Artmbgolf's Fall 2024 MB Tour

MYRTLE BEACH -- TRIP REPORT 10/3-10/18, 2024

TRAVEL: My drive from Delaware is around 9.5-10 hours, with lunch and rest stops.
I use I-95 to Lumberton 74 - 410 - 701 - 9 - 31 or I-95 - 40 - 140 - 17.
The VA Express Lanes are extended further south about 10-15 miles.
There is a lot of road construction in NC south of Rt 40, so Rt 40 - 140 - 17 might be more
relaxing than having concreate barriers on both sides of the road.

GOLF: 

Thursday 10/3 -- ARROWHEAD:
Range balls are provided. I played Cypress/Lakes.
Conditions were excellent. The greens were good, but sanded this day.
AH isn't long from the white tees, but it is fairly tight, not always a driver from the tee.
I like the Cypress/Waterway nines the best.
I feel the Lakes plays the easiest, if you can stay out of the lakes off the tee, with
4 left doglegs and 1 right.

Friday 10/4 -- CROW CREEK:
Tees, fairways, bunkers all good. The new in 2017, V8 Bent Greens are supposed to be
better at handling the summer heat. The greens were very soft, slow and fuzzy, recovering
from summer heat. Some have bermuda spots. The best odds for good greens here
is around Nov thru May.
CC is fun to play and forgiving with wide fairways, thus their idea was to make the greens
more challenging. You could consider this as a warmup course.

Saturday 10/5 -- WORLD TOUR:
Range balls were provided. The mini-verde greens were smooth and fast.
The practice area is very good. Conditions elsewhere were good. The International 9
has been closed, but still not redeveloped yet, with it's 9th hole open as a practice hole.
The 6200 Gold/Back tees are like White tees.
This is not a difficult course, so it can be a premium warm-up, with it's nice practice area.
The best replica hole is Augusta #12, but back tees play lomger than Augusta.
It might be best to play it from 150, whatever tee that is, to get a real feel for the real
length at The Masters.  TPC Sawgrass #17 is a reasonable replica, but the green is smaller
than the real TPC #17. Augusta #11-#13 is played in sequence. There is St Andrews
#1 + #18 side by side, with huge greens.  While you have probably heard of all the
included courses, you probably don't know half of the holes well enough to decide if
they are good copies, having seen them on TV once/twice and maybe not in years.
It's fun to play if not too focused on how realistic the holes are.

COMMENT: A friend from the old GEA forum is joining me for the next 4 rounds.

Sunday 10/6 -- THISTLE:
Range balls provided if on package. Played Cameron/Stewart.
Cameron is the renovated 9. The new greens are in good condition with medium speed
and are larger. The greens on the Stewart 9 were the same speed, I guess to be
consistent. The Stewart/MacKay combo is the most interesting 18 of the 27 holes and
these two 9's compete for the most challenging 9 at Thistle. There is little housing in play,
but more are being built. Conditions were very good everywhere.
The stacked astro turf sod bunker walls look nice, but they can be unplayable if close to
them. A new outide snack bar has been added for on the turn.

Monday 10/7 -- TIDEWATER:
Range balls were provided. Premium touch screen GPS is on the cart.
The tees, fairways and bunkers were all in good condition. The greens were
very good.
The scorecard has a White/Green course at 6031 yards, with the 7 hardest rated
holes being green tees. White is 6323, Green is 5734. The par 3 Hole #9 is a
lot like Augusta #16, but with a marsh instead of a pond.
The par 4 dogleg left hole #18 is very difficult, where even a good drive will leave
about a 160-200 yard 2nd shot, possibly with a pine tree in the way. Try to drive it
as close to the far marsh as possible, rather than just past the deceiving corner.
About half of the greens are big with steep slopes. You have to concentrate on
speed a lot. The big greens seem to fool us on the amount of slope we see.
Practice some long up and down putts before playing here.

