Love Course is a Star Among Stars at Barefoot Resort

Dye and Fazio were regarded as two of golf’s finest architects and Norman wasn’t far behind, leaving people to wonder how Love’s work would stack up against the three golf titans. Sixteen years later those concerns seem laughable. 

The Barefoot Resort-Love Course, a regular on Golf Magazine’s list of the Top 100 Courses You Can Play, placing 85th on the most recent ranking of America’s best public layouts, has grown into one of Myrtle Beach golf’s best and most popular courses. 

The layout is renowned for its playability, featuring wide fairways and a creative design, highlighted by the Grand Strand’s shortest par 4, the 294-yard (from the tips) fourth hole. The fourth is famously back-stopped by the faux ruins of an old plantation home and it offers a great chance for birdie, possibly even eagle. 

But trouble lurks in the form of sand and collection areas around the green that can bedevil players. 

Inspired by the work of Donald Ross, Love, a native North Carolinian, designed greens that are reminiscent of those at Pinehurst No. 2. The putting surfaces are crowned, though the undulation, mercifully, isn’t as severe and are surrounded by collection areas that test a player’s creativity and skill. 

The layout stretches to just over 7,000 yards from the tips, but also has tees at 6,055 and 6,542 yards, lengths that highlight the course’s playability.

The holes around the ruins attract the most attention (and cameras), but here is a vote for par 4 16th as the Myrtle Beach golf course’s best. The 16th plays 332 yards from white tees and features a split fairway. The fairway is divided by a bunker that forces players to make a decision as to which way they want to go. 

The preferred side varies based on pin location but it’s great hole either way, emblematic of what makes the course so enjoyable. 

What makes the Love Course so much fun are the options it provides. There is no “right way” to play the layout. DLIII’s design work allows players to try and attack the course however they feel most comfortable, an underrated luxury. 

Any Myrtle Beach golf package that includes the Love Course is a good one.