“Breaking Par with Charlie Rymer” Episode 17: The Norman Course at Barefoot Resort

Check out the waterway views on this beauty. This might be the most recognizable hole on Greg Norman’s signature design here at Barefoot, and with good reason. But let’s not get too wrapped up in the scenery here, we’ve still got a golf hole to play. And as you’d imagine, the wind will be a critical factor in choosing which club to play off the tee at this par three.

So we’re at North Myrtle Beach, the Barefoot Resort. Amazing facility, 72 holes here. They got golf courses by Pete Dye, Tom Fazio, Davis Love III, and this beauty by Greg Norman. This is the 10th hole, a par three. Greg, obviously, The Shark, is from Australia. He was influenced heavily in his design career by the sand belt region around Melbourne. I’ve been there. It’s awesome. Some unbelievable golf courses.

A lot of the features that you see there, you see on this golf course, not much rough. A lot of closely mown areas around the greens. And the bunkers are very distinctive, they’ve got high sharp faces with really, really sharp edges going around. They get your attention. Intracoastal Waterway over there to the right. We’ll try and cruise this eight iron in here today.

Look out, hole! Oh no, I might’ve should have hit the seven. Thought I had that one. So this one time on the PGA TOUR, back in the last century at Hilton Head, I was paired with Greg Norman on Saturday. It was just me and The Shark and he didn’t beat me. I didn’t beat him either.

So his penalty, the punishment for not beating me was he had to play with me on Sunday, too. And we tied again. I was pretty pumped. Everybody came out to see The Shark. Had a lot of family there. I don’t think either one of us played very well. It seemed like we both shot 70 both days. But hey, I got a chance to play with The Shark, that’s better than nothing!

Yeah, I pureed that one. It’s 20 yards short. I think my man Jim over there gave me some bad yardage. All he’s got to do is look at the GPS and it tells you how far it is, and he somehow messed that up. I still love you, Jim, but you gave me bad yardage because I would never miss a shot by that far, ever, never.

His 10th green is super cool. It’s a great setting. What’s unusual about it, and you’ll see that when we get the drone up, is the green actually slopes away from the water. You don’t see that very often. Most of the time, greens are always going towards the water, but here it’s a little different story.

This is one of those closely mown areas I was telling you about. I like it because you got options. You can put it. You can bump it up through there. Some people use a hybrid. I’m going to go with this middle wedge, land it just short. Yeah, whatever I did there worked. Try that, folks. I thought it might’ve been a little closer than that. I got to tell you, this is my least favorite put. I don’t like right to lefters. I’m going to aim this up on that right edge. When I miss it, I pull. I can’t get out of my head. My head’s going, you’re going to pull this one. But I overcame it with great attitude. Eat your heart out Shark, tied you again!

Short game saves you every time. On the road again, staying on a northbound track right now. You don’t want the miss where we’re headed next! On the road again …