South Carolina’s Atlantic – Myrtle Beach with the Grand Strand – a 60-mile string of beaches and just a “few bunkers”

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C.—A lone cart drove toward us in the 10th fairway at Caledonia Golf & Fish Club. I recognized the driver. He was the same polite, mid-20’s young man who checked us in a few minutes earlier.

We were playing our first hole. The starter sent us off on the back nine to avoid a group outing. Oddly, the young man drove right past Frank, a muscular lefty and a fellow Pittsburgher who was my travel partner for the week. I was 30 yards farther back in the fairway, taking a photo of a palmetto tree in a waste bunker while we waited behind a foursome to play our second shot on the par 5. 

This can’t be good, I thought as the young man braked to a stop by my side. What rule did we violate not even halfway through our opening hole?

None, it turned out. It was simply nature in progress.

“Ah jes’ wanted to let y’all know, in case yer gettin’ back on the cart path this hole, there’s a big hawk up thar on the path eatin’ a dang squirrel he caught,” the young man said. “Ah went over and that hawk and looked at ‘im and he jes’ stared me down! Ah wuzn’t gonna mess wi’ im after that. I jes wanted to let y’all know.”

I thanked him for the unusual heads-up. Then he wheeled the cart around and drove back to tell Frank. I almost laughed. I would have informed Frank, obviously, as we were sharing a cart. But the young man had what qualified as breaking news here on quiet Pawley Island. He wanted to tell everyone he could find. 

Ten years from now, I may not recall what Caledonia’s 10th hole looks like or what scores we shot. But I’ll remember The Big Danged Hawk and Squirrel Affair.

It was a unique highlight from a week in the Myrtle Beach area. We played three golf rounds on three courses, including Pine Lakes International and Grande Dunes Resort Course, and they were all memorable.

Myrtle Beach is the Mass Quantity Golf Capital of America. There are more famous—and pricier–golf resorts elsewhere but none with the sheer number of good courses conveniently packaged and gift-wrapped in one 50-mile stretch than Myrtle Beach. No place is even a close second. (Sorry, The Villages.)

Pine Lakes Country Club

This place hits a sweet spot for me. It is Myrtle Beach’s oldest course, founded in 1927 and listed on the National Register of Historic places. Some vacationing Time Inc.-Life Magazine execs teed it up at Pine Lakes in 1954 and, no doubt while at the bar after golf, came up with the idea to launch a sports magazine that year—Sports Illustrated, my former long-time employer. The magazine and its talented writers (the other guys, not me) quickly made SI iconic and the center of the American sports universe. At least, until ESPN and its “Sports Center” replaced it decades later.

I played Pine Lakes in the mid-2000s and recall being wowed by the first-class experience worthy of a swank private club. The clubhouse was classy and traditional and the service was exceptional. A posse of outside staffers, who wore green-and-black-plaid kilts, hustled after every arriving golfer at the bag drop or in the parking lot like personal butlers and they were as organized and efficient as a military drill team. 

There were fewer outside staffers this time and they were nattily attired in red polos, black knickers, red knee socks and red-plaid caps. With apologies to Scotland, I call that progress.

Pine Lakes is considered the Granddaddy of Myrtle Beach golf and not just because it is located on Granddaddy Drive. Although that is pretty good marketing.

Pine Lakes delivers finely manicured old school holes. Old school means no waterfalls, no island greens, no giant earth sculptures and, therefore, no bad holes. (No offense, Pete Dye and Jack Nicklaus) It is less spectacular than many of the area’s newer tracks but its gimmick-less holes seem like they just stepped out of 1927. I’d take that all day, every day.

The opening hole is a gentle, 332-yard par 4. (All yardages mentioned here are from Tee #3, the next-to-back tees, 6,305 yards). So gentle, I hit a wedge shot close and made birdie while Frank made a pleasant par. A breather hole is a nice way to start.

Break time was over on the second tee, however. This strong par 3 was 183 yards across a pond to a green sandwiched between bunkers. It was a reality check as we both made bogeys.

