Raffaeles Italian Restaurant
1550 U.S. Hwy 1 South
Southern Pines, NC 28387
910.692.1952
Specializes in the finest Italian cuisine at very reasonable prices. At
Raffaele's there are no customers, only friends.

Nevilles Club
130 W. New Hampshire Avenue
Southern Pines, NC 18387
910.692.1939
www.nevillesclub.com
Nevilles is a martini bar located in the heart of downtown Southern
Pines. Nevilles features live entertainment including fine blues music.
and jazz.

Myrtle Beach: Golf is king on
the Bustling Grand Strand

If Pinehurst is a mint julep being sipped in fresh cotton on a shady verandah, Myrtle Beach is a beer quaffed in a tee shirt in a tavern. Myrtle Beach is the epicenter of The Grand Strand, a 60-mile bustling coastline that stretches from Sunset Beach, N.C. south to Georgetown, S.C. Here in South Carolina Low Country, the living is high.
Due to phenomenally successful marketing pioneered by local visionaries in the 1960’s, the Strand is America’s Strip Mall of Golf. The Strand’s 110 public-access courses, whose fees range from $40 to over $100, combined with its many other attractions, make Myrtle Beach the most popular golf destination in the US. Myrtle Beach receives some 13 million visitors a year of which 1 million are golfers. The area records 4 million rounds a year.
Myrtle Beach, indeed, proved that if you build it, they will come. And come they do in droves. By the car- and planeload, they come--from New York and points north, the Midwest, and even the Far West, especially during the peak seasons of fall (September-November) and spring (March-May).
The mean age of Myrtle Beach’s golfing market is younger than other travel destinations. A high proportion of Strand visitors include 30- and 40-something male groups, which bond on Hooters flights out of Newark and BWI airports before hitting the links. Myrtle Beach is also a big hit with families whose requirement for golf is a little more leisured. With kids in tow, moms and dads won’t have to worry about entertaining them. Myrtle Beach is one big neon-signed entertainment parlor.
It wasn’t always so. Before 1950, Myrtle Beach was a coastal backwater of quiet streets, moss draped oaks, a few restaurants and businesses, guest houses and just two golf courses. The first of these was opened in 1927. Called Ocean Forest Country Club, it was connected to the old hotel by the same name. The hotel is gone but the classically designed course, renamed Pine Lakes and nicknamed “The Granddaddy,” remains and is one of the best on the Strand. Scotsman Robert White, a friend of Donald Ross and the first president of the PGA of America, designed the course which served by a staff dressed in tartan kilts.
In 1954, Time Magazine’s Henry Luce brought a group of colleagues down to play the course and discuss the launch of a new sport magazine. Those meetings gave birth to a great new publishing venture, Sports Illustrated.
In 1948, the Dunes Club course, designed by Robert Trent Jones, was completed along the salt marshes just north of the center of town. The site of the course was on land owned by Myrtle Beach Farms, a company that owned thousands of oceanfront acres used for farming. Eager to promote area growth, the company, now Burroughs & Chapin, offered generous land incentives to newcomers who would agree to build their homes within a year.
The Dunes Club is one of THE best courses on the southern swing and the site for many tournaments over the years, including several Senior Tour championships and the 1962 Women’s US Open. It was founded by lawyer and real estate baron George “Buster” Bryan. “I played the course right after it opened,” says long-time resident and 2-Star Air Force General James Hackler (now retired), “and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. The marsh, the ocean view were fantastic.”
Hackler teamed with Bryan to build the Caravelle motel on the ocean on 70th Avenue in the early 1960s. (It is now a popular high rise accommodation). Hackler had once gone to Pinehurst on a package plan with a group and was intrigued by the promotional effect of stay-and-play packages which were not yet in vogue on the Strand.
In 1964, the two were in a partnership that built two courses on the north end, Robber’s Roost (now gone) and Possum Trot, which they packaged with the Caravelle and a few other motels. “Our plan took off like wildfire and fueled the need for more courses,” he says, adding that the Caravelle nearly doubled in size to accommodate the demand.
