Myrtle Beach area golf course operators are schooled on preparing for and reopening in the aftermath of hurricanes.
A tornado? That’s a bit more unexpected.
Yet a couple courses are spending the early part of this week readying their properties for planned reopenings on Thursday, as they clean up following a tornado or tornadoes that ripped through some of their holes on Sunday.
The National Weather Service confirmed Monday that a tornado believed to be as strong as an F-1 with 73-112 mph winds tore through the Socastee, Forestbrook and eastern Carolina Forest areas around 1:30 p.m. Sunday during an intense Nor’easter storm on the Grand Strand.
Though numerous trees were downed, snapped or shredded at both Arrowhead Country Club and River Oaks Golf Club, and heavy tree debris was strewn about, neither course experienced any significant damage to playing areas.
“We live to fight another day, so it’s all good,” said River Oaks general manager Scott Taylor. “The golf course itself, the tees and greens, are fine. It’s just debris, and most of the trees that fell weren’t right in the middle of play. We’re able to kind of chop them up and move them off to the side, that’s really what we’re doing for the next couple days.”
The storm knocked trees onto homes, and trees and telephone poles across roads in Horry County, and flooding occurred in low-lying areas such as Garden City, Surfside Beach and the Cherry Grove area of North Myrtle Beach.
Arrowhead Country Club
Arrowhead head professional Jake Benton estimated Monday that between 50 and 100 trees were downed on the 27-hole course in Forestbrook near the Intracoastal Waterway.
He hopes to open at least 18 holes Thursday and may keep nine closed at a time to more fully complete removing debris.
“It’s pretty significant,” Benton said. “There’s not as much small debris as a hurricane necessarily. There are always a lot of pine cones and limbs and stuff with hurricanes, but there’s more large debris with this.”
Because some of Arrowhead’s course owners are in the construction business, Benton estimated 40 to 50 people were at the course to help the cleanup effort Monday.
Evidence of a tornado hitting Arrowhead included a 40-pound table top being about 100 yards from its home on a clubhouse patio.
The par-3 eighth hole on The Lakes nine had about a dozen trees down. “It was pretty much covered in trees. Not necessarily full trees but where they snapped at the top,” Benton said. “It was probably the worst hole on the whole property, but other than that The Lakes Course had probably the least debris, so it’s kind of ironic that’s the case.”
River Oaks Golf Club
Taylor believes the tornado went past Magoo’s Sports & Spirits on Waccamaw Blvd., then went through the sixth hole on his front nine (the Fox nine) and holes 11-13 on the back nine (the Otter nine).
“The trees all broke in the same direction,” Taylor said. “It was equal to some of the hurricanes we’ve had as far as cleanup, anyway.”
A large oak tree near the bag drop and parking lot was among the felled trees.
Employees from all departments including the snack bar, pro shop and bag drop were at the course Monday, Taylor said.
“It’s really just having enough hands,” Taylor said. “All our staff kind of came in and you walk around with gloves and the fairways are just littered with limbs and debris. You just have to move all that stuff off.”
Chainsaws were chopping larger limbs into smaller pieces that could be moved off playing areas, and once the property dries, tractors can be used to remove the debris over a few weeks.
“It’s just one trip after the other of taking debris,” Taylor said. “. . . We’ll at least get it off to the sides by Thursday so golfers can come through and it will be fine, and we’ll slowly chip away at it over the next several weeks.”
It doesn’t appear there were any fatalities or serious injuries from the storm, though it put a scare into residents.
“All the folks that live right around there were telling me it sounded everything like they say, like a train or just a loud noise coming through,” Taylor said.
International World Tour Golf Links is adjacent to River Oaks on River Oaks Blvd., but it apparently wasn’t in the tornado’s path. Head pro Corey Bowers said the course will reopen at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
“We were lucky compared to those guys,” Bowers said. “Just a bit of small debris throughout the course.”
The storm came at a typically slower time of year on golf courses.
“It’s going to get cold the next few days and it’s going to be wet, so it’s not like we were that busy anyway,” said Taylor, who recalls being closed for four days last year around Christmas to cover greens during an extreme cold spell.