Tuesday 10/8 -- THE DUNES:
Range balls and GPS are provided. The course was in awesome condition, with the
tour quality Champions greens in mid season form, putting smooth, fast and watch
your ball glide to the hole. The Dunes will be the host of the MB Classic again in 2025.
With the firm fast greens, there can be some pins you can't get near.
The bunkers are very well maintained. The white tees are 6175 yards, but a bunch of
holes have landing areas into a upslope, so it plays longer. The greens are elevated, so
there are no bounce ups. The wooded areas are cleaned out, so finding balls in the
woods is easy, helping the pace of play and reducing penalties.
On Waterloo par 5 #13, I feel it's better to hit your tee shot further down the fairway
(staying left of red stakes), for a better angle across the water to advance further up
the fairway, rather than taking an iron and trying to play near the water from the tee.
Hole #13 is usually a good gator viewing hole.
Your best odds of getting The Dunes tee times are on Mon-Wed.

Wednesday 10/9 -- PINE LAKES:
In 2021, PL installed new Sunday greens and renovated the bunkers.
The original old style deep bunkers were replaced with shallower modern
looking bunkers with quality sand. The grassed in face will stop some shots from
rolling into the bunkers or stop a weak sand shot from rolling back to your feet.
Today the greens were verticut for overseed.
Has putting greens by #1 + #10 tees, but no range. The entrance is on Grissom Pkwy.
The tees are numbered #1 4758, #2 5756, #3 6305, #4 6675.
At a par of 70 (only 2 par 5's), each tee plays like a course of about 250 yards longer.
I recommend the #2 tee as the White tee, to avoid several long par 4's and long par 3's.
Also most greens are all carry to get on.
Hole #3, previously a par 5, is a difficult par 4 now, with water added next to the green.
Only 3 holes have fairway bunkers, that are not much in play.
A new housing development was built at the entrance and will boarder a few holes.

Thursday 10/10 -- LEGENDS PARKLAND:
John/JW11 joined me today.
The conditions were good and the greens were good.
John wanted to play Heathlands, which he booked. When we got there, they had
us on Parkland 20 minutes later. We were paired with a couple, who also said they
were switched. The wife was worse than a beginner, hitting shots 10-50 yards.
She even hit on the par 3 #3 from 100 yards, while people were on the green, as if
she knew she could not hit it that far. John was feeling sick from the breakfast and
wanted to ride to the restroom, then we would ride back to join up.
While he was in the restroom, I could see hole #7 was empty and the group on #6
was only hitting to the green, which is a tough shot on that hole. We decided to tee off
on #7. We caught other golfers on #10. A few holes later there was a big backup and
the group from #6 finally caught us. One guy says we have a big group and you jumped
in front of us. I explained what happened, but we kept playing. They fell back again
after we played a quick hole.

Friday 10/11 -- TPC:
Range balls were included. Carts have GPS.
Tees + fairways were good.
The greens were verticut for overseeding so not so good for putting, but lot
bettter than Wild Wing, reported on latewr. I did not expect TPC to overseed greens,
with tournaments that need fast greens. I would have researched more if I
was bringing a group.
There are 3 forced carries from the tee, that will help confirm if you are playing the
proper tees. IMO the carry on #15 is a bad design, since playing safe to the right puts
you behind trees. TPC is challenging, but still fair, unless maybe you are a beginner.
Much of the challenge is the green complexes, where most of the greens require
accurate approach shots. It is a difficult course to scramble around the greens.
Hole #9 is a brutal long uphill par 4, designed like a par 5.
TPC Myrtle Beach has a good logo that says Myrtle Beach, if you want MB apparel,
so others don't have to ask where is that course.
White tee players should consider making up combo tees, playing the gold on 3,4,9,11,15.

Saturday 10/12 -- KINGS NORTH:
KN reopened on 10/3 after renovating the front 9.
The new bunkers are deeper with a sculpted upscale look. The new greens are
bigger and have more undulations. Green condition was excellent, but only a
medium speed now. Some holes have new tees. The back 9 greens were faster,
with the older greens. The clubhouse is renovated. I don't think strategy on
the holes changes, but avoiding deeper bunkers is important.
There is good room off the tee, you can see most hazards. You need good club
selection on most iron shots, to carry front water or bunkers and to get makable
or 2puttable putts on the undulating greens. There is no housing, a lot of fun
unique signature holes and you can score if you play well.
On The Gambler par 5, the long way around isn't a whole lot more forgiving.
When laying up out to the right of the green, try to get down close to the bunkers,
so you can avoid hitting over the water on your approach shot.

