Just this past summer The GolfBlogger family made its first trip to Myrtle Beach for a week’s vacation of sun and shore. And, of course, I got in a little golf. Unfortunately, none of the Myrtle Beach tourism sites were at all helpful in helping me find the “must-play” courses I was looking for. The sites are basically just pages of classified ads, and none responded to my emails. In the end, I made my best guesses and ended up at Barefoot Landing’s Norman Course and Glen Dornoch. Neither disappointed.
But just recently, I got this infographic from Marriott offering their take on which courses to play. The lesson may be that I should have contacted a hotel rather than relying on sites like myrtlebeachgolfcourses and myrtlebeach dot com.
We also went the Myrtle area (actually the south end, Pawleys Island) for the sun and beach. I did get in one round at Heritage, and enjoyed it. From what I can tell, when you talk “local knowledge” for golf in Myrtle, it means the fees and course conditions. Heritage had a card price of 86, a golf web site (I don’t remember which one) price of $63, and when I called the course we got it for $37 (including cart and lunch). The locals had frequent player cards of some sort and were paying $30 for the same deal.
My understanding is the best deals, at least in season, come from savings on lodging combined with any course discount.
I’m afraid I don’t enjoy haggling, so, the experience really moved Myrtle down my play list, and I’m afraid lowered my expectations for other golf destinations. I’m not into carnivals.