GolfTravelReviews: The Reviews "TPC Brings Cash, and Cachet, to The Strand"

The year 2000 is the first full year of operation of the Tournament Players Club, a very high end daily fee golf course and a permanent site of the Senior Tour Championship. With the prestigious PGA Tour behind it, the TPC at MB gives the already golf-rich Grand Strand plenty of cachet. And cash. By mid-2000, the TPC had recorded a whopping 30,000 rounds.

Aerial view of the Tournament Players Club

The TPC at MB, designed by Tom Fazio with Lanny Wadkins consulting, was developed through a 50-50 partnership between the Tour and Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday, a non-profit association of Grand Strand hotels and golf courses. Cecil Brandon, a Golf Holiday founder, had the idea for a TPC in Myrtle Beach as far back as 1993. At that time, the still young Senior PGA Tour Championship was hosted by The Dunes Club and sponsored by Golf Magazine.

Golf Holiday Executive Director Mickey McCamish said that given Golf Holiday’s long association with the Tour with respect to the Tour Championship, the joint venture on the TPC project made sense. "It was a natural fit for us," he said, adding that Holiday’s members voted on the proposal in '96.

The business model in the proposal called for the proposed TPC course to have the highest fees of any course in Myrtle Beach, an idea designed to prevent Golf Holiday from being in price competition with its member courses. That idea had merit in '96, according to McCamish, because the supply and demand in the Strand’s golf market was relatively equal. But a lot has changed since then, he said, noting that the number of courses since '96 has shot up from 96 to 124.

"The business model we used in '96 doesn’t apply today," said McCamish, "because today’s market is a lot tougher. Therefore members have just voted to divest the association’s interest in the TPC because the course puts the association in direct competition with its members."

The clubhouse at Myrtle Beach TPC

As of mid-July 2000, Golf Holiday was busy soliciting proposals from its members to buy Holiday’s 50% interest in the TPC. "Members can either buy the interest individually or go into partnership with other members," he indicated.

As a joint venture, Golf Holiday and the Tour both felt that Tom Fazio was THE best golf course architect out there. The choice to have Lanny Wadkins consult on the project was made because Lanny was about to join the Senior Tour and Lanny brought to the table a design perspective based on a world-class player’s level of technical skill. His input on placement of bunkers, green slopes and other factors was considered crucial in building this course that was specifically designed to host the Senior Tour Championship.

According to McCamish, Wadkins just didn’t make a quick appearance or two and then disappear. "He was hands on," McCamish said.

The TPC is a design gem. It is a compact course yet each hole is unique, interesting and plenty challenging. The course weaves through mature slash pines, red oaks and cypress trees on a spectacularly unspoiled piece of property. Located in Murrells Inlet toward the Strand’s south end, it has an elevation change of 75 feet, most unique for a course east of the intracoastal waterway.

Because the course was built primarily as the permanent site for the tournament, it is short by today’s standards. It is 6950 yards from the tips (6600 gold, 6193 blue, and 5783 white). The lush course and splendid design incorporates some 7½ acres of lakes and nearly that much in wetland areas. The lakes were excavated from the natural streams that were already on the property, which was once owned by Canal Industries and used as recently as 20 years ago for timber harvesting. But don’t be put off by that. The trees are thick and tall and make a very scenic setting for this layout whose visual attraction is enhanced by plantings of palmetto, cord grass, mulie grass, bay magnolias, and dogwood.

In keeping with Fazio’s policy of showing golfers what’s in front of them, the course has no blind shots and there is nothing tricky here. However, there are a few forced carries. On the 447-yard 3rd, your drive from the tee box comes out of a chute of trees and must carry some 210 yards over a wetland of soft reeds. Another wetland area makes the tee shot on the beautiful 502-yard 14th a nervy one. Your ideal tee shot is left on this splendid hole, but if you go too far left you wind up in the wetland because it elongates down the left side of the hole. The safest play therefore is middle or right where the hazard is narrower.

The landing areas on most of the holes are fairly wide and the large greens are sloped but not diabolically so. On a course with one outstanding design after another, the par 3s stand out. The 158-yard 5th is a stunner, with a scenic lake that stretches from the elevated tee box in the woods to the wide but narrow green. Running down the left side of the equally beautiful 7th, a 187-yarder is a lake and a huge waste bunker that runs up to the front of the green and around to the left. Behind the bunker on the left is a mound, so that any shots long and left pitch severely down a bank. The longest par 3 is the 201-yard 13th, again over a lake to a green with a fairly steep and large bunker front left. This is at least a three-club green it is so big.

The dramatic signature 17th at the TPC

The TPC’s signature hole is the dramatic 17th. At 193 yards from the tips, it has the look of Augusta’s 16th. Yet another lake wraps three-quarters of the way around this green. It is a stunning hole.

Fazio is a master at designing short par 4s and here at the TPC at Myrtle Beach the 370-yard 8th and the 333-yard 11th must rank up there with his best. The 8th plays to a fairway with majestic oaks draping over the right side of the hole. The play here is left to get any decent shot into the elevated green. The 13th is drivable but it is extremely narrow and the green pitches forward so that anything long leaves a tricky downhill approach putt.

The 9th and 18th holes are likewise exacting and stunningly scenic. The 472-yard 9th requires a precise long drive leaving a long iron into a two-tiered green divided by a sizable hogback. The finishing hole of 538 yards may be one of the best this reviewer has played. From an elevated tee box, you drive to a fairway bordered on the right by a creek at the bottom of a gully. Woods guard the left. The creek runs toward the green and cuts across the hole into a lake, separating the fairway in two. The lake proceeds on the left side from the beginning of the second fairway all the way to the green. With a long drive, you are still left with a very long approach that must avoid the lake left and several bunkers right. These bunkers stretch back up the hole, creating a very narrow landing area between them and the lake for a lay-up second shot. High mounds along the right side of the hole from the green back about 200 yards help make this a grand setting for a spectacular finish.

The greens at the TPC are L93 and the fairways and tee boxes are 419 Bermuda, which is overseeded with rye in the winter months. As of mid summer, course conditions were not yet up to PGA Tour snuff, the result of the course being still very young and no less than five hurricanes. Last fall, superb course Superintendent Dennis Ingram was whipping the course into shape for the ‘99 Tour Championship. Then in September, Hurricane Floyd came crashing through. As a result, the TPC had to wait until this year to host its first Tour Championship.

The ideal time to play the TPC is right after the tournament when the course will be in all its immaculate splendor. As for the other amenities, the practice area is first class and includes a short game area. The food is excellent but, like the green fees, is pricey. You pay for the privilege of playing at a PGA Tour-developed and operated place.

For tee times, call 888-742-8721.
Photos courtesy Brandon Advertising