<img decoding="async" alt="Barefoot Resort Love Course" src="/media/images/BFR.png" style="width: 600px;height: 300px" />
Story by Ian Guerin
Twelve years ago, a national publication brought me on to start writing about golf courses along South Carolina’s northern coastline. A couple years after that, I joined on with Myrtle Beach Golf Trips and MBN.com. In that time, I’ve seen more than my share of courses.
Throughout it all, I’ve been asked one question more than any other: “What are your favorite golf courses?” The answer to that is as loaded as you could imagine. But in all these visits to the 90 or so current tracks here, I’ve found a small number that I tend to lean toward more often than not. It’s not as easy as just listing five courses. In my mind, I’ve always broken them up into five categories: Wow factor, conditions, design creativity, the new blood tracks and the everyday option. Each has its own top dog. My list is probably different than yours. I get that. And I’m comfortable with the debate it spawns.
This is just my take. I want to hear yours, as well.
So, let’s do this.
EVERYDAY OPTION
Say you live in the Myrtle Beach area (which I do). Say you’re looking for a strong regular round (which I always am). And say spending triple figures on a round every time you play would lead you to divorce (I don’t care to test that part). When it comes to a more economical option here, I’ve frequently been known to steer folks to <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/wild-wing-plantation-avocet">Wild Wing Plantation</a>. This property looks nothing like it did during the 1990s, when four full 18s cut around the landscape and were able to accommodate some 400 rounds a day. It was eventually cut down to 27 holes, anchored by the <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/wild-wing-plantation-avocet">Avocet Course</a>. It was the pure definition of addition by subtraction. Now, the straight-line design at Avocet gives players a clean and relatively fast round, often at less than $40 per clip. As I’ve said before, put it in a different market, and that dollar figure would be much, much higher.
NEW BLOOD<img decoding="async" alt="Wild Wing Plantation Golf Club" src="/media/images/WW_ian.png" style="width: 250px;height: 225px;float: right" />
In the last 23 years, just 10 new courses have opened (well, sort of; one was a redesign and another was a re-launch) along the Grand Strand. And for most of those, they were playing with a separate set of rules. Big money went into their creations, sure, but they also came at a time when golf’s tourism market ebbed and flowed, meaning players were looking for something fresh. Essentially, they had no choice but to deliver &#8211; or risk a quick exit from the market. <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/love-at-barefoot-resort">The Love Course at Barefoot Resort </a>went the extra mile to give golfers a taste of the spectacular. There is a Lowcountry feel mixed with a player-friendly (read: open) design, crisp surfaces and, of course, the recreated ruins running from holes 3-7.
DESIGN CREATIVITY
Back in the early 1990s, a longstanding course just outside Myrtle Beach city limits was thinking it was time to boost its place in the market. The owners brought in a familiar face with an impeccable resume, and not long after, the beauty that is <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/myrtle-beach-national-kings-north">King’s North</a> was born. The Arnold Palmer-led redesign is frequently highlighted by “The Gambler,” the par-5 behemoth with an island fairway that dares players to go after the green in two. However, Palmer didn’t put all his eggs into one basket. He also implemented massive waste bunkers, water carries that accented holes without destroying score cards and dynamic par 3s that are as good as any course in the area. It all leads to a finishing hole that includes nearly 40 bunkers in just 367 yards from the whites.
CONDITIONS
At least three of the top five courses on my list could easily have been put into another category &#8211; and I’m sure some of you would agree. That goes for the one I believe consistently boasts the
<img decoding="async" alt="Ian Guerin and Jack Nicklaus" src="/media/images/Ian_Jack.jpg" style="width: 250px;height: 333px;float: right" />
top playability based upon how well manicured it always seems to be. The <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/grande-dunes">Grande Dunes Resort Course</a> never fails in that regard, always giving the impression that its staff is out with scissors each morning getting it ready for that day’s tee sheets. In many ways, the decision makers at <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/grande-dunes">Grande Dunes</a> have learned how to harness a higher power, in this case the strength of the adjoining Intracoastal Waterway and some of the preexisting ponds and streams around the property. It has aided in irrigation techniques that keep this course looking the way it does year-round.
WOW FACTOR
You could consider this the grand prize. In order to get this nod from me, a course has to have everything from the time you drive onto the property until you’re shelving your putter for the last time on No. 18 and heading inside the clubhouse to snag a post-round drink. No expense has been spared, and there isn’t a single part of the course that you don’t walk by thinking how much time was put into it. <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/caledonia-golf-and-fish-club">Caledonia Golf &amp; Fish Club</a> is that course. The track, which opened in 1994, has left me wondering what I did so right in a former life each time I played it. The oversized former rice marshes, the immaculate green under your feet, the fact that this was Mike Strantz’s first solo design &#8211; I love all of it. Everyone should play it at least once.
Ian Guerin is a freelance writer based in Myrtle Beach. You can follow him on Twitter <a href="http://twitter.com/iguerin?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@iguerin</a>

Golf Writer Ian Guerin’s Top 5 Myrtle Beach Designs

Courses in this Article

Caledonia Golf and Fish Club

Grande Dunes - Resort Golf Club

King's North at Myrtle Beach National

Barefoot Resort - Love Course

Wild Wing Golf Club

Additional Myrtle Beach Golf News