TPC of Myrtle Beach Looking to Player's Championship

By Shane Sharp,
Contributing Writer

MURRELLS INLET. S.c. -- TPC courses, in essence, are all about hosting PGA Tour events. True, for the 361 other days of the year, they have to cater to either the general public, or their paying members. But these stadium style courses were originally conceived with the intent of hosting at least one tournament per season.

As was the TPC of Myrtle Beach. The Tom Fazio/Lanny Wadkins collaboration was constructed with the intent of hosting the Senior Tour's Player's Championship tournament - a showdown among the senior circuit's top money winners of the year.

The course was slated to host it's first tournament in November of 1999, but Mother Nature be a member of the Dunes Club, because she would have nothing to do with the TPC at the dawn of the millenium.

"Yea, the tournament was scheduled to be here last year, but we were hit with three hurricanes," says TPC head professional Jason Edmiston. "We lost about 300 trees, took some serious bunker damage, and had a cart path collapse. We could have gone ahead with the tournament here, but it would have been rough. The cleanup was going on right when we would have been preparing for the tournament."

The PGA may have some strange policies (see Casey Martin and Caddies in long pants), but one thing it does do right is roll out it's venues on national television at the right time, and after three near natural disasters was not the right time.

But barring another onslaught of nasty weather along the Strand, the TPC and the Senior Tour's Player's Championship are on for November 2000. And if you think the TPC will be a step down from the venerable Dunes Golf and Beach Club, whom many consider the best course in all the Grand Strand, think again. Fazio has given Myrtle Beach one of it's best golf courses not just of the past ten years, but one of it's finest layouts hands down.

"We will be ready to go next year, and with this layout it should be something else," says Edmiston. If we could ever get the attendance numbers up where we want them to be, this place will be an incredible venue to watch a golf tournament."

Course Information

1199 TPC Boulevard
Murrells Inlet, SC 29576
888-742-8721

Recognition

Golf Magazine - Top 20 Courses you can play in 2000
Best New Upscale Course 1999 - Golf Digest

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Go inside the TPC of Myrtle Beach, with daily reports and reviews from Senior Writer Shane Sharp.