Grande Dunes, Farmstead, Meadowlands, Myrtlewood

With over 120 courses to choose from, finding fun and interesting places to play golf in Myrtle Beach that are just right for the uninitiated visitor can be quite daunting. Not to worry. Grande Dunes, Farmstead, Meadowlands and Myrtlewood (two courses) are at the top of this reviewer’s recommended list. Owned and/or managed by Burroughs & Chapin Golf Management, they are among the most interesting and best conditioned courses on the Grand Strand.

Grande Dunes Golf Club is the centerpiece of a high-end residential community that epitomizes luxury living. Styled in Tuscan Mediterranean architecture marked by its warm pastel colors, barrel roofs, and large patios, the clubhouse and modest number of gracious homes and rental accommodations complement the golf course wonderfully and speak to a tasteful restraint in developmental density, not always evident elsewhere on the Strand .

The masterplanned community, which will include a 150-slip marina, and a small commercial component, including shops and a health and fitness center, sweeps across 2200 lush acres. Centrally located on Route 17 Bypass on the intercoastal 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.

That is saying a lot. The resort course, which opened in 2001, is designed by Roger Rulewich, former lead architect with Robert Trent Jones Sr. (RTJ) who spearheaded the design of the famous Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama . Designer of numerous Top 100 courses in the nation, Rulewich also redesigned The Dunes Club in Myrtle Beach and two former PGA Championship sites, Bellerive and Medinah.

The Grande Dunes resort course has five sets of tees, ranging from 7618 to 5353 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 easily 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 14 th 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.

Grande Dunes
Tee time reservations: 888-886-8877
Real Estate: 877- 3 GRANDE
www.grandedunes.com

 

Farmstead and Meadowlands are situated within a half mile of each other just off Highway 57 in Calabash, NC. Because of their relatively remote location, these courses tend to attract a high percentage of local play and not as much tourist traffic as the more centrally located, more publicized courses on the Strand . But golfers can translate these factors into advantages. Take it to the bank. Both tracts are worth playing.

Meadowlands and Farmstead are the creation of owner W.J. McLamb, a prominent construction magnate and land owner in Brunswick County whose family settled there from Wilmington during the Colonial period.

Farmstead can hold its own against any course on the Strand . It is spectacular. It sits on a former tobacco farm and is largely flat, but designer Willard Byrd transformed the 480-acre site into a magnificent, windswept course that has all the earmarks of greatness.

The course fairly sprawls over the seemingly boundaryless countryside, offering a consistently interesting set of holes that twist and turn around manmade ponds and through occasional tree clusters. Most holes are isolated from the others.

Farmstead gets a lot of publicity mileage from its 767-yard par-6 finishing hole. Granted it is quite memorable. After all, where else on the Strand can you tee off in South Carolina and putt out in North Carolina ?

But the 18 th at Farmstead should not and does not take away from the quality of the entire track. Farmstead is not gimmicky, there are no goofy berms and other artificial elements that might give the course a miniature golf course-like flavor. Instead, each hole is carefully crafted to be eminently playable with largely flat fairways and medium-sized, modestly sloped greens. Farmstead’s greatness is that its design is understated. You finish your round quietly and say later, “Wow, that was a delightful course!”

Aside from the ballyhoo over the finishing hole, Farmstead’s other signature hole is the 192-yard 12 th over water and with its multiple sets of tee boxes, allowing for the hole to be set up in many different ways. Equally outstanding is the 446-yard (392 whites) 2 nd hole, a superb dogleg right from a wooded tee box around trees to a well guarded green. A creek wanders through the trees along the right side of this gem that usually plays into a prevailing easterly wind.

As of 2004, no property use development plan had been drawn up, leaving golfers the luxury of playing a course in virtual seclusion on land that has remained undisturbed for generations.

Farmstead Golf Links
866-six-parr
www.farmsteadgolflinks.com

 

Willard Byrd also put his indelible stamp on Meadowlands, a course ranging from 5041 to 7054 yards, that has parkland features. The PUD calls for only 400 single-family homes to be built in the complex GM Mack Hood calls “pockets of development” in a plan that is designed to preserve the course’s secluded, pristine setting

Meadowlands is more heavily forested than Farmstead though it would not be considered a predominantly wooded track. Logically, meadows intersperse with pine clumps, offering a rich natural background to a course that has a modest number of lakes and one or two slight elevations.

The front nine, as of 2004, had no housing, and as a result, it offers a more secluded setting on which Byrd designed some truly beautiful holes, some of which are tree-lined. Standing out among the nine is the 189-yard 8 th hole, secluded among pines with a lake in front of the green and a front bunker with a high lip that obscures a large section of the green. Standing on the tee box in the quiet of the morning, with only the sound of the breeze and the warble of a bird, one could think he or she was in golf heaven.

From Director of Golf Keith Farrell on down, the stated goal of the staff at Meadowlands is to make your round at Meadowlands so enjoyable you will want to come back.

 

Meadowlands Golf Links
888-287-PLAY
www.meadowlandsgolf.com

 

Myrtlewood Golf Club

Conveniently located off 48 th Avenue North just off Route 17 Bypass, Myrtlewood Golf Club and Villas is close to the beach, restaurants and to nearby entertainment including Broadway at the Beach with its many amusements. Myrtlewood also offers excellent golf with two differently styled courses, each of which is delightful, fun and challenging. From the back tees, low handicappers will have all they can handle and from the forward markers, the weekend or vacationing golfer will be tested but definitely not beat up. Myrtlewood’s courses are ideal resort courses for golfing families.

PineHills, ranging from 5692 to 6640 yards, was designed by famed architect Arthur Hills and made Golf Digest’s Top Ten Courses for Myrtle Beach in 1997. The course features traditional architectural elements with rolling fairways, undulating but fair greens, ubiquitous water features and a few very slight elevation changes. PineHills is not spectacular but it is a course you could play over and over.

The Palmetto Course, designed by Edmund Ault, has been a favorite of Grand Strand golfers for over 25 years. It features generous fairways lined with pine trees, large greens and views of the intercoastal waterway.

Both courses are served by a clubhouse with a restaurant that is open early for breakfast. A large practice area is also available, as are the many rental villas that line the perimeter of the property.

 

Myrtlewood Golf Club
Tee times: 800-283-3633
www.myrtlebeachtrips.com

A leader in residential, commercial and entertainment property development in Myrtle Beach for over 100 years, Burroughs & Chapin owns and manages Grande Dunes, Pine Lakes , and Myrtlewood, and it manages Tidewater, Meadowlands and Farmstead through its golf management division, which was established in 2001.

For course conditions, it is always a good idea to check ahead of your visit to see if any of these courses are being aerated or otherwise affected by on-going maintenance programs. For Burroughs & Chapin real estate information, call 843-448-5123 or check www.burroughschapin.com.