Golf rules the day at Myrtle Beach
But the night offers plenty of fun, too
Myrtle Beach, S.C. — Twenty years ago, Myrtle Beach was a top “buddy golf trip” destination, with foursomes or small groups of guys enticed by affordable stay-and-play packages and good weather in the shoulder seasons. Typically, they’d play 36 holes a day and, with whatever energy was left, cavort at night.
Myrtle Beach is still that place, but it is so much more.
With more than 100 golf courses, the Grand Strand is as golf-centric as any place in America. One conservative estimate pegged the number of rounds played annually at 3 million, with an economic impact of $150 million — and that doesn’t include food and lodging.
Myrtle Beach also is home to the World Amateur Handicap Championship, which last year drew 3,300 golfers from all 50 states and 25 foreign countries. Each night of the competition, players gather at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center for the “World’s Largest 19th Hole,” which includes live entertainment and golf demos.
The game is the lifeblood of the region, which boasts 10 of the top 15 public-access courses in the PalmettoState, accordingtoGolfweekmagazine. With courses designed by morethan40architects— including Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye — the variety and challenges are almost endless.
But when I made my fourth visit to the Grand Strand in November, I was impressed by the strides taken to turn Myrtle Beach into a family friendly vacation destination. It’s still very much about golf here, but there are a lot of things to do for the non-golfing spouse and children.
Golf still rules
First, let’s talk golf. With help from my friend Chris King and Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday, I lined up rounds on four of the best courses on the Strand: The Dunes Golf & Beach Club, Grande Dunes, Tidewater Golf Club and Caledonia Golf & Fish Club.
The Dunes Club dates to 1948, when a little-known architect named Robert Trent Jones was hired to design the course. Today, it’s a consensus top-100 course in the U.S. and has played host to many events on the major professional tours.
The club has more than 750 members and is private, but it accepts play from partner accommodation providers on the Grand Strand. The day I played, the practice putting green was so perfect I thought for a moment that the Bermuda grass was artificial turf.
The best stretch of holes is Nos. 1113, known as “Alligator Alley.” On the par-5 13th, which wraps around Lake Singleton, it’s not unusual to see a large gator or two catching some rays. The day Chris and I played, a 12-footer sat motionless on
the bank and didn’t seem all that interested in my game, but I gave him a wide berth nonetheless.
Next, it was on to Grande Dunes, honored in 2009 by the National Golf Course Owners Association of America as the national course of the year.
The Roger Rulewich links-style design was built on a bluff overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway, Grande Dunes Marina and a four-diamond resort, Marina Inn at Grande Dunes.
My favorite hole was the pretty par-3 14th, which can play anywhere from 122 to 244 yards. With water short and right and a long green set on an angle to the tee boxes and fronted by a deep bunker, there is little room for error.
Tidewater, nestled between the Intracoastal and Cherry Grove, a neighborhood in North Myrtle Beach, flows with the natural contours of the land and offers spectacular views of the Waterway and a saltwater marsh.
The 160-yard third hole (we played it at128) is a well-designed par-3, with a massive three-tiered green fortified by bunkers. Readers of The Sun News voted it the “Best Par-3 on the Grand Strand.”
The day we played, the flagstick was on the lower left lobe and wellstruck balls funneled down to the hole. Two members of our foursome flirted with holes-in-one, but neither converted their short birdie putts.
I wound up the golf portion of the trip with a round at Caledonia Golf & Fish Club in Pawleys Island, a 30minute drive south of Myrtle Beach.
The 6,526-yard, par-70 course was designed by Mike Strantz and built on the former site of a Southern rice plantation. The entrance, which leads to an antebellum-style clubhouse, is lined with 150-year-old live oaks laden with Spanish moss.
Unlike the first three courses, Caledonia is tight, with holes routed around majestic oaks and streams and accented by thousands of annual and perennial flowers. If you’re hitting your driver crooked, keep it in the bag and choose the club that will keep you in the short grass.
The weather was perfect all four days— low 70s and sunny— and I was off the course by early afternoon, which left my non-golfing wife and me plenty of time to explore the area.
Of course, there was the mandatory stroll on the beach. The new 1.2mile-long Oceanfront Boardwalk and Promenade runs from the 14th Avenue Pier to the 2nd Avenue Pier. Completed in 2010 at a cost of nearly $6.5 million, the boardwalk features numerous shops and restaurants and is home to festivals, concerts and Wednesday night firework displays throughout the summer.
The main attraction on the boardwalk is SkyWheel, which at187 feet in