Myrtle Beach Golf News & Updates

The PGA Championship is underway so what better time to take a look at the strong connections between the game’s final major and the Myrtle Beach golf scene?

Seven players who have hoisted the Wannamaker Trophy have designed Myrtle Beach golf courses, including some of the area’s best.

Here is a look at the work past PGA champions have done along the Grand Strand.

John Daly – Much like Long John himself, Wicked Stick encourages a grip it and rip it brand of golf. The

The installation of new greens at Barefoot Resort’s Fazio Course was as smooth as it was successful. The Fazio Course closed in late-May for the installation of Champion Bermuda grass greens and reopened, ahead of schedule, on July 13.

“The new greens are 100 percent grown-in and rolling terrific,” Mike Ross, Barefoot’s director of golf, said. “They aren’t to firm or too soft. We feel it’s almost a new golf course.”
 

Ross’

True Blue Golf Plantation features everything one would expect from a Mike Strantz golf course: wide fairways, sprawling bunkers, a touch of visual deception, and the land is a canvas for Strantz’s work, which is, as always, a blend of art and architecture.

At True Blue, depending on the perspective of the player, there are 18 potential signature holes. It’s one of Myrtle Beach’s best golf courses, and we asked Bob Seganti, True Blue’s director of golf, to name the best of the best at the South Strand facility.

The roar is being restored on the greens at Ocean Ridge Plantation’s original Big Cat. Lion’s Paw Golf Links is installing new Mini-Verde greens this summer.

The first of Ocean Ridge’s four layouts, Lion’s Paw began making the conversion the second week of July and is scheduled to reopen on August 30. The greens have already been conditioned and sprigged and the process is off to a fast start.

The work at Lion’s Paw comes on the heels of Panther’s

Myrtle Beach’s newest golf course wasted little time rising to the top of the leaderboard. Founders Club, a South Strand gem, has earned 2011 Myrtle Beach Area Golf Course Owners Association Course of the Year honors. “To be selected the best among the abundance of golf courses in the Myrtle Beach area is a tremendous honor,” said Tommy Smothers, general manager of Classic Golf Group. “Founders Club has only been around for three years and it is always in impeccable

What do Baltusrol Golf Club, Medinah, Congressional Country Club and many of America’s most renowned public and private facilities have in common?They have all reaped the benefits Coastal Carolina University’s Professional Golf Management program.  Home to one of just 20 PGM programs nationally, Coastal’s thriving internship program annually disperses its students to the best courses along the Grand Strand and beyond.Coastal students are parlaying their degrees into

Litchfield Country Club is a testament to the virtues of good, traditional golf course architecture. An ideal blend of doglegs – left and right – have helped conspire to create a layout that doesn’t rely on length as its sole means of defense. Litchfield Country Club rewards creativity, and it gives players a chance to score. Before teeing it up on one of the area’s friendliest courses, here are five things you need to know. More Ways To Get Home: Unlike courses

Litchfield Country Club combines a traditional design and a mature setting to deliver a memorable round of golf. The dean of South Strand layouts, Litchfield is a pure test of golf.

The course is straight-forward and manages to challenge without overwhelming players. With that in mind, we asked Litchfield’s head pro Christa Bodensteiner to tell us the venerable layout’s three best holes.

Below are her answers:

No. 4, 202-yard, par 3 – A well struck long iron is a

The Carolinas Amateur Championship, signature event of the Carolinas Golf Association (CGA), heads back to the famed Dunes Golf & Beach Club in Myrtle Beach, SC, July 14-17.The 97th Carolinas Amateur will be the sixth held at the Dunes Golf & Beach Club.  The first Carolinas Amateur was played at Sans Souci Country Club (now Greenville CC in Greenville, SC) in 1910, less than a year after the CGA was organized in Charleston. The championship was played at the Dunes Club for the

Wicked Stick Golf Links opened to great fanfare in 1995 just months after John Daly, who helped design the course, won the British Open. With a two-time major champion’s name on the sign, Wicked Stick enjoyed immediate attention.

Sixteen years later, Daly’s name and an enjoyable round of golf continue to attract people to Wick Stick, one of the area’s most player friendly layouts. Before teeing it up at Wicked Stick, here are five things you need to know.

Grip It and Rip It: As one would expect from a course with the free swinging Daly’s name on it, Wicked Stick offers plenty of opportunity to pound the ball, including two of the longest holes along the Grand Strand. The 611-yard, par 5 11th hole is Myrtle Beach’s fifth longest and according to legend, Daly can get home in two. Even more daunting is the 7th hole, a 265-yard par 3. Players need to grip it and rip it on those two holes.

He Did More Than Lend His Name: Daly was actively involved in Wicked Stick’s design, visiting the course several times throughout its development. When the seventh hole was still in its formative stages – only a dirt bowl that would be the home of the green was complete – Daly pulled a mat out of a truck and walloped a ball with his three iron that ended up in middle of the green site. Daly declared that spot the home of the seventh tee. It was 265 yards from the green, making it the Grand Strand’s longest par 3. No word on whether anyone has replicated that shot since.

