<img decoding="async" alt="Myrtlewood PineHills’ Greens Renovation Boosting Entire Course" src="/media/images/Myrtlewood_PineHills_Boosting_600x300.png" style="width: 600px;height: 300px" />
Story by Ian Guerin
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. | The immediate worth of <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/myrtlewood-golf-club-pinehills">Myrtlewood Golf Club’s PineHills Course</a> greens project from the summer of 2018 was felt right away. There was a switch to Sunday Bermudagrass, all while reshaping extended each green to its original shape, an approximated average of 15-20 percent growth in putting surface. Once there, players felt a difference. “Since the last time I played here, they are wider and deeper,” Myrtle Beach-area resident Bob Doyle said after a recent round. “There is much more playability. Even for a higher handicap player, there is more forgiveness, instead of just missing the green a little bit and being in the rough. With the greens being bigger, you might not be on the green, but you’ll be on the fringe and have a better look.”
It was, well, exactly what you’d hope for with the flat stick in your hands. In the year since that project was completed, it has become evident that the rest of the course’s ships are rising right along with the greens tide. Especially during the extreme temperature times of the year, the relatively new Sunday BermudaGrass strain can better withstand heat and cold. That means more time for the staff to do something else. “We don’t have to put so much manpower [into the greens],” General Manager Dustin Powers said. “If we don’t have to focus so much on the greens in the winter or the summer, it allows us focus on other parts of the course. All of the playing surfaces have been elevated. We can make it look better. Any time you can relieve yourself to so much time, energy and money of one aspect of the operation, you can spread it around.” That is something players are starting to understand, too.
The aesthetics of the course are constantly improving. Bunkers are being edged at a more regular rate. Cart path overgrowth is basically non-existent. Fairways are being mowed to specs, and the roughs are effectively longer without being too firm. It’s one of those side effects that nobody mentioned when the course announced it would install the Sunday a few months into 2018. But everyone is talking about it now. And as for those greens, the impetus for the rippled effects? Mowing them now has produced a more refined approach. Powers said that his staff can keep their speed up without sacrificing smoothness since the blades of grass are higher quality closer to the base. That’s a bit of inside baseball, perhaps, but it makes much more sense after actually utilizing them. “They were very true. What you hit is what you got,” Doyle said. “Condition-wise, they were great. There was nothing that was unexpected. Speed-wise, they were consistent all the way through.”
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>

Myrtlewood PineHills’ Greens Renovation Boosting Entire Course

Courses in this Article

Myrtlewood Golf Club - PineHills Course

Additional Myrtle Beach Golf News