True Blue Steps into the Top 100 Spotlight

August 25, 2016

True Blue Myrtle Beach Golf CourseTo be clear, Caledonia, which collects accolades at the rate Michael Phelps wins gold medals, is worthy of the praise it receives, but there is a reasonable argument to be made that True Blue is as good as any Myrtle Beach golf course.

The Mike Strantz design offers a rugged, visually stimulating and, ultimately, unforgettable challenge. Everything about the course is bold – the area’s widest fairways, huge greens and the waste bunkers that frame nearly every hole – and therein lies its appeal.

True Blue Golf Club, which stretches to 7,126 yards from the tips, has a reputation for challenging golfers, but the layout’s greatest strength might be its playability for mid to high handicappers. The wide fairways and gargantuan greens require skilled players to hit the proper spots if they want to make birdies, but those same features are a boon to the less skilled among us, providing ample margin for error. 

Golfers arrive at the first tee at True Blue, a par 5 with a fairway wider than a football field, and immediately understand the driver is their friend. The Myrtle Beach golf course mostly doesn’t punish wayward tee shots and those large greens give you plenty of room to find the putting surface. 

 

But it takes a lot more than playability for a course to earn top 100 honors and True Blue delivers. The layout is unconventional – it has five par 5s and five par 3s – and is relentlessly interesting. 

The 499-yard opening hole is followed by a 316-yard par 4, the course’s shortest two-shotter, that offers a chance at birdie and showcases the variety of challenges that await. By the time you finish the par 3 third hole, which features a peninsula green and the day’s most dramatic tee shot, you know you are in for a special round.

The day culminates with the dramatic closing stretch, highlighted by the par 4 18th that plays to a multi-tiered green that rests in the shadow of the clubhouse. It’s a great finish at a course that can deservedly call itself one of America’s best. 

If you need more evidence of why True Blue is so highly regarded, I’ll turn the floor over to Golf Magazine’s travel expert, Joe Passov, who said of the course, “From the late, great Strantz's sublime design to the helpful staff to the tip-top course conditions, this dramatic, watery layout remains a must play in Myrtle Beach.”

What more needs to be said?