<img decoding="async" alt="Willbrook Plantation Golf Club" src="/media/images/Willbrook_Clubhouse_600x300.png" style="width: 600px;height: 300px" />
Story by Ian Guerin
PAWLEYS ISLAND, S.C. | The American History teacher stood on a land so steeped in it, he didn’t realize how close he really was. Crain Martin &#8211; trying to soak up as much of his own learning moment as he could &#8211; nearly missed the most important part. Mere feet away, off the side of the eighth hole at <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/willbrook-plantation">Willbrook Plantation</a>, laid the mostly covered head stones and historical marker of the Oatland Plantation Slave Cemetery. One of the revered portions of the course, it illuminates those who died during their forced servitude, but also those who returned later with their freedom to be buried next to their ancestors. This wasn’t just about 18 holes of golf. Not for Martin, the local high school teacher. “I think you could spend a lot of time out here, getting caught reading the signs and taking it all in,” Martin said after his first visit to <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/willbrook-plantation">Willbrook</a>. “There is a lot going on at this course.”
It starts with the history. With the first recorded historical land ownership dating back to 1776, the area now affiliated with <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/willbrook-plantation">Willbrook’s </a>golf course is about so much more. It has been documented to three separate plantations (Willbrook, Outland and Turkey Hill) over 2,600 or so acres that once produced heavy quantities of rice and were initially divided by slave-built mounding. As long ago as some of that seems, and with everything that the land has been developed into since, <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/willbrook-plantation">Willbrook</a> isn’t going to let the painful early days go. Amid its <a href="https://www.waccamawgolftrail.com/">Waccamaw Golf Trail</a> brethren in Georgetown and Horry counties, <a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/willbrook-plantation">Willbrook</a> is as much about all that history as it is about the golf. If any course can lay claim to do it better than any of the others, it may very well be this one.
HISTORY, DEFINED
There are six poignant markers around the course, five of which come on the front nine.<img decoding="async" alt="Willbrook Plantation 5th Hole Historical Sign" src="/media/images/Plantation_House_5th_Hole.JPG" style="width: 275px;height: 183px;float: right" />
HOLE NO. 4: At a location approximately 500 ft. to the West, lying on a broad sand ridge, were four rows of slave cabins totaling 18 in number. At the height of rice production in 1850, these cabins housed 140 slaves who toiled daily in the Willbrook rice fields and cultivated upland crops. These were small houses, perhaps no larger than 14 by 16 ft. made of clapboard siding with brick chimneys.
HOLE NO. 5: Lying beneath these live oak trees are the remains of the original Willbrook Plantation house, constructed during the mid 18th century &amp; surviving until it burned in June 1895. The brick remnants that remain visible today are reminders of a replacement structure built that year in the same location. Willbrook was part of a 2400-acre tract granted by the Lords Proprietors to Robert Daniel in 1711 &amp; sold to Percival Pawley in 1722. By the late 1730’s these lands were under the ownership of John Allston. Prior to the outbreak of Civil war, Willbrook belonged to John Hyrne Tucker who also owned; planted Litchfield Plantation adjoining to the South.
HOLE NO. 7: Adjacent to the East lies Oatland Lake Road, which during the 18th 19th centuries was the main entrance road to the old Willbrook Plantation House. The primary users were the owners of the plantation house, the Simons and later the Hunter families. Recently, an excavation project along this road uncovered artifacts dating back to the 18th century.
HOLE NO. 8: Lying within the soil of this sandy ridge, close to the southern edge of the plantation, are the remains of black slaves who labored on Oatland Plantation from the mid- eighteenth century until 1865. The visible headstone of Albert Doctor, who departed this life in 1919, represents the desire of those born into slavery but who died free, to lie beside their ancestors.<img decoding="async" alt="Plantation House at Willbrook Plantation Golf Club" src="/media/images/Plantation_House_Chimney_Remains.JPG" style="width: 275px;height: 183px;float: right" />
