Pawleys Plantation Renovations Update – June 29, 2023

PlayGolfMyrtleBeach.com’s Charlie Rymer visited Jack Nicklaus’ South Strand signature design last week to catch up with Joe Dipre, regional operations manager for Founders Group International (FGI), the parent company of Pawleys Plantation and 20 additional Myrtle Beach-area golf courses. In this video, Charlie and Joe discuss FGI’s broader vision in the infrastructure reinvestment they’ve made across their course portfolio, and how their current work at Pawleys Plantation reflects it.

Charlie then rolled up his sleeves with FGI’s renovations team leader, Chaz Henderson, with Pawleys Plantation’s famed 13th hole as the setting for illustrating the type of work they’re doing throughout the property. They discussed the greens expansion effort at that hole and property-wide, along with how the bunker replacement process works with the popular “capillary concrete” technology at its core.

Charlie Rymer:

When you look at the components of a golf course, the greens bunkers, the fairways, the tees, irrigation, cart path, these are things that need a lot of investment and maintenance. And sometimes they just have to be redone because some of those elements only have a certain lifespan.

Joe Dipre:

Exactly. When (you’re) getting to cart paths, and greens, and bunkers. And honestly the growth of trees on golf courses and what that does to the longevity of the conditions of the course. You have to take a look and see where the needs are within our company and where we want to attack. And I think we’ve done a good job kind of strategically placing where we’re going to spend our money. And Steve Mays, our President, has been the driver behind that. And with the ownership with Mr. Dan and Mr. DJ to kind of give us that support that we need, it’s been awesome.

Chaz Henderson:

This here is the 13th green, which is a signature hole here at Pawleys Plantation right now. We have had some test holes dug, to get to the original gravel layer. Now there’s probably five to six inches of buildup over the years through aerification and just natural taking care of the green. So we’re going to get this green back down to the original contours and details by removing the top layer off. We’re going to probably do some subtle changes just based off some of the drawings we have from Nicklaus and Companies and speaking with Troy Vincent, the architect for Nicklaus and Companies right now. And we’re also going to extend it a little bit farther that way just to make it a little bit bigger and more pleasing to hold some shots that come over.

Charlie Rymer:

I know Mr. Nicklaus has come and walked the property. He loved it, but he realized that it does need a little bit of work. One of the things from the original design to now: you guys have lost maybe an acre of putting green surface here, so you lose hole locations. You see it out on the golf course of where a green edge might have gone right up to the bunker. Now there’s a lot space there and that’s one of the things you’re trying to do is reclaim that original design and a lot more putting surface. Right?

Chaz Henderson:

Correct. Right now I would say we’ve at least got maybe 40 percent larger.

Charlie Rymer:

Wow, that’s significant.

Chaz Henderson:

30 percent to 40 percent. Yeah. Which adds a lot more cupping areas now.

Charlie Rymer:

Talk to me a little bit about the bunkers. I know you’re using capillary concrete.

Chaz Henderson:

Yes.

Charlie Rymer:

To redo these bunkers, what exactly is capillary concrete and why do you use that? Because it sounds expensive to me!

Chaz Henderson:

Well, it is expensive.

Charlie Rymer:

Yeah. Yeah.

Chaz Henderson:

But capillary concrete is, so we’ve been using on a lot of our renovations of probably the last few years, probably put over half a million square feet of it in, it’s a modus formula of permeable concrete. It lets the water go through and it holds the sand in place. It protects the floor from the sand and it actually adds years, probably about, I think 15 to 18 years of life to a bunker.

Charlie Rymer:

Wow.

Chaz Henderson:

Typically, we were going in every 7 to 10 years redoing bunkers. So it should actually save a lot of capital down the road.

Charlie Rymer:

And to get even further in the weeds, you guys use the sand that sourced in North Carolina G-Angle sand, and that seems to work really well in combination with the capillary concrete.

Chaz Henderson:

Yeah. It’s more of an angular sand. So with the angulars, they kind of lock together better, they pack, they have a better slump rate for the slopes, so you know you can get up a little steeper with them and it just kind of holds in there really well.

Charlie Rymer:

It’s sort of like you buy a Rolls Royce, right? And you plan on that being the only car you’re ever going to use, but there’s a price you pay not only on the front end, but at 100,000 miles you’ve got to do belts and hoses. You’ve got to do a lot of maintenance on it or else it’s not going to perform the way it’s supposed to. What I see is you guys doing the maintenance that needs to be done periodically on what is a great sports car of a golf course. Am I in the ballpark with that?

Chaz Henderson:

You’re right on. I would say to keep a wonderful course like this and many others, you know you definitely have to go back, just because time evolves, weather changes. It’s not just through maintenance practices, but it’s also through weather and things just kind of shift, move, and deteriorate. Grasses grow in, grasses get edged further out. So to restore it back or bring it back to an original intent, there’s definitely always work that needs to be done.