Pine Lakes is straightforward but it’s no pushover. If there was an Academy Award for Outstanding Performances by Four Par-3 Holes, Pine Lakes wins the Oscar. The par-3s weren’t just pretty, they were pretty challenging.

The eighth was 187 yards to a green with a bunker on the right. I’d tell you how difficult it was to hit that green but I don’t have first-hand knowledge. Bogey.

The 11^th was picturesque, 145 yards over a pond to a long, narrow green sharply sloped from back to front. I hit a good shot pin-high, which wasn’t necessarily the place to be. I still faced a big bender of a putt. The scorecard says I made it for a 2 but by the time I finished the round, Pine Lakes’ subtleties had me so frazzled, I didn’t how I did it or what the putt looked like. (Can’t remember a birdie? Welcome to  senior golf.)

The 16^th was 171 yards with a bunker short and left. It made me question whether we two Pittsburgh geezers should have played the #2 tees, about 500 yards shorter. Is be too short? Is there any such thing as too short? (No. Not ever.)

There were five par 4s of 370 yards or less, good for scoring, but the more difficult back nine featured three over 400 yards. The czar of that group is the 14^th, the course’s signature hole because it offers a postcard view of the Myrtle Beach skyline and is tougher than Iron Man. The fairway on this 425-yarder is tree-lined and dips sharply downhill toward the landing area. The approach is back uphill, past a water hazard on the left, to a green with two back bunkers. Frank and I went on safari in the right trees, had to pitch out to the fairway and did not sniff making pars. The 14^th definitely had us spooked. 

What will I remember from this round in a decade? The starter, an athletic-looking middle-aged Black man whose nametag said Doc. He looked ready to step in at middle linebacker for the Atlanta Falcons, if needed, and had a sense of humor. One of the bag-drop guys told me that the staff kilts I remembered were no longer in use but they were getting one for the starter. So I asked Doc, Where’s your kilt? 

“Ahhh,” he said with a dismissive snort, “they’ve been talking about that for a year and a half.” He grinned and added, “I’m still waiting.”

Caledonia Golf & Fish Club 

This place is unforgettable, starting with the name. Few golf clubs have the word Fish in their titles. It’s legit, too. A fishing club is located on the adjacent Waccamaw River on land that was once a rice plantation. 

The driveway is also memorable. Just about the time I was sure I’d made a wrong turn and was on a road to nowhere, the club entrance appeared. Then we drove beneath a canopy of live oak trees, a very Southern entrance that invoked, oh, Augusta National’s Magnolia Lane. It gave Caledonia a secluded feel. During that drive, I already knew I wanted to come back here a second time. 

The tee markers were distinctive. They are duck decoys. Pick your duck—pintail, mallard or wood duck–and your appropriate course length, and go from there. We played the Mallards, 6,121 yards. Please, no wise-quacks. 

Most of Caledonia’s holes are separated by trees, adding to the feeling of lush seclusion. Some fairways are roomy, some aren’t. It’s a clever mix designed by the late Mike Strantz, considered a modern architectural innovator.

The two standout holes for us were the 9^th and 18^th. The latter is a 377-yard par 4 that makes a right turn and requires a second shot over water. So the farther I bailed safely left off the tee, the harder and scarier my second shot was. Frank kept his second shot dry, I didn’t, blocking it right of the green and into the water. Bogey on this hole isn’t a bad score. Or so I thought since I did worse than that. 

I like that hole, though. I could have a good time just watching from the clubhouse patio as other golfers struggled on the 18^th in a lopsided battle against par. It would be like sitting in Rome’s Colosseum and watching the Christians and the lions only without the blood. Good times, in other words.

The ninth was only 110 yards but the green was guarded by a moat of sand and a large mound obscuring our view of the green’s left half. Somehow, that made what should be an easy wedge shot intimidating. As a twosome, we played that hole in one under par. The ninth was a minor letdown as our finishing hole—it was far easier than the 18^th yet still impossible to forget. 

In the parking lot after the round, we saw two guys from the outing we’d dodged. It was a retirement party outing because the golfers all wore the same sky-blue shirts with big likenesses of the retiree’s guy’s face all over them. They were garish, hideous and, well, so bad they were kinda good. 

