COURSE REVIEWS

Featured Course-
Wild Wing's Advocet Course Takes the
Lead by a Nose

By Shane Sharp,
Contributing Writer

May 31, 1999
MYRTLE BEACH -- Driving in to Wild Wing Plantation is a lot like waking up on Christmas morning as a kid and trying decide what you are going to open and play with first. We all know that the Myrtle Beach area is the proud owner of more golf courses than many states, but Wild Wing is the epitome of this over indulgence in what has, for all intensive purposes, become America's pastime.

Wild Wing is home to not one, not two, not three, but four championship caliber golf courses. Translation: close to 1,050 acres of pure golfing enjoyment And the quality and golfing experience between the four golf courses falls off about as drastically as an elevation change in the Grand Strand -- which, for those of you scoring at home is not at all.

But just as the Star Wars figures and Hot Wheels Cars were the cream of the crop underneath the tree, the Advocet Course at Wild Wing draws the majority of accolades, and subsequently play, from critics and visitors to the mighty plantation foursome.

The Advocet Course opened in 1993, and was the brainchild of former PGA Pro Larry Nelson and golf course architect Jeff Brauer.

According to Head Pro Tim Tilma, "Nelson and Brauer wanted to create a modern look with creative contouring around the tees and greens, but they wanted the course to be playable for the average golfer. There are very few forced carries from the tees and the greens are open so you can run the ball up on them. The contouring around the tees and greens makes it feel like you are in a amphitheater."

An amphitheater environment you may find yourself in, but the masterful contouring of each provides complete and total solitude while knocking it around on the Advocet - something that has become essential for a course that receives the majority of play at Wild Wing.

"Advocet is our premier course," says Tilma, "and it handles probably 30% of our play. About 175,000 rounds per year are played out at Wild Wing, and Advocet does about 46,000 of those rounds."

Thirty percent, 26%, who's counting, Tim. The point is that the Advocet Course is beating out its brethren tracks by just a nose. The accolades for Advocet are legion: Top 10 Best New Courses in America, Golf Digest 1994, and 1996 Top 30 in Myrtle Beach among them. The fact that a course can be in the top ten of new courses one year and only the top 30 in its own town two years later shows you just how competitive the golf market is in the Grand Strand.

Perhaps the only supposedly innovative concept on display at the Advocet Course that is slightly more annoying than enticing is that two of the hole on the course share the same green. This is a design feature that most savvy golfers find to be more goofy golf like that good golf like.

But shared dance floor aside, the Advocet Course is the real deal, and where else does a course have to stand up to such stiff competition from within?

Shane Sharp is a staff writer for Myrtlebeachgolf.com and GolfArizona.com.