The Wizard Casts a Magical Spell on Golfers

Myrtle Beach is home to 90 golf courses that offer just about every type of experience imaginable, so standing out from the crowd can be difficult proposition, but The Wizard Golf Links has managed to distinguish itself.

Touted as a links-style course, The Wizard offers a taste of Scottish golf, but the Dan Maples design isn’t easily pigeon-holed. It’s a layout that evolves with the round, keeping golfers engaged with varied challenges.

What do you need to know before teeing it up at The Wizard?

— This course delivers on its promise of links golf. Wide fairways surrounded by mounding covered in native grasses and stacked sod bunkers provide golfers a taste of what it’s like to play in the game’s ancestral home.

— The Wizard isn’t “just” a links-style design. The Wizard offers a more conventional design over the closing three holes, which play along a lake. The 16th is a daunting dogleg right par 4 that plays around water, 17 is an island green par 3, and the final hole is a 394-yard par 4 that requires a carry over the lake, so players must be prepared to shift gears as they make the turn for home.

— While the type of challenge facing golfers evolves, this a layout that provides a chance to score. Using the USGA’s slope measurement as a means of evaluation, The Wizard (slope: 121) is the area’s fourth-easiest course. Consider yourself warned, there is no such thing as an easy golf course, but if you are playing well, you could record a score on the par 71 you are happy to tell your friends about.

— The Wizard’s greens are among the area’s largest, and they offer a pristine bentgrass putting surface. Owner Claude Pardue had custom soil profiles created at The Wizard (and Man O’War), resulting in the best bentgrass greens in the state. With the smallest green being more than 10,000-square feet, most players get to see a lot of that bentgrass surface.

— The Magical Golf Package is the best way to play the Wizard in 2019, available through providers like Golf Excursions/My Golf Vacation. The value-packed deal pairs Wizard with The Witch and Man O’War, its fellow Mystical Golf courses, to create a 5-night, 5-round package that is difficult to beat. Golfers will receive free daily breakfast at IHOP, lunch each day at the course, and a free steak dinner at Logan’s Roadhouse, among other goodies. You owe it your group to check out this package.