NEWS FEATURE

Grand Strand courses up and running after Hurricane Charley

(Aug. 23, 2004) ? If you happened to watch The Weather Channel during Hurricane Charley?s recent tour through South Carolina, you might have thought the Grand Strand had been decimated.

But, if you have a golf trip planned there, keep your bags packed. All the Strand?s golf courses felt the effects of the hurricane, but all are now back up and running.

"Most of the courses were back two days later," said Carson Courage of Myrtle Beach Golf Directors, a golf packaging company. "There were a number of courses that were actually open on Sunday afternoon, after it blew through Saturday afternoon."

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Hurricane Charley caused about $4.6 million damage in South Carolina after slamming into the coast near McClellanville, according to the South Carolina Insurance News Service.

The Grand Strand was the hardest hit part of the state. Some buildings were damaged, but the storm had weakened considerably after it tore up parts of Florida, and most of the carnage was confined to minor flooding, downed trees, street signs and power lines.

The storm packed winds as high as 145 mph when it hit the coast of southwest Florida, killing 19 people and causing an estimated $15 billion in damage. In South Carolina, winds reached 85 mph and nearly 100,000 customers were left temporarily without power. But flooding was not as serious as officials had predicted, partly because the storm passed over the state so quickly.

A few Strand courses were harder hit than others, like the River Hills Golf and Country Club.

"Nothing major," said River Hills? Harris D?Antignac. "We?re open. We did have a dam break and I?m having to go oversee that right now. Our reservoir, where we have all our water for irrigation, the dam broke there and it ran out down the stream. We?re having to reconfigure it."

The course was not flooded, however, and course maintenance officials were left with a big cleanup job.

"All we had was just a lot of branches down," Antignac said. "We just had to pick it up and get it off the golf course. That took us a day to do it and we were back in business again. After we got through, you?d never know we had a storm down here."

Caledonia Golf and Fish Club was also hit hard.

"It could have been a lot worse," said the club?s Todd Welden. "But, we did lose about a dozen trees, pines, and there was debris all over the fairways. We had every employee out there working on it."

The club?s True Blue course opened Monday and Caledonia opened the next day.

"My first year down here was (Hurricane) Hugo, at Pawley?s Plantation," Welden said. "That was something else, that came in with 120-130 mph winds and took us two and a half weeks to open. I?ve been through one to know enough that it could have been a lot worse. We still have work to do on the bunkers. We concentrated on the tees, greens and fairways."

Indian Wells and Kings North are two other courses hit hard, but both are now up and running with little evident damage.