The operators of several golf courses in the Myrtle Beach market have recently made or are making notable renovations without having to close their entire layout.
The courses include Myrtlewood’s PineHills Course, Tidewater Golf Club, Prestwick Country Club, Brunswick Plantation and Legends Golf Resort.
Myrtlewood’s PineHills Course
The PineHills Course at Myrtlewood Golf Club has undergone a rebuild and redesign of every bunker on the course, which has changed the course visually for players and improved bunker conditions.
Course architect Dan Schlegel, who did work on Myrtlewood’s Palmetto Course during a bunker renovation project in 2019, oversaw the bunker renovations on the PineHills Course.
Schlegel was a partner in the firm Ault, Clark & Associates, which included Tom Clark, who largely designed the Palmetto Course while working for the Ault firm. Schlegel also previously worked on the Palmetto’s tee boxes in the mid-1990s and redesigned the 17th hole in 1998.
“We had such a good experience with him on the Palmetto, when we redid the bunkers on the PineHills we brought him back in,” said Steve Mays, president of Founders Group International, which owns and operates 21 Grand Strand courses including the two at Myrtlewood.
PineHills is a 6,640-yard layout that dates to 1966, when it opened as the Pines Course. The name changed after architect Arthur Hills did a major renovation and partial redesign that altered many holes.
The bunker project ran from January through the spring, as a couple holes were done at a time.
Every bunker was rebuilt with a Capillary concrete system that will aid with drainage and conditioning. “I’m excited from a playability standpoint, because that’s the one thing that course was really missing,” Mays said. “Those bunkers were not in very good shape for the past few years just from a drainage perspective.”
Schlegel redesigned just about every bunker on the course to make them more visible from the tee or on approach shots into greens, and repositioned many of them.
“I think it’s going to change the golf course visually. You’re going to be able to see into the bunkers, which you weren’t able to do previously,” Mays said.
The 16th hole, a 383-yard par-4 with a mild dogleg to the right, was partially redesigned. A second fairway was added to the inside of a bunker that sat at the inside corner of the bend. The bunker was rebuilt and repositioned and the fairway was lowered to provide a view from the tee of a water hazard in front of the green.
“It’ll be a much more intimidating tee shot from the look of it because you’ll have a bunker that now sits in the center of a fairway, and you’ll be able to see the water that you can now run your tee shots to the right into, but in actually it will be a much more playable hole with a wider fairway,” Mays said.
The PineHills Course hosted numerous future PGA Tour members in the 1990s and early 2000s as host site of the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) Ping Myrtle Beach Junior Classic.
PineHills’ greens are only six years old, as Sunday ultradwarf Bermuda was installed in 2018.
FGI has closed several courses over the past few years for renovations, including both Myrtlewood courses, the Grande Dunes Resort Course, River Hills Golf & Country Club, Long Bay Club, and Pawleys Plantation, which had the most significant work done among the recent renovation projects.
The company has closed the Myrtle Beach National King’s North Course this summer for a major renovation project.
Tidewater Golf Club
When KemperSports took over operation of Tidewater Golf Club last August, it wanted feedback from employees and guests, and asked the staff what they thought were areas of the club that needed improvement.
The staff identified the need for bunker renovations that would ease some of the difficulty of the course and assist pace of play.
“Our focus was to give the course a facelift. There has been no significant improvement to the bunkers for over 30 years,” said Tidewater GM and head professional Chris Cooper, who is in his 27th year at the course. “But keeping in mind we were thinking more about pace of play. We think the golf course will be a lot more playable for the guest.”
The major bunker renovation will begin mid-November – likely the week of Nov. 11 – and is expected to be completed by mid-February.
One hole will be done at a time and the course will remain open throughout the project.
“That way we felt there would be minimal disruption that way for the golfers,” Cooper said. “Package season ends mid-November and golf slows down until the end of February, so we felt like starting and finishing the project then would have less impact on the golfers.”
About one-third of the course’s bunkers will be removed – consisting almost entirely of fairway bunkers – and the remaining bunkers will be reduced an average of 30 percent. A few fairway bunkers will be combined as well.
“A lot of the bunkers originally out here were just placed in areas that really weren’t in play. It was more for aesthetics,” Cooper said.
The bunkers will receive improved drainage, new sand and improved shaping.
Greenside bunkers that will be removed include one to the left of the par-4 fourth green and one to the right of the par-5 13th green. Both sizable bunkers buffer the greens from marsh below, alongside the holes. Cooper said those banks will be sodded with grass, slopes will be lessened and rough will be grown to help stop balls from reaching the marsh.
“It’s going to make it much more playable for the guest,” Cooper said. “Those holes are hard enough.”
The reshaping will help repel water from the bunkers and collars between bunkers and greens will be improved for both maintenance and playability purposes.
With nine holes along either the Intracoastal Waterway or Cherry Grove Inlet, Tidewater was named the nation’s best new public course by both Golf Digest and Golf Magazine when it opened in 1990. It has since received many more accolades from organizations and publications, including being named the No. 9 public-access course in S.C. by Golfweek Magazine and the 2022 S.C. Course of the Year by the state’s golf course owners association.
Brunswick Plantation
The 27-hole facility owned and operated by Heritage Group made improvements to the clubhouse and course this past winter.
In January, the flooring was replaced in the clubhouse lobby as well as The Champions Grill bar and restaurant area, and The Champions Grill was remodeled.
The Hickory Shaft restaurant that was on another area of the property was closed a couple years ago, “and we basically took the best parts of that bar and restaurant and brought it down to the Champions Grill in the clubhouse and improved that greatly,” said Brunswick Plantation Director of Golf Brett Thomaswick. “So we’d rather have one really good, busy, hopping place than have two. It was hard to tell which one would get busy and for how long.”
A bunker renovation project was completed in February and March. About 10% to 15% of the bunkers on the course were eliminated and replaced with grass.
The remaining bunkers had drainage improved and received new sand, and many were reshaped. “We actually reshaped a lot of the bunkers to make it a little more appealing and a little less penal at the same time,” Thomaswick said. “Some bunkers served no purpose as far as playability so we just got rid of them.”
With 27 holes, nine holes were closed at a time for the bunker work, leaving 18 holes open at all times.
Cart path repairs were also done, and a new cart fleet is scheduled to be delivered later this year as well.
Prestwick Country Club
Prestwick’s front nine was closed in mid-December to rebuild bulkheaded sea walls along water hazards on holes 4 and 5.
While the front was closed for a couple months, Prestwick sent players on the back nine twice for a discounted 18-hole rate of $35.
It’s the second winter of improvements for the club. In 2023, retaining walls on holes 9, 16 and 18 were rebuilt, a narrow bunker was added to the inside of the bulkhead on the left side of the par-3 16th green, and the clubhouse received new floors and patio furniture.
Legends Resort
Legends Golf Group repaired cart paths at four of the group’s five courses. Heritage Club and the three courses at Legends Resort – Heathland, Moorland and Parkland – all received extensive repairs to their asphalt paths.
In addition to the King’s North Course, Sea Trail Resort’s Byrd Course is also closed this summer for renovations.
For 19 consecutive years through 2021 the market could boast at least one new golf course per year to traveling golfers, with 86 opening from 1983 and 2001.
With only a couple public course openings in the the past 23 years – Founders Club at Pawleys Island and Leopard’s Chase Golf Club – significant renovations to at least a couple courses a year are taking the place of new course openings to provide something new to experience for vacationing golfers.
“It’s good stuff that everyone is going out and renovating golf courses. The destination needs it,” Mays said. “There will be a time that there will be a couple golf courses that just get completely redesigned, so I’m excited to see that happen, too.”