Sunday 10/13 -- LEOPARDS CHASE:
John/JW11 joined me today. We played as a twosome. Course was not busy.
They still have a temporary clubhouse, with a two person restroom.
This was my first play on the new greens.
The new greens were very good, smooth and with good speed. Rest of the course
was in good condition. If it stays like this, everyone would be satisfied.
There are 5 par 5's and 5 par 3's, for lots of variety. The 3 par 5's on the back 9
are all interesting risk/reward holes. The signature par 4 18th hole has a scenic
waterfall flowing out of the green, for an attractive hole. LC starts out easier and
not so unique, but gets more interesting and challenging as soon as you reach #10.
The back 9 is a lot more interesting and memorable than the front 9, so be patient.
LC is more challenging than TE and usually single tees, but does not have to.

10/13 COURSE VISITS:
TIGERS EYE: Around 4PM, I drove over to TE, where there were 6 cars in the lot.
I checked the putting green. There were sodded areas that looked like a good job.
The original areas looked good but slow.

ST BYRD: Not open yet. I checked the #9 green across the road from parking lot.
Good green condition, looked medium speed, mostly flat, not very big. New cart paths.

Monday 10/14 -- THE DUNES:
Right before Covid hit, I bought some of The Dunes rainchecks. Since CV caused
missed trips, plus a family issue missing a trip and the MB Classic closing the course,
I have some rainchecks to use up before they expire. They had a 5 year expiration.
I used 2 of them on 10/8 this trip. This will be The Dunes week.
Everything was still perfect, like I reported on 10/8.

Tuesday 10/15 -- THE DUNES:
John/JW11 joined me this day. One big gator was on #13.
We played the green tees, which makes it more playable. That shortens most holes
10-20 yards and gives a good advantage on #2 and #7.
After consistant 80° high days, today was 70°.

Wednesday 10/16 -- THE DUNES:
I played with a twosome from Kentucky.
Today's high 60 and next 2 days.

Thursday 10/17 -- PAWLEYS PLANTATION:
Range Balls included. The fairways and tees were shaved down for
overseeding, so the course looked brown, except the new greens were a
dark green, looking like more fertilizer than usual was used.
The new greens were now smooth and fast.
Tee markers are not standard colors, so look at the yardage.
This Jack Nicklaus course has housing lining many fairways, with OB in play on
about half of the holes. Pawleys is an attractive country club style course with
4 marsh holes and a few lakes. While not long from the white tees, it is one of
the more challenging courses in MB. Like it or not,
the entire 13/17 bridge/dam complex in the marsh is scenic, usually windy, unique,
memorable and challenging. On #17, a 160 yard par 3 all carry over marsh, the
green is wide but it's shallow, so it plays difficult. There are some
memorable holes, like the marsh holes (#12, 13, 17), #3 and #10 but there are not
enough memorable holes to keep bringing us back often, especially if the price is
pumped up to TB/Cale level.

Friday 10/18 -- WILD WING AVOCET:
Shaved greens and fairways for overseed, led to bad conditions.
The greens were super slow + bumpy. It was a way more sloppy job than Pine Lakes
or TPC did. The greens were about a 4 stimp, due to the ball hopping along.
WW rewards good shots and isn't too hard on misses.
There is plenty of room to drive the ball on most holes and there is no housing on Avocet.
Avocet single tees, so you don't have to worry about a double tee, we can get
a 9:30-12:00 tee time, or replays not affects by the PM crossover.

RESTAURANTS: (In no particular order)

Boundary House, Lil Pigs, Jersey Mikes, Firehouse Subs, Clarkes,
Calif Dreaming, Longhorn, Abuelos, Chesapeake House are always good options.

GIOS ITALIAN: The new location is in the old Applebees on 79th ave N.
Their original location in Pawleys has been open for a number of years.
The 79th ave location is nicer more upscale looking. You would never
know what it was before. The menus are the same.
They have a lot of wines also. If you like meatballs, the meatball app is good.

FLAMINGO GRILL: Is fairly big with an interesting look inside.
It suits all tastes with steak, prime rib, seafood, pasta. Try the lobster bites.

DAGWOODS: The location near Barefoot is a lot more than a Deli.
It's a sports bar with a big menu.

THOUGHTS - OBSERVATIONS - INFORMATION:

- Rt 31 has been open down to 707. It may save a little time, but it's only part of the
trip down to Pawleys. It's great for TPC or Blackmoor. It is more relaxing than driving
down 17.

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Art