GolfTravelReviews: The Reviews "True Blue, True Strantz: Bring Your 'A' Game"

Golfers familiar with Stonehouse and Royal New Kent, two award-winning Mike Strantz tracks outside Williamsburg, Va., will immediately recognize the architect’s trademark features at True Blue, a new in 1998 daily-fee entry on Myrtle Beach’s Grand Strand. True Blue is located on Pawleys Island at the south end of the Strand across the road from widely acclaimed Caledonia. Both are properties of Ponderosa, a local real estate and development company.

Strantz, a former protegee of Tom Fazio and one of the most imaginative designers on the golf scene today, is the Cecil B. DeMille of golf course architects. As at Williamsburg, True Blue’s fairways are immense and seem to go on forever. Full of contours, mounds, crests and swells, a few are the land-equivalent of an ocean in a squall. Most of the greens are 3-club putting surfaces, large enough to build several condos on. You may reach the putting surface and still have to Federal Express your ball to the hole. Several greens, such as the 4th which is about 35 yards deep and eight yards wide, have quirky shapes, and some feature steep fronts that are most inhospitable to short approaches.

Strantz is also very fond of sand. The fairway and greenside bunkers fit to scale and the waste bunkers, which add a Pine Valley touch, have enough sand to start a beach. Though the property is not heavily wooded, severely wayward shots are likely to wind up in the ubiquitous field rye, blue stem and other tall grasses that treat a golf ball like a Venus Flytrap treats insects. Add to these challenges a few lakes and the wind which is a frequent visitor to this relatively open course, and you have a track where par becomes outstanding.

Bring your 'A' game

Not surprisingly, True Blue receives mixed reactions. "Many golfers have told us it’s too hard," said Assistant Pro Craig Bradford. "On the other hand, other players say they love it and can’t wait to come back." One thing is for sure, Bradford notes, "Players should not come here expecting to shoot to their handicap. If they score between three and five shots above it, they are doing very well."

Though it presents an interesting and strategic challenge, True Blue is not long if players select the proper one of five tee boxes ranging from 4875 to 6842 yards

Unlike Caledonia, Strantz had a large canvas to work with. The course lies on several hundred acres, affording the artist plenty of room to describe an interesting layout of short and long holes, straight and doglegged. The venue was once an indigo plantation. Among the plant’s many beneficial purposes, indigo was used in the manufacture of blue dye. Hence the name and the decor, from the clubhouse down to the blue-colored scorecard.

True Blue is excellently maintained and the G2 bentgrass greens are outstanding and very slick. With the flat stick, the code word is CAUTION. The equally superior fairways are Bermuda and the primary rough and bunkered areas are zoysia.

Management seems intent on not letting slow play undercut the quality of the golf experience. A Black Flag policy designed to facilitate play is in force and the tee times are set further apart than most other venues.

Another nice feature of True Blue, it will not be littered with houses. The course is the centerpiece of what will be a residential and resort community. Condos designed primarily to house golfers on packages with the course and private homes are going up in selected areas around the course. But property owners are being diligent about harmonizing this development with the course so as to preserve the course's integrity.

For more information call 1-888-483-6800.