19 Myrtle Beach Golf Courses “Going Green” Throughout the Year
“Wall-to-Wall” Overseeding Effort is Grand Strand’s Most Ambitious in Years, Includes Several Popular Designs
As most golf courses throughout the Southeast region offer great playing conditions in the winter and early spring months through a “contouring” effect (green fairways, greens and tee boxes, producing a visual contrast with dormant Bermudagrass rough), 19 Myrtle Beach-area designs have taken the extra step to “Go Green” in 2019-2020.
It represents the largest Grand Strand contingent in years that has made the decision to overseed “wall-to-wall” with winter ryegrass, including roughs along with fairways and tee boxes. This step, in addition to either coloring greens or overseeding them with Poa trivialis, has now ensured green conditions through these courses on a year-round basis.
Claude Pardue, president and CEO of DG Golf Management, has made the wall-to-wall green practice part of its annual routine in recent years at each of his company’s three Myrtle Beach designs: , The Wizard and Man O' War. The cool-season ryegrass his company and others use to overseed fairways, tee boxes and roughs helps create an atmosphere Pardue’s customers especially appreciate during their March and April visits.
“It’s the same practice that makes Augusta National so brilliantly green in early April, and what folks have come to expect when they see The Masters,” said Pardue. “We want to give golfers the experience we feel they want. It costs us a lot of money to do this, but for the quality of experience we feel it provides our golfers, it’s worth it.”
“The great thing about Myrtle Beach is that the golf courses are always in great shape, and it’s always green on the primary playing surfaces. But we wanted to take that extra step on more of our courses,” said Steve Mays, president of Founders Group International (FGI), the course ownership group with 11 courses implementing the wall-to-wall green practice for 2019-2020. “Golf is meant to be played on green conditions, and it’s great for visiting golfers when they come down here in the winter and early spring months and see fully green golf courses. They get excited.”
FGI-owned TPC Myrtle Beach has gone wall-to-wall green for each of the past four years. This year, they are joined by 10 sister courses in the FGI portfolio: Long Bay Golf Club, Myrtlewood Golf Club’s Palmetto and PineHills courses, World Tour Golf Links, King's North at Myrtle Beach National, the Avocet Course at Wild Wing Plantation, Tradition Golf Club', Willbrook Plantation Golf Club, River Club, and Pawleys Plantation Golf Club.
From Sunset Beach, N.C. to Murrells Inlet, S.C., five additional Grand Strand designs are going wall-to-wall green as well, including Eagle Nest Golf Club and Arrowhead Country Club, each of which has employed the practice for several years; and three designs joining the movement for 2019-2020 including The Maples Course at Sea Trail Golf Resort, Glen Dornoch Waterway Golf Links, and Blackmoor Golf Club.
As the calendar flips to 2020, the emerald green conditions offered throughout these designs offer welcome relief for visiting golfers looking for the perfect escape from snowy, wintry climates. PlayGolfMyrtleBeach.com’s “Myrtle Beach Goes Green” page offers a slew of current photos and video of what you can expect to see at these courses during your winter and early spring visit.
