By Len Ziehm
Myrtle Beach has been South Carolina’s golf hotbed for many years. We have visited several times over the past 13 years, but our latest visit was a bit different. Our travel writing itinerary called for stops at three courses, Caledonia Golf & Fish Club, World Tour Golf Links and the Love Course at Barefoot Resort.
Caledonia, a Mike Strantz classic, is one of the most decorated of Myrtle Beach’s nearly 100 courses. At World Tour Golf Links we uncovered a course that we had never heard of, and in the Love Course we got our first good taste of a four-course facility that holds a unique place in golf history.
All three have their own story to tell.
Caledonia Golf & Fish Club
With sister course True Blue standing nearby this golf opportunity is unmatched in South Carolina’s Grand Strand area. All the major golf publications, it was named Golf Digest’s Best New Course of 1997, have recognized the beauty of Caledonia, to say nothing of the good food served in its clubhouse.
The late Mike Strantz designed Caledonia Golf & Fish Club on Pawleys Island. Unfortunately, Strantz, succumbed to cancer at age 50 in 2005, while at the peak of his designing career. He also designed both True Blue, adjacent to Caledonia and Tobacco Road, near Pinehurst, another well-regarded Carolina layout.
I find it hard to pick a course better than Caledonia in the Myrtle Beach area, but a survey of club professionals ranked Caledonia second behind the Dunes Club.
It had been six years since our last visit to Caledonia and our morning tee time was drenched in bright sunshine. The course seemed even better than we remembered and given all that has happened in the golf world in recent years, we found that a most pleasant surprise.
World Tour Golf Links
Golf course architect Melvin Graham’s original concept for World Tour Golf Links included three nine–hole loops. The Open 9 included holes inspired by the U.S. and British national open championships. The Championship 9 drew inspiration from courses that have hosted the Masters, U.S. Open, PGA Championship and British Open. The International 9, which no longer exists, included holes from other famous courses.
Graham’s project was eight years in the planning stages before it opened as a 27-hole facility in 1999. The 18 holes in operation today come from 14 courses in three countries and nine states.
The course allows golfers to get a feel for the famous courses they see on television, but never get a chance to visit in person. Plaques on each hole provide historical anecdotes of events that occurred on the original versions.
I actually played six of these holes at the real course, plus have seen many of the others on the televised events. Some of the holes might seem a bit of a stretch, compared to the real ones. However, the opportunity to make birdie on the replica of the par-3 sixteenth hole at Augusta National was a thrill that would be hard to duplicate with a birdie on just another course.
Augusta National is represented with four holes at World Tour Golf Links. The par-3 16th is No. 7 seven on the Open 9. On the Championship 9, players can experience the thrill of Augusta’s famed ‘Amen Corner’ as the 4-6 holes replicate holes 11-13.
St. Andrews has two holes with Pinehurst No. 2, TPC Sawgrass, Colonial, English Turn, Pine Valley, the National Country Club of Canada, Winged Foot East, Cypress Point, Royal Troon, Olympic Club, Oakmont and Bay Hill all represented with replica holes, as well.
The Love Course at Barefoot Resort
The Love Course is the most popular of the four championship courses at Barefoot Resort.
The courses were designed by golfing legends, Davis Love III, Greg Norman, Tom Fazio and Pete Dye. We were only able to play the Love Course and will have to wait to compare it with the other three on successive trips. They were all designed as championship layouts and if they are anything like the Love Course, they will all test your golfing skills.
This was Love’s design breakthrough and he gave it a special touch. Faux ruins of an antebellum plantation were placed around the green at Nos. 4 and 6.
All four Barefoot courses opened together on the same day, April 13, 2000. Such a feat was never done before and has not been duplicated in American golf.
All four courses are immaculately maintained and are popular with golfers visiting Myrtle Beach.