Teeing It Up: We’ve made much of the length of the seventh and 11th holes, but that distance is from the Daly tees, where few people play. On balance the length of the course is very manageable. As a matter of fact, the blue tees at 6,507 yards and the white tees at 6,080 yards are perfectly placed. If you are skilled enough, good luck from the Daly tees at 7,001 yards.

Was That Who I Thought It Was?:  Don’t be surprised if you see Daly at Wicked Stick, particularly if you are in town around the annual Hootie & The Blowfish Monday After the Masters Celebrity Pro-Am. Daly stops by and occasionally plays the course when he is in town for the event.

Location, Location, Location: Wicked Stick is located right off Highway 17 Bypass, meaning it’s just minutes from the airport, and players drive by it going north and south. It is one of the Grand Strand’s most accessible courses.

Wicked Stick Golf Links, the only John Daly signature Myrtle Beach golf course, was designed with the idea of letting traveling golfers enjoy the grip it and rip it game that Long John helped popularize. The fairways are generous and bombing the driver is encouraged, but the layout offers a diverse and enjoyable round.

We asked head pro John Thomas to share the course’s three best holes. He obliged.

No. 7, 265-yard, par 3: Myrtle Beach’s longest par 3, No. 7 is an absolute monster from the Daly tees. It’s long but manageable from the blue (205 yards) and white tees (188 yards). There is a pond on the right and a green with a surplus of undulation.

“Par is a good score,” Thomas said. “There is a pretty deep pot bunker on the front right, a shallow bunker on the back left and you play into an egg shaped green with a big elephant buried in the middle of it.”

Good luck!

No. 9, 403-yard, par 4 – Wicked Stick’s ninth, one of the course’s more scenic holes, demands a quality approach. Water fronts the green so there is no coming up short, and the challenge is substantial.

“There is water to the left and mounds (off the tee), but it’s really wide open,” Thomas said. “You don’t have to hit a driver. Whatever you can get to 150 yards, that’s what you want to hit off the tee. You have to hit the green (on the approach).”

No. 18, 528-yard, par 5 – A risk-reward golf hole, there are several different ways to play No. 18. It’s a dogleg left that offers players the chance to go for the green in two, but it’s a risky gambit. Most players that dream of an eagle, attempt to pound the drive to the corner of the fairway and hit a long iron into what amounts to an island green.

Playing 485 yards from the white tees, even mid to high handicappers can be tempted after a long drive, but most play it safe.

“Most people play it down the right side about 260 out then layup,” Thomas said

Sounds like a smart way to finish a good round.

The third class of inductees into the Myrtle Beach Golf Hall of Fame included two men who count the founding of the Dunes Club, the Surf Club and the Golf.com World Amateur Handicap Championship to their credit, making their inclusion an easy one. 

The impeccably credentialed 2011 inductees were Charles “Charlie” W. Byers, one of the Grand Strand's most visionary golf course developers, and Paul Himmelsbach, one of Myrtle Beach's most creative marketers and golf

After the busy spring season, Myrtle Beach golf courses use the summer months to freshen up, undertaking projects to insure prime conditions for players.

Six Myrtle Beach golf courses are in the midst of more significant work, namely the installation of new greens.

The courses installing new putting surfaces are: Avocet at Wild Wing Plantation, the Fazio and Norman courses at Barefoot Resort, Hackler Couse at Coastal Carolina University (Formerly Quail Creek), River Club and the West

Leopard’s Chase is one of Myrtle Beach’s newest golf courses, and it has wasted little time staking its place among the area’s most acclaimed layouts.

Leopard’s Chase, a Tim Cate design, was ranked among America’s Top 10 new courses upon its 2007 opening by Golf Digest and Golf Magazine, so outstanding holes are many. But we asked Bill Long, the director of marketing at Ocean Ridge Plantation, to name the course’s three best holes.

An astute observer

Gene Hamm designed Beachwood Golf Club in 1968 with the traveling golfer in mind, delivering a layout that was long on playability and devoid of trickery. Forty-three years later, one of the Grand Strand’s pioneering courses continues to deliver on its original promise.

Fun, affordable, friendly and convenient are the words used most often to describe Beachwood and it’s a time honored recipe for success.

Beachwood’s popularity starts with a course that is designed to challenge but certainly not overwhelm. The layout is 6,844 yards from the tips and has subsequent tees at 6,347, 5,695 and 4,947 yards, long enough for all while offering everyone a chance to score.

The layout is as open as any course along the Grand Strand, giving players room to spray the ball off the tee. The fairways are lined by trees but not the heavy pine forests some layouts are carved from. Drives that are off the fairway will likely find a clear path to recovery and possibly the green.

Beachwood is a good course to have in a golf package and it’s a great layout to have first in the rotation. Because of the course’s playability, it gives players time to adjust to the heavier air (typically balls don’t travel as far at sea level as they do at higher elevations) and start their trip on a positive note.

While Beachwood is among