, overburdened roadway network was rapidly becoming a case study of poor urban transportation planning.

Times are changing, however. With the recent opening of the Veteran's Highway (S.C. 22) and the Carolinas Bays Parkway (S.C. 31), it's now possible to get from North Myrtle Beach and Little River to Conway in less than twenty minutes by avoiding congested segments of U.S. 17 and U.S. 501. Getting around in the Central Strand is made easier by the Robert M. Grissom Parkway. The RMGP is a four-lane route from 62nd Ave. North in Myrtle Beach to Harrelson Blvd. near the Myrtle Beach International Airport.

Pace of play improvements

Five-hour rounds were once the norm during the fall and spring golf seasons. While you are still likely to run into slow play at most courses (especially in the morning), things are getting better for a number of reasons. First, more courses and a stagnate number of golfers leads to more open tee boxes. Second, the pace of play issue came to a head in recent years and course officials took notice. Rangers (player assistants) have been given more leeway to crack down on slow groups and technological improvements, such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS) on carts allow for real time pace of play monitoring from the pro shop. Finally the Grand Strand is no longer the only game in town, so to speak. Almost every state has some semblance of a golf destination these days. Stepping up service levels and improving pace of play is paramount if Myrtle Beach is to compete with emerging golf destinations like the Alabama/Mississippi Gulf Coast and the Mid-Atlantic.