<img decoding="async" alt="" src="/media/images/River_Club_Flag_600x300.png" style="width: 600px;height: 300px" />
Story by Ian Guerin
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. | You pile up 90 golf courses in a relatively small area, and you’re bound to get some great monikers.
Burning Ridge Golf Club, <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/quail-creek">The General James Hackler Course</a> at Coastal Carolina University and the likes of <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/aberdeen-country-club">Aberdeen Country Club</a> all elicit a feeling when mentioned. You start tossing around the big boys &#8211; <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/the-dunes-golf-and-beach-club">Dunes Club</a>, <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/caledonia-golf-and-fish-club">Caledonia Golf &amp; Fish Club </a>and <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/tournament-player-club">TPC of Myrtle Beach</a> &#8211; and you have some serious name recognition meant to grab your attention. There are historically named tracks like Willbrook Plantation or Wachesaw East. Heck, even some of the departed (Possum Trot and Wicked Stick, among them) brought some heat, even if their business models weren’t in it for the long haul. They’re all a product of a booming industry that put some of its best minds to work. But when it comes to getting it just right &#8211; putting the microcosm of a course in just a few words &#8211; some did it better than the rest. The following designs each bring something identifiable to not only their rounds, but the name you see on the front of the scorecard.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
<a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/world-tour-golf-links">World Tour Golf Links</a> and <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/oyster-bay-golf-links">Oyster Bay Golf Links</a> were pretty darn spot on with their names.In World Tour, players have the opportunity to play a replica course that takes them across the Atlantic Ocean and back a few times over, getting a small taste of what we’ve seen on TV during the world’s most prestigious professional tournaments and the memories they helped create.
Just across the border in Calabash, N.C., Oyster Bay sets the tone with 15 holes playing adjacent or across water. As for the oysters? They’ll be all around you, as the banks of the ponds and cart paths are loaded with shells as a cool visual aspect you won’t find anywhere else.
THE RUNNER UP<img decoding="async" alt="Farmstead Golf Club" src="/media/images/FARM1.jpg" style="width: 400px;float: right;height: 200px" />
If the entire point is to make you feel like “Yeah, that makes sense,” <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/farmstead-golf-club">Farmstead Golf Links</a> is a pretty good example.
While it is often associated with its 767-yard, Par-6 finisher &#8211; one that starts in South Carolina before jutting back into North Carolina, the entire body of work will give you plenty of reasons to see why “Farmstead” (pictured right) works so well. If this course didn’t exist, you’d likely see it’s 500 acres used for market-style or mass vegetation. The wide-open layout is complete with a silo or two, but also several varieties of native grasses. Around every bend, you’ll expect to see cows.
THE BEST OF THE BEST
Tom Jackson became known as the water guy in Myrtle Beach golf circles in the 1980s and ‘90s, as most of his courses found creative ways to bring in the wet stuff. It’s so true that the old joke here is “If it has ‘River’ in the name, Tom had something to do with it.”<a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/river-club">River Club </a>and <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/river-oaks">River Oaks Golf Club</a> are one thing. <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/river-hills-golf-club">River Hills Golf &amp; Country Club</a> is another. At his Little River design, Jackson splendidly joined forces between the water and rolling terrain he was given. It allowed him to blend the old and new feels, but also a relatively rare environment that most of the flat tracks up and down the Grand Strand can’t boast. Attaching the second part of the name, then, lets any golfer who shows up here know exactly what he or she is facing before every unloading the clubs.
Ian Guerin is a DJ and freelance writer based in Myrtle Beach. You can follow him on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/iguerin?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@iguerin</a> and Facebook <a href="https://www.facebook.com/IanGuerinWriter/">facebook.com/IanGuerinWriter/</a>

Myrtle Beach Golf’s Most Aptly Named Courses

Courses in this Article

River Hills Golf and Country Club

River Oaks Golf Plantation

River Club

Oyster Bay Golf Links

World Tour Golf Links

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