FEATURE STORY

Myrtle Beach: The perfect itinerary for a golf vacation

By Tim McDonald,
National Golf Editor

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (Jan. 23, 2006) - So many golf courses, so little time to play them. You could linger in Myrtle Beach for three months and literally not have time to play all the Grand Strand’s 100-plus courses. So we’ve narrowed it down to its essence for you.

Let’s assume a two-week stay for four buddies, since those who study Myrtle Beach’s golf habits say groups of four and eight are the most common. If you’ve only got a week, play 36 holes a day. You don’t mind doing that, do you? So here’s your perfect itinerary, the essential Grand Strand golf experience:

• Carolina golf real estate: From the mountains to the sea • Myrtle Beach, S.C. has some great golf courses - just not these • Myrtle Beach's most underrated golf courses are worth a look • Myrtle Beach can't shake its Wal-Mart reputation • Yes, Myrtle Beach is backwards. Embrace it!

We’ll start you off in the northernmost reaches of the Grand Strand, just over the North Carolina border, in Brunswick County. You’ll be staying at the Sea Trail Plantation, on the southernmost coast of North Carolina. It’s a terrific place to play the courses located here at the northernmost end of the Grand Stand.

•Farmstead Golf Links: They pull you in with a 776-yard par-6, and you’ll keep coming back.

"I have a discount card that lets me play over 100 courses here," said golfer Ron Richards. "And I choose to come here a lot."

It’s easy to see why. Farmstead advertises itself as a links course, and it comes closer to most that make that promise. It’s wide open and rolling, there are few tree-lined fairways, and when conditions are right, or ripe, the fairways are fast and firm, giving you extra roll, unlike so many other soggy courses on the Grand Strand.

• Thistle Golf Course: Thistle is one of the top courses in the north, known for its relaxed pace of play - 12-minute intervals between tee times - and its consistently excellent conditioning. It’s a Lowcountry-meets-Scottish-coast hybrid, with true bentgrasss greens.

• St. James Plantation, Founders course: Play this course just to see how tough golf can be. It’s got a slope of 151 from the back tees, with almost all the trouble near the green complexes.

"I think he was smoking something," Head Professional Rob Brothers said of architect P.B. Dye.

• Rivers Edge Golf Club: It carries Arnold Palmer’s name, but it is mostly the work of Palmer’s chief designer, Erik Larsen.

The course throws 10 forced carries at you, and will slap you silly if you don’t choose your tee boxes wisely. It’s a beautifully laid-out course, with seven holes playing along the Shallotte River and marsh.

Now, we’re going to move you south, though you’re still in the north Strand in the North Myrtle Beach and Little River area. The short drive is worth it to play:

• Tidewater Golf Club Plantation: The Grand Strand is home to more than 100 courses, dozens of them excellent, so good that only a few stand out. Tidewater is one of them. Laid out along the Intracoastal Waterway, a little north of North Myrtle Beach, the layout will dazzle you with scenery and shots.

It’s a gorgeous course, with overhanging oaks, marsh everywhere and high bluffs overlooking the sun-sparkled Intracoastal Waterway, complete with cruising sailboats and dotted with local fishermen. Everywhere you look, the conditioning is top-notch, even in the autumn when many other Strand courses are suffering.

Now youre moving to the epicenter of the Grand Strand, from Murrells Inlet to the south up to Myrtle Beach itself. You're checking out of Sea Trail and into River Oaks Golf Plantation, just to the west of the Intracoastal Waterway, a good, centrally located place for golfers to stay and play Myrtle Beach. It’s easy to go north or south via Highway 17, and it’s close to Broadway at the Beach and the Atlantic Ocean.

• Grand Dunes Golf and Beach Club: A big golf course in a big development, Grand Dunes offers some of the most dramatic scenery - and toughest golf - on the Strand. Water is in play nearly every hole, and the part of the course that sits high atop the banks overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway will stay with you the rest of your trip.

• Pine Lakes Country Club: We’re taking you here to see where it all began. Pine Lakes calls itself "The Grandaddy," the oldest course on the Grand Strand. Sports Illustrated was founded here, in 1954.

The 62-room antebellum club sits gleaming white like a come-alive post card from another era. There’s occasionally hot chocolate on the first tee when it’s cold, and mimosas when it’s hot. A gregarious man named "Dog" serves clam chowder at No. 7. Azaleas bloom in the spring and there’s rocking chairs on the porch.

• Myrtle Beach National, Kings North: This course underwent one of the most dramatic renovations on the Strand in 1996. It features immaculate bentgrass greens, and watch for the 43 bunkers on No. 18. Locals, pros, packagers and visitors agree Kings North is one of the best layouts at the beach.

• Prestwick Country Club: the course starts out fairly routine, but the back nine elevates the entire course. It becomes much more dynamic. The fairways take on a life of their own, with big dips, swooshes and ripples, dropping off abruptly to different levels.

Hills slope dramatically down to fairways and mounds rise from the terrain, around fairways and greens. The melody stays the same, but the crescendo swells. It’s the front nine jacked up on steroids.

• The Witch Golf Links: The Witch qualifies as one of the better, underrated courses along the entire Strand. First of all, it is well away from the hubbub of Myrtle Beach, laid out in the vast wetlands of Conway with nary a house or condo to intrude on your experience.

These are virtually undisturbed wetlands - a swamp, for the less environmentally enlightened - and snakes lurk in the undergrowth. Bridges - 4,000 feet of them - ferry you over the wetlands and under thick canopies of growth.

Finally, you’re finishing up in the south Strand, where the living is more genteel, away from all the T-shirt shops. This strip goes from Georgetown on the extreme southern tip of the Strand, north to Murrells Inlet.

You’ll be staying at the Litchfield Beach and Golf Resort, a great place to play the south courses. It’s affiliated with three courses, the Litchfield Country Club, River Club and Willbrook Plantation. The latter two in particular are excellent layouts.

• Caledonia Golf and Fish Club: Myrtle Beach critics point out how the Grand Strand is home to few nationally-recognized courses. Caledonia is an exception. It’s a Mike Strantz design the major golf magazines salivate over. TravelGolf.com called it the "perfect combination of location, course design course conditioning, service and ambience."

• Pawleys Plantation: One of Jack Nicklaus' fairest designs, Pawleys Plantation is an old favorite, laid out on a resort that encompasses 600 acres of wetlands, ancient oak trees salt marshes and small lakes. One of the prettiest courses on the Strand.

• True Blue: One of the most memorable, challenging and aesthetically pleasing courses in the area. Another Strantz design, after his Caledonia success. The course has been called Caledonia on steroids, and has been softened somewhat over the years to make it more player-friendly.

• Willbrook Plantation: A beautiful setting in the marshy Waccamaw River basin, among giant, spreading oaks, pampass grass and the marsh, with a few weeping willows tossed in. Remnants from the old plantation days are still around.

A plaque points out where the old slave quarters used to be, near the fourth green, where 149 slaves lived, worked the old rice plantation and left the golf to later generations. The remains of the original plantation itself can be found under some dignified, shady old oaks close to the No. 5 fairway, and excavations have brought up artifacts from the 18th century.

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.