I asked one of the guys if he was going to wear that shirt for future rounds. He laughed at the idea and said, “No.” I suggested to Frank that we should try to score a couple of those retiree shirts. 

“No, I don’t think so,” he said, looking at me as if I’d just insulted the dignity of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

I take full responsibility for this bad idea.

Grande Dunes Resort Golf Club

Our route to Grande Dunes from the beach, where we stayed in a Hilton property, brought us alongside the Intracoastal Waterway. When we spotted a sparkling marina, a couple of modern high-rise buildings and some cool-looking golf holes on a hillside across the Waterway, my pulse quickened.

We busted through security in our Chrysler Pacifica rental—OK, all that really happened was the guards gave us directions, raised the gate and let us through. But my fake-news version sounded more exciting. 

We crossed a high-arched bridge over the Waterway and were quickly at Grande Dunes. The only word for the Grande Dunes’ Resort Course is spectacular. The practice range was big, the bunkers were big, the fairways were big and wide and the greens were super-sized, averaging 10,000 square feet.

How big is that? Big enough to allow me to hit 14 greens in regulation. And big enough to cause me to have 35 putts. Putting from an adjacent zip code across multiple undulations is not easy. 

I wish we’d kept track of the total length of our putts attempted. It was a very large integer.

Frank faced a putt at the par-5 seventh hole that was close to100 feet. “Are you sure you have the right club for this?” I asked before his first putt. He chuckled, possibly amused or possibly not. Frank hit his first putt to inside ten feet, an excellent effort, but didn’t make the next one. Give 20 golfers the same 100-footer, their combined average would exceed three putts.

There were three other holes where Frank’s first putt was outside 50 feet. Even Steph Curry would pass instead of shoot from those distances. 

The most memorable hole among a half dozen worthy candidates for that title was the 14^th, a par 3 parallel to the Intracoastal Waterway. We hit from an elevated tee across an inlet to a green set on a promontory ledge. It was a manly 220 yards from the back tee but plenty strong from our tee at 171 yards.

There were few good places to miss this green. I was the only member of our foursome—two Coastal Carolina University students joined us on the first tee–to hit the green. After I watched Frank and the college kids have adventures with the bunker, sidehill lies and tall grass, I felt fortunate. Par was a good score.

The view from the tee was special. We could see the marina a short distance up the Waterway and were kept entertained by a steady string of jet skis, fishing skiffs and what we used to call speedboats whizzing past on the water 

Grande Dunes has a posse of other man-eating holes. The 8^th is a par 3 over a lake to an elevated green. It’s 241 from the gold tee, yikes, and165 from the whites but playing more like 185. 

I liked the par-4 ninth, where a drive long enough to catch the slope runs out an extra 30 yards, a speed slot I luckily took advantage of to make par. 

The 11^th a short-ish par 3 over a vast waste bunker but featured another tee 40 yards to the right, secluded in some trees, that gave it a different angle and completely different, enticing look. Too bad we couldn’t play a second ball from there. It was a good-looking hole.

The par-5 13^th was another beauty. A swath of water crosses the fairway at just the right place to make you question whether you can clear it with your second shot. I would have cleared the hazard easily if only I hadn’t boned a 5-wood right into the reeds. It was a bad time to hit a bad shot. Frank, meanwhile, smartly laid up to  avoid the water and made par while I racked up a double bogey. It’s a great risk-reward hole I’d like to risk playing a second time.

The 18^th was a suitably maddening finishing hole. The fairway bends left but Frank and I hit dreaded straight balls off the tee into a stand of pine trees. I was able to punch a low slice into the right greenside bunker, splash out to 15 feet and make the putt—one of the few either of us holed in this round. Naturally. I’m the king of making pars that don’t matter. 

Grande Dunes mostly kicked our tails but at least we fared better than college kids, who struggled. Plus, we got to go back on vacation after the round and they got to go do homework.  

After the round, a golf shop employee told me Grande Dunes has two courses, one for members and one for resort guests, and that the resort course is better.

“Don’t let the members hear you say that,” I joked.

“Ohh, the members say that all the time,” he replied. “They know.”

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