In 1967, Bryan, local advertising executive Cecil Brandon and hotel owner Clay Britain (now chairman of Myrtle Beach National, a company that owns 10 Strand courses) took their idea to the small group of course and motel operators and a collective marketing effort was launched with an initial budget of $43,000.
That was the start of Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday (MBGH) and the boom in Myrtle Beach golf that accelerated in the 1990s when a new course opened virtually every month. MBGH has evolved into a highly sophisticated marketing management association of 93 golf courses, 64 accommodations, four golf schools and three real estate groups with an annual marketing budget exceeding $7 million.
The association markets Myrtle Beach primarily through events that include Golfapalooza in April featuring equipment manufacturers, the National Police Golf Championship, the Veterans Golf Classic and the PGA Tour Superstore World Amateur Handicap Championship.
The World Am is held in late August and annually attracts some 4000 men and women golfers from all 50 states and 23 foreign countries. Flighted by handicap, participants compete over 4 days in a medal play format on a total of 70 golf courses.
In a long list of exceptional Myrtle Beach courses, some that stand out include Tidewater in the Little River Neck section of North Myrtle Beach; Arcadian Shores and the Surf Club, two excellent traditional layouts; and the newer Grande Dunes featuring dramatic holes along the Intercostal Waterway. Just north of Grande Dunes also off Route 17 is sensational Barefoot Landing, a mammoth resort and residential/commercial community with four courses designed by Davis Love, Greg Norman, Tom Fazio and Pete Dye.
Indigo, cotton and rice plantations once dominated the landscape of the Carolina Low Country. Some of the more prominent golf clubs built on former plantations include Pawleys Island Plantation, a terrific Jack Nicklaus signature design; Dan Maples’ Heritage Club; and its sister course, Caledonia, arguably the most popular track on the Strand. Close by on the south end is Tradition, a less heralded Ron Garl design that merits high praise.
In North Carolina, courses of note include Arnold Palmer’s River’s Edge; Tiger’s Eye; Long Bay, another Nicklaus product; Meadowlands, a secret gem; and Farmstead, an outstanding traditional style layout featuring a nearly 700-yard finishing hole that starts in South Carolina and ends in North Carolina.
West of Myrtle Beach along major highway 501 are The Legends with three distinctive layouts, Myrtle Beach National with three courses led by a stunning Arnold Palmer creation, and Wild Wing with four largely open courses featuring wide fairways, marshes and plenty of wind.
After the last putt is dropped, the dilemma for Strand visitors is what to do among a myriad of options. Myrtle Beach has every amusement and diversion imaginable. One can start with Ripley’s Believe or Not Museum, the Aquarium, or Alligator Adventure. Roller coasters, miniature golf or driving simulated Formula One race cars on two “NASCAR” speedways. Then there are the horse shows and rodeos at the Dixie Stampede and the motorcycle races. Baseball fans can check out the stadium near the beach, home of the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, an Atlanta Braves Class A farm team.
For water-related activities, there are cruises and deep-sea fishing. The Gulf Stream is only 50 miles out and the fish, including sword fish and tarpon, are biting. Bathing couldn’t be better on some of the best beaches on the East Coast. Off the beach, water slides, including a few a quarter of a mile long, which draw kids are a great hit with the kids.
For the landlubbers, there are tours of southern mansions, parks, and beautiful gardens, including the spectacular 9000-acre Brookgreen Gardens between Murrels Inlet and Pawleys Island on the south end.
For shopping, dining, and nightlife, Broadway at the Beach is the place to be. Not on the beach, this 350-acre multi-purpose mall has 15 restaurants including themed venues like Hollywood Cafe, the Palace Theater offering live musical revues, sports bars and dozens of specialty shops. On the north end, the sprawling complex of Barefoot Landing includes fine restaurants; the Alabama Theater featuring off-Broadway productions and musical revues; a wildlife sanctuary around a 23-acre lake, and The House of Blues, offering casual dining and some of the best Blues acts you’ll find anywhere.

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