HOLE. NO. 9: In 1985, archaeologist Larry Lepionka conducted an excavation project which uncovered artifacts at this location. These artifacts date back to the eighteenth century and include lead glazed slipwear, white salt glazed stonewear and a brass grommet. The large metal artifacts recovered suggest this site represented an industrial site and possibly a rice mill.
It has been recommended as eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.
HOLE NO. 18: Plantation owners designated their property lines by having mounds constructed to divide one plantation from another. These mounds ran through Willbrook Plantation’s 2400 acres. Each mound was hand built by slaves during the 1700’s.
THE GOLF SIDE OF THINGS
In the early 1960s, golf in northern Georgetown County wasn’t even imagined. Eventually, one course (<a href="https://www.mbn.com/courses/litchfield-country-club">Litchfield Country Club</a>) debuted. Another couple followed suit. Then, in the mid-1980s, the family of J. Thomas Hunter elected to do the same with <a href="http://www.mbn.com/courses/willbrook-plantation">Willbrook</a>. They brought in Dan Maples, who had parked so much of his design business up and down South Carolina’s Grand Strand in the 1970s and 1980s that he kept an office here. He came up with a design for Willbrook that has, relatively speaking, stood the test of golf time. At a shade over 6,700 yards from the tips, just under 6,300 yards from the white tees and 4,900 from the ladies, <a href="http://www.mbn.com/courses/willbrook-plantation">Willbrook’s</a> distance seems much lower. That’s because this design is crisp, with slight bends (although a few severe doglegs exist) and hazards that appear rougher than reality presents. Two holes define what the architect had in mind. On the maxed-out 383-yard fifth, Maples used back-to-back forced carries in a wide-open and channeled section of the course. “You’ve got to pick your club wisely, first and foremost,” Martin said. “Getting close to the green was tough. It was a little big elevated. But after you play your tee shot, it was ‘What’s next?’ For me, it was keeping it out of the water. Even with the second one, you’re not out of the woods. 
As much as the next nine holes also press and give, the talking point the rest of the way is certainly No. 15. There, the longest hole of <a href="http://www.mbn.com/courses/willbrook-plantation">Willbrook</a> does its thing in more ways than one. Longtime course Head Golf Professional Kevin McGuires knows the challenge of it all too well. “I have always liked the 15th hole, it is a true three-shot hole with an elevated fairway to land your second shot,” McGuire said. “That design makes the hole visually longer than it is. Poor tee shots are heavily penalized, and shot placement also plays a factor. It has all the makings of a great par 5.” Of course, that’s not all. The opener at <a href="http://www.mbn.com/courses/willbrook-plantation">Willbrook </a>was named as an honoree to the Perfect Round, a project between Myrtle Beach Golf Trips and the South Carolina Golf Course Ratings Panel that named the best 18 holes in the area back in 2017. The dynamic Nos. 3, 8, 17 and 18 are also holes that consistently draw rave reviews.<img decoding="async" alt="Par five 15th Hole at Willbrook Plantation Golf Club" src="/media/images/15thw.png" style="width: 275px;height: 183px;float: right" />
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
The <a href="https://www.waccamawgolftrail.com/">Waccamaw Golf Trail</a> can be described as one of the best small sections of public courses up and down the East Coast, if not the entire country. The 12 tracks at the south end of South Carolina’s Grand Strand golfing mecca each bring something different to the table. <a href="http://www.mbn.com/courses/willbrook-plantation">Willbrook’s </a>claim to fame is that it can boast the perfect mix of history and golf. It’s clear that this isn’t an escape from the past via a full immersion in the game. Instead, it declares the land’s past, hoping to educate newcomers hoping for great golf, but who also get something much more rich. “If you’re not from this area, this is South Carolina,” Martin said. “That is a draw to the golf course. Next time I come back, I’ll slow down and walk around and read even more.”
 
<a href="https://www.myrtlebeachgolftrips.com/news/myrtle-beach-golf-writers-review-willbrook-plantation">Click Here to Watch Golf Writers Ian Guerin and Chris Evaluate Willbrook Plantation Golf Club</a>
 
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/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">facebook.com/IanGuerinWriter/</a>

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Willbrook Plantation A Perfect Blend of History And Golf

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