Waccamaw Golf Trail, Myrtle Beach SC

from 2022 Winter /Spring Golfing Magazine Travel Guide

Hilton Head Island, SC

The Waccamaw Golf Trail Experience Will Show You How, Lowcountry-Style

We love our neighbors along the central and northern parts of the Myrtle Beach area’s 60-mile stretch of “the Grand Strand.” Between its vibrant beach scene, dozens of exceptional golf courses and hundreds of dining, oceanfront lodging, entertainment and nightlife attractions, Myrtle Beach offers an unmatched array of options for enjoying your vacation getaway.

It’s almost dizzying, really, served up at a notably different pace – and with a distinctly different feel – from what you’ll discover a few miles south along the southern shores of Georgetown County, South Carolina.

Here, you get to slow your roll a bit. Catch your breath. And experience vacation life that’s less adrenaline and more a leisurely cruise with the ragtop down.

It’s the Waccamaw Golf Trail, and it’s our little slice of heaven with its own, distinct identity.

It’s part of the Hammock Coast experience, where you’ll find far fewer oceanfront high rises and a more sprawling, breathtaking beachfront. Many visitors forsake highways and cars in favor of a good old-fashioned bicycle and the scenic Waccamaw Neck Bikeway. And you won’t need a chain restaurant when an abundance of familyowned, fine dining options awaits, stretching from Pawleys Island to “The Seafood Capital of South Carolina” in Murrells Inlet.

When it’s time to pick up the tempo, the adrenaline rush will come from striping drives and sinking birdie putts on any one of 11 awardwinning offerings of the Waccamaw Golf Trail, “America’s Most Awarded Golf Trail.”

They include designs that have tested the best players, and represent the top Player. TPC Myrtle Beach, with a five-star rating in Golf Digest’s “Places to Play,” has hosted the best golfers at each end of the golfing spectrum, including the 2000 Senior PGA Tour Championship and the Dustin Johnson World Junior Golf Championship. Wachesaw Plantation East was a four-time LPGA Tour event host in the late ‘90s. And “The Black Knight” himself, Gary Player, boasts his only signature design in the area at Blackmoor Golf Club.

Jack Nicklaus has made an indelible mark on the Waccamaw Golf Trail with his signature design at Pawleys Plantation, which spotlights numerous holes on the back nine where a breathtaking saltwater marsh setting takes center stage. And while we’re in “breathtaking” mode, two offerings from the late, great Mike Strantz (Caledonia Golf & Fish Club and True Blue Golf Club, each among Golf Digest’s Top 100 Public Courses in America) have long been considered must-play inclusions in most Trail itineraries – two distinctly different golf challenges, but each set amid the Lowcountry splendor of Pawleys Island that creates memories of a lifetime.

Brilliant seasonal foliage and centuries-old, moss-draped oaks define Dan Maples’ stellar work at Willbrook Plantation, while Ron Garl’s Tradition Club and Tom Jackson’s River Club each bring adventure through an abundance of holes with natural water settings. And a true

Lowcountry golf experience wouldn’t be complete without including one of its two true originals: Founders Club at Pawleys

Island, an adventurous redesign of the Myrtle

Beach area’s fourth-oldest course (Sea Gull

Golf Club, which opened in 1966); and

Litchfield Country Club, the classic Willard

Byrd track that stands as the elder statesman of South Strand golf with roots dating back to 1964. However you choose to soak in the complete Waccamaw Golf Trail and

Hammock Coast experience, we promise: it’ll come at the relaxed, casual pace and feel that you seek in the ultimate vacation getaway. That’s just the way we like it. And we’re sure you will, too.