The Myrtle Beach golf market continues to be recognized nationally by the course rating panels of the game’s national magazines.
Two area courses appear on Golf Magazine’s biennial list of the “Top 100 Courses You Can Play,” which was released in mid-November.
The Dunes Golf and Beach Club is No. 60, and Caledonia Golf & Fish Club has risen to No. 76, moving up eight spots from its previous ranking on the biennial list.
The Dunes Club is a Robert Trent Jones design that opened in 1948 and is the host course for the PGA Tour’s Myrtle Beach Classic, while Caledonia is a Mike Strantz design in Pawleys Island that opened in 1994.
Myrtle Beach is represented in the current top-100 U.S. public courses rankings of the three primary national magazines.
Caledonia is No. 63 on Golfweek’s Top 100 Best Courses You Can Play in the U.S., which was released in June, while The Dunes Club is tied for 65th.
The only other South Carolina courses on the Golfweek list are the acclaimed Kiawah Island Resort Ocean Course at No. 10 and Harbour Town Golf Links at No. 26.
In Golf Digest’s 2023-24 list of America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses, The Dunes Club is ranked 71st.
The other Palmetto State courses on the Golf Digest list are the Ocean Course at No. 3, Harbour Town at No. 27 and May River at No. 51.
The newly-released Golf Magazine list is selected by 127 chosen raters from 15 nations. Each panelist was provided a ballot consisting of 609 courses.
According to Golf Magazine, the panelists could put a course in the categories of top three, 4-10, 11-25, 26-50, and so on out to 250-plus, and there was also a column to suggest the removal of a course from future consideration.
Panelists could also write in courses they believe should be included on the ballot.
Golf Magazine says panelists are instructed to focus on the design and architecture of the course, not the opulence, or lack thereof, of the clubhouse and other facilities and amenities on the property.
