Driving through Myrtle Beach felt like looking from a three-dimensional universe into Plato’s two-dimensional cave. They include beachwear shops where three t-shirts sell for ten dollars a store called “Vices” that sells cigarettes and liquor jaw-droppingly grandiose miniature golf courses like “Molten Mountain,” which features a smoking, three-story-high hump, around which the course meanders plus golf clothes stores, golf supply stores, and a golf shoe store. Strip malls line the town’s highways like paramecium. Although only 28,000 people live there, it looks like the capital of cheesy enterprise, as if strip clubs and cigarette outlets and fireworks stores from across the country had been shaken from their foundations and set down in Myrtle Beach, where they could all be together. Nature had been on a long losing streak in Myrtle Beach. In this contest, we were on nature’s side. Photographer Robert Dawson and I had come to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, one of the country’s top golfing destinations, to walk its derelict golf courses, to see what kinds of life persisted on a course after it died, to find out whether nature reclaimed it. The warning didn’t entirely displease us, for we didn’t intend to play golf. The course has been in superb condition following a 2019 renovation project.įor a complete list of Myrtle Beach golf courses and pricing, click here.Before we walked on the abandoned golf course, the realtor charged with selling the condos around it told us that our plan was “suicidal.” We would run into copperhead snakes, he said, if not the bikers and meth cookers recently discovered on the property. Rees Jones’ work at Arcadian Shores Golf Club helped set him on the path to architectural greatness. design and it ends with his son’s first solo layout. Myrtle Beach’s entries on the list started with a Robert Trent Jones Sr. TPC is certainly among America’s best public courses. The Tom Fazio-Lanny Wadkins design has hosted a Senior PGA Tour Championship, a NCAA Tournament Region Championship and numerous other high profile amateur tournaments. TPC Myrtle Beach long ago earned its reputation as one of the area’s premier big event venues. Regardless of which Myrtlewood course you play, a memorable day awaits. A round at the Palmetto Course is highlighted by the par 4 18th hole, which finishes along the Intracoastal Waterway. Myrtlewood, home to the Palmetto and PineHills courses, enjoys a perfect location in the heart of Myrtle Beach. Featuring six back nine holes that reside along a saltwater march, the Jack Nicklaus layout is unforgettable, highlighted by the par 3 13th, which plays to a peninsula green surrounded on three sides by water. Pawleys Plantation (pictured right) is on the short list of the prettiest courses in South Carolina. Featuring dual fairways and the drivable, 265-yard 14th hole, Avocet is a layout players talk about long after they’ve returned home. Featuring generous fairways, mounding and pot bunkers, Thistle provides players a taste of golf in the Olde Country.Ī Larry Nelson-Jeff Brauer design, Avocet is another of Myrtle Beach’s hidden gems. The 27-hole, Scottish-inspired course was designed by Tim Cate. It was good to see Thistle, one of the Grand Strand’s most underrated properties, earn a spot on the GolfDay list. The fairways, waste bunkers and greens are among the area’s largest and are at the heart of one of coastal South Carolina’s most creative designs. True Blue, Caledonia’s sister course, offers a contrasting experience. Mike Strantz’s first solo design, Caledonia plays through a stunning piece of Lowcountry property, culminating with the unforgettable 18th hole, a par 4 that requires a carry over water to a green that resides in the shadow of the course’s historic clubhouse. Women’s Open and six Senior PGA Tour Championships – with the brilliance of Robert Trent Jones Sr.’s design work to create an unforgettable experience. The course combines its rich history – the layout has hosted the U.S. It was hardly a surprise to find the Dunes Club (top photo), a consensus top 100 public course, near the top of the list. The GolfDay list didn’t include resort courses, meaning layouts at places like Pinehurst and Bandon Dunes, for example, weren’t included. Headlining the Myrtle Beach contingent was the Dunes Golf & Beach Club, which was ranked as America’s second-best public layout, followed by No. Top 100 Public Courses: 2023” and Myrtle Beach dominated the website’s ranking of America’s best public access facilities.Ī couple of familiar names led nine Grand Strand courses that earned a spot on the list. GolfDay, a blog that touts itself as a premiere golf course guide, has unveiled its list of the “ U.S.
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