The Brunswick County Experience Moves to The Pearl: “Breaking Par with Charlie Rymer” Episode 43

Time to take a trip down by the river. Everything about this hole looks left to right. Dogleg right, the whole slope’s left to right. Great for players who hit their drives left to right, but the approach, some take it low, others come in high. The wind direction here will have the final say. In the meantime, check out this view of the Calabash River. Today we’re at The Pearl Golf Links in Calabash, North Carolina, just off the North Carolina coast here. Beautiful marsh property, big piece of property, a little over 700 acres. This is a Dan Maples design and you really feel isolated and like you’re hanging out with nature when you’re on this golf course, but yet you’re right in the middle of everything.

Now then, this hole is a par four, it’s the sixth hole, probably the hardest hole on the golf course. Got it squeezed in between a fairway bunker on the left and a fairway bunker on the right. See if we can pull it off. Pretty tight landing area out there. Keep cutting, baby. Come on off of that bunker. Uh-oh, that might have caught your bunker. We’ll be all right though. Had that ball moving left to right just like I wanted and it was coming in, it was going to be perfect, and then it wasn’t. Six inches farther right I think it would have been perfect. It might have got through the bunker. Man, what a pretty golf hole sort of carved out of these trees.

A couple times I’ve come up by boat in the Calabash River. It’s a lot of fun. It’s got an amazing waterfront, lots of great restaurants in there, it’s a music playing. Yes, I came out of that bunker. Skipped it through it. See, when you’re strong like me it’s hard for a fairway bunker to contain you. I rolled it right through that fairway bunker. Man, what a beautiful golf hole with that Calabash River in the background. I’m like 145 yards here, downhill lie. Big thing on a downhill lie, a lot of people try to help the ball up in the air. Got to make sure you sort of lean into it, get your shoulders parallel to the slope. Hit down and through the ball on a downhill lie to get it up in the air

Up a little bit. All right, a little short but that’d be all right. Man, I’ll tell you what, it’s absolutely beautiful here. This little creek river, the Calabash, just down around the corner where some of the restaurants are on that waterfront. I probably first came here when I was five years old. Eat those little baby shrimp. I don’t know, they call them Calabash style shrimp. All I know is they’re good. “All right, Charlie, let’s focus on the golf shot. I got a lot of slope I’m dealing with here, it’s going to be slow. Hold this launch low so it’ll climb up that slope. I’m going to play it off my right toe, try to carry it just onto the green, let it run up there.” I didn’t carry it quite as far as I wanted to, but that’ll do.

When I was a kid growing up here in the Carolinas, we had mostly bent grass. When you did see Bermuda grass, it was horrible. Oh, you couldn’t hardly putt on it. Look at this green, it’s perfect. This is Bermuda grass. There’s been so many advances in turf since when I was a kid. If you told me Bermuda grass can be this good to putt on at some point in your life, I’d have said you’re absolutely crazy. Pour on the heart of soul, that ain’t going to hurt anything. Man. what a pretty place. The best part is, we’ve got some more spectacular scenery on deck as we head up the road for one more dose of some Arnold Palmer magic!