aRTICLES

New Courses

If you are thinking about going to Myrtle Beach for a golf vacation, you can look into some great golf packages. In addition, with new ocean courses, there are some great opportunities to enjoy your Myrtle Beach Golf Vacation to the fullest degree possible. A new resort course, which opened in 2001, began in Myrtle Beach and two former PGA Championship sites, Bellerive and Medinah.

The new resort course has five sets of tees, ranging from 7,618 to 5,353 yards, and from the back is the longest course on the Grand Strand. No fewer than seven holes sit atop a bluff overlooking the intercoastal waterway. A ravine traverses the course, offering dramatic elevation changes.

Featuring Bermuda fairways and bent grass tee boxes and greens, the course is very user friendly, displaying extremely wide fairways and large, modestly contoured greens. This consistently fine design meanders around and over streams and ponds and offers a couple of forced carries over environmental areas. Even so, the course is managed, provided players play from the appropriate tees and avoid the gnarly rough and numerous banks planted with love grasses that frame many of the holes.

On a course with too many spectacular holes to mention, the par 3 14th hole stands out as perhaps the most dramatic hole in Myrtle Beach. At 244 yards from the back (158 from the whites), this hole sits high above the waterway and features an elevated tee box, a carry over a steep ravine and a large-two-tiered green that is wide but narrow from front to back. Fronted by a large bunker, the green rises sharply from the ravine and appears to be sitting on a shelf with a dramatic fall-off down to the waterway. Before teeing off on this gem, first-time players will spend a few minutes pondering the challenge and marveling at the beauty of this hole.

The course is served by a finely maintained driving range and short-game practice area that supports an active instructional program. With its fine wood-paneled interior, the clubhouse sports a restaurant with a first-class menu.

The community will include a 150-slip marina, and a small commercial component. It will also include shops and a health and fitness center, sweeps across 2,200 lush acres. Centrally located on Route 17 Bypass on the intercostals waterway, the beautiful natural tract seemed ideally suited for fine golf and a quiet and elegant lifestyle.

Currently under construction on the north end of the property is a private members-only course designed by golf Hall-of-Famer Nick Price and Craig Schreiner. It is scheduled to open in the summer of 2005 and those familiar with the site and routing say it is even more spectacular than the resort course.

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