Tidewater a tricky treat; Lots of Love at Barefoot

By Gord Montgomery (iG)

North Myrtle Beach, SC - When you travel you want to play the best courses you can, As it turned out, the courses in this part of the Grand Strand area got the best of me.

The Tidewater Golf Club is one of those unimposing setups that can catch you by surprise, especially if you underestimate its tough greens. While the fairways here are wide the greens themselves make up for that by providing a number of false fronts and subtle breaks.

There are a number of memorable holes here, including a couple of the par-3s and a pair of interesting short par-4s.

The best of the short holes has to be the 12th, known as the Wishing Well, where, if you hit your tee shot like I did into the wind, and at sea level, you wished you had played one more club. Or even two more.

Yes, there really is a green back there, although this tee shot on No. 12 at the Tidewater Golf Club is an imposing one but when you make par, or even a bogey, you can walk away with your head held high.

That tee shot has to carry the lowland marsh area on this 152 yard test and with the ball going into a long, but narrow green well protected by a phalanx of bunkers, this is anything but an easy hole.

As for an interesting par 4 hole, the one called Tar Kiln proves you don't need to be stretched out to well over 400 yards to be tough. In fact, with this one coming in at an even 300 yards off the white tees, it looks like a birdie hole from the get-go. That is, of course, if you get your ball on the green in regulation and don't land it in one of the big bunkers that front the putting surface, or worse yet, tug the shot to the left side of the green. There, the bunker sits about 30 feet below the green which calls for a huge swing - and a lot of luck - to land anywhere near the green, let alone close to the hole.

This is a courses set in amongst a housing development but with a difference - you know the homes are there but they are set well enough back from the fairways to let you swing away without (too much) fear of smacking one. However, interestingly enough, the homeowners are nice enough to let you retrieve your ball from their premises, if you can reach it without setting foot on their property (I didn't get to try this out firsthand, so I just have to believe what the starter told me).

This hole on the back nine is a short par 4, but again, accuracy off the tee and with your approach shot are key to success as all sorts of trouble awaits a wayward volley.

From the tips this course measures out at just over 7,000 yards, but since it's at sea level, the whites which were used on this day, with the wind up, played to a fairly tough 6,300 yards.

The only downside to this course, which would be a great one to walk, is that that idea is spoiled  by the huge distances between greens and tees. In fact, some of those cart rides from Point A ti B seemed so long you wondered what the fare in a taxi would have been and if it would have equalled the green fee paid to play on this day. Well, probably not, but you get the idea.

That aside, this track has received great acclaim by notable publications, including being the only course ever to be honoured as the Best New Course by both Golf Digest and Golf Magazine.

So I guess their raters weren't bothered by those lengthy and possibly expensive cab fares.

Lots of Love for Davis

As one of four courses in the Barefoot Resort area, the Davis Love III course is seen by many as the top track among the layouts also designed by Pete Dye, Greg Norman and Tom Fazio. In fact, the foursome was so popular this fourplex was named as the 2017 North American Golf Resort Of The Year.

The Love Course at Barefoot Resort is said to be the most popular of the four-course layout, and from the first tee box, it's easy to see why.

The Love track is yet another one with large, generous landing areas but you often find your approach shots are into several false-fronted greens that are said to have much in common with those found at Pinehurst #2.

One of the interesting things about this course, and the other three, are the grasses used. There is a mixture of Tif-sport Bermuda for the approach areas; the greens are a newly acquired Champion Ultra Dwarf and the rough is seeded with 419 Bermuda. Not sure what all that means but it seems to work as the Love course on this day was in immaculate condtion.

The Love namesake is more of a links-style layout than its brothers, with a number of waste areas scattered. While there isn't a lot of water it is there so you can't just whale away without caution. The greens, while large, don't have a lot of undulation to them so if you can hit your putts straight, which I seem to have trouble doing, you can score well here.

The Love Course offers up a glimpse of the past, with a reconstructed ruins of a Plantation home from the Deep South.

One of the most interesting holes on this 7,000 yard layout from the tips, or just over 6,000 off the whites, is the short par-5 13th. At only 484 yards from the back, and 447 off the whites, it would seem like easy birdie pickings. That though is belayed by the fact the fairway is split down the middle by water with the longer route being down the left side. Then, to top things off, the  green is elevated making for a great risk-reward hole.

And if you're unsure whether this is enough of a course to test  your game, just remember it hosted Golf Channel's Big Break, so that in itself should be enough to ensure you a challenge on this Davis Love III grand design.