Best Courses with minimal houses lining the fairways

What comes to my mind with minimal housing would be Rivers Edge, TPC, the Witch.

I'm sure others will chime in with those I forgot.

Minimal housing: 
 
Premium:  TPC, BF Fazio, BF Love, BF Dye, Kings North, Thistle, Glen Dornoch
                Legends Resort, The Dunes(You see them but can't hit them), 
                Caledonia, True Blue   
 
MID:  Crow Creek, Farmstead, The Witch, Shaft Glen, The Pearl, Wild Wing 
 
Warm-Up:  MBN West, Eagle Nest, Crown Park
 

Blackmoor has homes around but tough to hit one I feel.

@dominickoon : you can't go wrong with @artmbgolf advice!

He's really "spot on"!

Posted by: @jw11

Some of my favorites with no or VERY few homes...

$$$

Barefoot Fazio

TPC

$$

The Pearl

The Witch

Shaftsbury Glen

Glen Dornoch

Farmstead

$

DIamondback

Crown Park

.................

All of these courses come highly recommended. 

Welcome to the forum GAnorthside. We hope to see your thoughts about the courses you end up playing.

 

jw11

Farmstead has a grand total of 2 houses on it - both way out of the way and it would be a good course for the variety of players you're bringing.

I will tell you 2 things to do, listen to Art and then call Brian that way you will get all you need for this trip to be a record breaker. 

@skippy  Thank you.  I will look into the Witch and TPC.  We've played River's Edge some years back.  Great track.  May have to go back to it but currently wanting play courses we haven't experienced before. 

@artmbgolf   Nice list. Thank you and the others for your recommendations.  I will look into each of these scenic courses.  Though not hitting a house is always a plus, was actually wanting to enjoy the scenic beauty of the course.  I remember as a new teenage golfer in the 70', enjoying going to the golf course.  No houses on that course back then.  Now, that same course has many houses.  Not the same.  The scenic beauty is part of my attraction to golf and on vacations I seek out courses different than I can play locally, meaning all the golf around me meanders through subdivisions. 

@dominickoon

I'd take a serious look at the Dunes. It is located in a subdivision, but the course itself meanders through some seriously beautiful scenery and there are many holes where there are no houses directly on the fairways. It's a stunning course with as much challenge around the greens as there is off the tees. A Robert Trent Jones design, done not long after he redesigned the par-3 16th at a little track named Augusta National. I suspect that Augusta National may have inspired some of Jones's design of the green complexes at the Dunes.

Although you can see development around Tidewater, I think there are plenty of vistas along the waterways there that would fit your desire for scenic beauty. Both the Dunes and Tidewater are stiff tests and pretty high ticket layouts so you might want to pick one or the other.

I'd also add Arcadian Shores as a personal favorite at a lower price point. With recent work done there, I think it's gotten back some of its old glory (it was an early Rees Jones design in the early 1970s and occupied a spot on the Golf Digest Best 100 for awhile). Although the course runs along Lake Arrowhead and Kings Roads and touches Route 17 at the sixth green and the seventh tee, it is mostly wooded and sheltered from the development around it--although I will acknowledge that the Tanger Outlet and the shopping center across Kings Road from it make an uncomfortable appearance early in the round--to the side of the second green (but with woods there) and the third tee. Fortunately, Kings Road, after the tee shot on three, is a relatively lightly-traveled two-lane road--you'll see it again bordering to the left on holes 10 through 12. The thirteenth hole is one of the best in the Myrtle Beach area with a second shot likely from a downhill lie across a pond to a tough green to hit. Lake Arrowhead, bordering the 14th and visible on that second shot on the 13th, can be a slightly busier thoroughfare than Kings, but it's still not the mess that US 17 usually is.

I've played Glen Dornoch, Farmstead, and Diamondback, and I think each of those might also fit the bill. Glen Dornoch has more waterway views than the other two, and Diamondback has more varied terrain than Farmstead, but Farmstead has generally been in better condition than the other two the times I've played there.

Another personal favorite while understanding its limitations, Eagle Nest could be a breather. There are some homes along the ninth fairway and then again along the 16th and 17th fairways but so far off you're unlikely to hit them or even get onto their properties, and there are several stretches where you're not just secluded from development but from other holes on the course. Eagle Nest is nowhere nearly as good as the Dunes, Tidewater, or Arcadian Shores, but it's got some good holes, the terrain surprisingly rises and falls frequently, and the course is located far enough away from US 17 that you won't hear noise from traffic. Of all of the courses I've put in this post, its quality is probably most comparable to Diamondback--it's definitely a lower-tier course. Nevertheless, I played Eagle Nest in February, and, just like Diamondback, it appeared to me that they were making real efforts to maintain the condition of the course.

Despite the increasing development I've seen around Myrtle Beach since I started going there in 1990, most courses still have plenty of stretches with no homes along the fairways. Development has generally swallowed courses whole (Heather Glen, Bay Tree, Robber's Roost, Indian Wells, and Gator Hole, for example, all converted or being converted to residential or commercial development in their entirety) rather than completely surrounding the older properties.

And I also second the recommendation to contact Brian. He's excellent at listening to your preferences, taking a group's skill level into account, and designing a package that meets your needs.

If you are looking for Scenic Beauty look at all the courses I listed in my original post here in this thread because all of them are about Scenic Beauty and Wildlife and hearing nothing but golf balls being hit, other golfers talking and maybe a few cars from far away streets.

@jw11 Thank you! I will!

@lwildernorva. Nice!  I appreciate the time you put into your response. Very helpful for our planning!

If money is not a factor, go with Barefoot Fazio.