Riding a Wave to River Hills: “Breaking Par with Charlie Rymer” Episode 47
Fresh off his impressive showing at Glen Dornoch, Charlie’s feeling good as he heads off to his next Little River stop: the Tom Jackson-designed River Hills Golf & Country Club. Can “The Big Timer” keep the momentum going as he takes on its par-5 17th hole? Tune in to see what happens!
Charlie:
Cancer knocked me down, but not out. Now, I’m cancer free. The recovery? It’s been tough. I’ll need patience, a lot of humor …
(Did I mention I made birdie there?)
… And support from friends and family. Over the last two years, I haven’t played much golf, but there’s no better place to get back in the game than on 66 courses in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We’re keeping score, but just teeing it up means I’ve already won!
(You go Google “perfect,” and see if that shot doesn’t come up right there!)
Join me on my journey to break par!
Charlie Rymer:
Double dogleg, that’s what we’ve got here at River Hills’ signature hole. There’s a creek that literally works its way through this par five, creating force carries both off the tee and on your second or third shot. We just got to make sure our approach isn’t short. Avoiding a couple of front greenside bunkers. Let’s get us another birdie, shall we?
Yeah, get some of that one! We’re at River Hills Golf and Country Club in Little River, South Carolina. This is a Tom Jackson golf course. Now Tom is a legend in the Carolinas and beyond. In the Carolinas, he’s done right at 50 golf courses a lot more beyond here. This golf course is always in great shape. The folks that play here are super friendly. I loved talking to them in the parking lot when I rolled in this morning.
Now this is the 17th hole; it’s a par-five. It’s a three-shot, or dogleg left. Got out of bounds right; water left. If you can hit the ball where you’re aiming on this golf course, you’re going to have a lot of fun.
So it’s not often here in the Myrtle Beach area that I get to a golf course that I haven’t seen before. Especially considering I’m 55 now. I’ve been coming here since I was five. But this River Hills is the first time out here. Man, what a beautiful place. Really peaceful, the golf course is in excellent shape. Classic Carolina-style golf course. Think here at River Hills, you got to use your noggin a little bit. Probably some places you can go for it, and other places you better play it smart. I played smart off the tee here. You got to make sure you get the right club.
Go too much to the right or too long, you’re out of bounds. Left, you got some water, or you can go right in the middle, where I did. Pretty place.
All right, so I got a lot of decisions here. I got some water, I got to carry, I got water to the right, I got out of bounds left. It’s a little too far for me to try to go for this green in two. I’m going to hit a 5-iron, and I’m going to try to hit it up the left side there. Carry that water, stay short of those bunkers, and hopefully give myself about a 90-yard shot for a third. That’s a pretty good number for me. I’ll aim it the biggest part of that landing area, the left edge of that far bunker. Oh, I pushed it a little bit. Not the best layup, but it’ll be all right. Glad I aimed at the fattest part of that layup area because that 5-iron is probably 20 yards off-line. Maybe more than that, but it’s fine.
Well, I’m a little closer to the water than what I intended. I got about a 50-yard shot here. See how that ball is sitting in the rough? It’s half in and half out, and it’s wet. It’s going to come out hot and not have any spin on it, and I got to carry it over that bunker, and it’s going to be really hard to stop it close to that hole. So I’m going to try to hit it a little higher than maybe I normally would, and my miss has got to be past. Don’t want to plug it in that bunker. So I’m going to get a little up in my stance. Try and get this thing up in the air. Get down, get down. All right, just a little long. That’s a tough one to get close to the hole out of this rough. So I pay the price for hitting a bad layup.
Now you can see I got past this hole, but out of that lie, I really couldn’t expect to do much better than that. Again, the mistake was made with that layup. Boy, these greens are in good shape here. I’ve got a putt, doesn’t have much break in it. I’ll play this pretty much dead-on straight. Well, that’s disappointing. Thought it’d be a little quicker than that going downhill.
No birdie on the par-five. Had a few mistakes there. And that’s all right. We got a Tom Jackson twofer right here. He’s ready and waiting for us at our next stop. Just a ways up Highway 9. Come on and join me!
