Playing alongside Cherry Grove Inlet and the Intracoastal Waterway, Tidewater Golf Club is considered one of the prettiest courses in South Carolina. (Image: Tidewater Golf Club)
Stacked with acclaimed designs by Tom Fazio, Mike Strantz, Tom Doak and other top architects, Myrtle Beach dominates Golfweek’s new listing of South Carolina’s best public-play courses.
How many of these Myrtle Beach beauties have you played?
The destination’s legion of repeat golf visitors will be pleased to know—but not surprised—that the courses of Myrtle Beach dominated Golfweek’s 2023 ranking of South Carolina’s best public-play layouts. The publication’s ranking panel placed 12 local golf courses in the Palmetto State’s top 20, highlighting the depth and quality of the area’s offerings. The rankings were part of Golfweek’s state-by-state survey of the Best Courses You Can Play 2023.
Myrtle Beach, stretching from Little River in the north to Pawleys Island in the south, is home to more than 90 golf courses. Approximately 3.2 million rounds of golf are played annually in a sun, golf and party hub marketed as the Grand Strand.
Dunes Golf & Beach Club, which has been tapped to host Myrtle Beach’s first PGA Tour event in 2024, was the Grand Strand’s highest ranked course at No. 3. The Robert Trent Jones Sr. classic was closely followed by Caledonia Golf & Fish Club (No. 4), True Blue Golf Club (No. 5), Tidewater Golf Club (No. 7), Moorland Course at Legends Resort (No. 9 ), TPC Myrtle Beach (No. 10), King’s North at Myrtle Beach National (No. 11), Heritage Club (No. 13), Dye Course at Barefoot Resort (No. 14), Grande Dunes Resort Course (No. 15), Heathland Course at Legends Resort (No.16), and Fazio Course at Barefoot Resort (No. 18).
Designed by Mike Strantz, the course at Caledonia Golf and Fish Club showcases the area’s Lowcountry beauty. (Image: Caledonia Golf and Fish Club)
The Golfweek list is a snapshot of what makes Myrtle Beach a leading destination among golf travellers. Grand Strand courses designed by Mike Strantz, Tom Fazio, Arnold Palmer and Tom Doak, among other leading architects, appear on the list, a testament to the area’s variety of courses.
The Strantz courses, Caledonia and True Blue, have long numbered among the area’s most coveted tee times. Caledonia, a consensus top 100 public course, showcases the area’s Lowcountry beauty, while True Blue delivers a muscular challenge, featuring wide fairways, expansive waste bunkers, and large and undulating greens.
Home to nine holes that play alongside either Cherry Grove Inlet or the Intracoastal Waterway, Tidewater is considered one of the prettiest courses in the state. It’s a daunting test, highlighted by the 16th hole, a short par-4 known as “Hell’s Half-Acre,” where everything from eagle to double-bogey are realistic possibilities.
TPC Myrtle Beach, meanwhile, is one of the Grand Strand’s premier big event venues. The Tom Fazio-Lanny Wadkins design has hosted a Senior PGA Tour Championship, and is the home of the Dustin Johnson World Junior Golf Championship.
King’s North, a Palmer design, is one of the Grand Strand’s signature courses, highlighted by the par-5 sixth hole, otherwise known as “The Gambler,” a moniker it has earned due to the presence of an alternate island fairway.
Heritage Club is one of Dan Maples finest courses, playing through a stunning piece of Lowcountry property, challenging players with greens complexes that are endlessly creative.
Barefoot Resort’s Dye Course is the longtime host of the Hootie & the Blowfish “Monday After the Masters Celebrity Pro-Am.”
Long regarded as one of the state’s best, Grande Dunes Resort Course is looking better than ever following a comprehensive renovation of its greens, bunkers and clubhouse. The heathlands-style layout was one of Doak’s first designs, and the now near-legendary architect left little doubt that he was a star on the rise with his work in Myrtle Beach.
The last of Myrtle Beach’s top twenty courses on the Golfweek list is Barefoot Resort’s Fazio Course, a constantly challenging yet fair design guaranteed to keep golfers coming back for more.
