FEATURE STORY

Lemonade, Southern
hospitality, history:
Our favorite Myrtle
Beach plantations

By Tim McDonald,
National Golf Editor

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (Jan. 2, 2006) - Southerners love to cling to their history - and even showcase it. You can drive through any number of neighborhoods in almost any Southern city or town and see antebellum architecture on display.

Far from retreating from the old slavery and plantation days, many in the South embrace it. That history is alive and well in Myrtle Beach, even as more and more neon-lit T-shirt shops threaten to envelop it.

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A number of golf courses along the Grand Strand advertise as plantation-style golf, while others fit the bill in reality if not in name. What defines plantation-style golf? Well, it helps to have some antebellum architecture in the clubhouse, a course that winds through classic lowcountry terrain with ancient oak trees with the requisite Spanish moss draping from their limbs, and some visible history.

So if you want to go back in time and get a glimpse of the old plantation days while you tee off, here are some of TravelGolf.com’s favorite plantation-style golf clubs.

• Pine Lakes Country Club Pine Lakes calls itself the "Granddaddy" with some justification: It’s the oldest course on the Grand Strand, founded in 1927 back when Lindbergh flew from New York to Paris, the first transatlantic phone call was made and Ford stopped making Model Ts.

It has a Scottish theme, seeing that it was designed by a Scot named Robert White, who was the first president of the PGA of America; there’s a plaque in his honor at the No. 1 tee box, calling him the "Father of Grand Strand Golf." He did a good job on a course that measures 6,609 yards, with the characteristically traditional style of tree-lined fairways and small greens.

They go above and beyond in service here, with white-gloved caddymasters, woefully misclad for the weather, washing your clubs, even shining your shoes. It’s like a Myrtle Beach time capsule, except in color. The 62-room antebellum club sits gleaming white like a come-alive postcard 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.

• Willbrook Plantation: The course is in a beautiful setting, laid out in the marshy Waccamaw River basin, among giant, spreading oaks, pampass grass and the marsh, with a few weeping willows tossed in.

The course does wind through the houses of the neighborhood, but many holes are isolated and have an almost wild feel. Thick, marsh vegetation comes into play often, both when you’re playing and when you’re just fooling around, enjoying Carolina in whatever season you happen to be there.

You’re apt to see fish hawks nesting in old woodpecker holes, great horned owls and even Carolina chickadees. The course is overflowing with small tidal ponds, lakes and meandering creeks, with wood bridges taking you from dry spot to dry spot.

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. 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.

• Pawleys Plantation: Lemonade on the clubhouse patio and crab soup on winter afternoons. The island’s first inhabitants settled here because the stiff sea breezes from the nearby Atlantic Ocean kept the mosquitoes at bay. Both George Washington and the French general Lafayette found their way through here and praised the area for its beautiful beaches.

Pawleys Island lays claim to being the country’s oldest resort. The course itself sits on the site of a rice plantation that was part of a Georgetown County conglomerate that produced half of the country’s rice for a period in the 1800s. The back nine at Pawleys is particularly bucolic, and the service is Old South.

"The overtones of Southern hospitality at Pawleys Plantation are difficult to ignore, and the traditional Lowcountry clubhouse shimmers," TravelGolf.com wrote in a review.

•Caledonia Golf and Fish Club: Caledonia merges plantation history with some of the finest golf available on the Grand Strand.

The 152-acre portion of the Caledonia Plantation comes from the descendants of the original owners, Dr. Robert Nesbit and Elizabeth Pawley. Nesbit was a Scottish immigrant who bought the plantation in 1797 and named it Caledonia, the Roman name for Scotland.

In the 1800s, Caledonia became one of the most prolific rice plantations in the lowcountry, stretching from the Atlantic in the east to the Waccamaw River in the west. Remains of the rice plantation and the fish and hunt club are easy to spot, including Fishhead Shed, part of the original plantation house. The clubhouse is vintage antebellum and an old boat dock sits in the shadows of the property’s 150-year old oak trees.

• Litchfield Country Club: Litchfield has that settled, old-time look, from the gnarled, old oaks making shade in the parking lot and on the course, to the layout of the course itself, with its narrow, tree-lined fairways and small greens.

In the golf-chaos of Myrtle Beach, where they churn out golf courses like fast-food joints - or at least they used to before business went south - Litchfield is the family who’s been in the neighborhood almost since someone first teed up a golf ball here. It’s the fifth-oldest course on the Grand Strand and the first in the Litchfield/Pawleys Island area, a charming old belle who has replaced her youthful beauty with an almost regal quality.

"You can tell it’s old," said Head Professional Christa Bodensteiner, a 12-year Myrtle Beach resident since being lured from Iowa and a career in psychology. "The trees are old. It’s stately. I think it’s a very Southern feeling."

The plantation-style clubhouse is modest, no pretensions here, though they have added a nice sun room in the grill. The course was built on an old rice plantation with fairways bordered by live oaks. The club has gone out of its way to maintain the integrity of the original Willard Byrd design.

• Heritage Club: The antebellum clubhouse at the Heritage Club is one of the stateliest on the Strand, and it fools a lot of people, since it was actually built in 1986. But, the land can lay claim to some impressive history.

The 600-acre property straddles two former rice and indigo plantations, and a small cemetery just off the fourth green serves as the final resting places for Captain William Vaux and his infant son, who died from malaria.

"The clubhouse, the golf course and the entire essence of the Heritage Club smacks of a time well before this one," TravelGolf.com wrote in a review. "Many of the Spanish moss-draped live oaks that line the fairways are over 250 years old."

The slope rating of 142 from the tips makes it one of hardest courses in the area.

• Crow Creek Golf Plantation: Crow Creek is a family-owned and operated business. The McLamb family has lived on the land since the 1700s, and their humble abode on the par-3 eighth hole served as the family’s hunting and fishing retreat for more than 30 years.

The McLambs were involved in farming tobacco and corn before they decided to get into the golf business. The frosnt nine of the course winds through those old tobacco fields and vegetable gardens, and the pace of play here is more relaxed than most other Grand Strand courses.

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.