Category: Golf Travel

A few friends and I went to Myrtle Beach this weekend to play the Grande Dunes golf course. Driving into Myrtle Beach was interesting for several reasons, including the abundance of tourist paraphernalia and shops, almost Vegas style lights and billboards, and strip clubs. In addition, it wasn’t very crowded because it’s still winter and the weather was terrible all weekend. We were supposed to play one of the three courses at the Legends, but got rained out.

But regarding the golf, there were so many golf courses to choose from! We chose the Grande Dunes after checking out all the various packages available. There are really an abundance of golf packages to the Myrtle Beach area. If you do a google search, you’ll find numerous websites and vacation companies to serve you. Call a few and see what the deals are in your price range. You can find packages at all different prices. We ended up staying in a three bedroom condo-style room at Long Bay. Despite the terrible weather and winter season, there were a good amount of people roaming the halls of the hotel. The room was nice and clean. The staff were very nice, although busy. And we had a beautiful view of the beach. There were people on the beach even in the cold, rainy 45 degree weather. It was a plus that the pool was indoors. All-in-all, I would recommend this hotel and stay there again.

The Grande Dunes was gorgeous. The people were nice and very helpful. It’s a nice layout that is kept in very good shape. The course is forgiving with a only few trouble spots where you’ll be hitting over a waste bunker or water. The fairways are wide with the exception of only a few holes. The distances are good and tees go all the way up to 7,618 yards from the back tee and has a rating of 77.3 and slope of 142. It’s also won several awards such as Golfweek Magazines Americans Top 100 Residential Courses in 2005. The locals all know it and some said they thought it was the second best course in Myrtle Beach. Given the rain that we saw that weekend, I can say with certainty that the drainage on the course is fantastic! We were expecting cartpath only conditions, but were told to scatter and were able to drive to our ball on all fairways! That was very helpful, especially with the GPS machines installed in our carts.

We had a great time in Myrtle Beach, despite the weather. We would’ve liked to play more, but we had a great time regardless.

I’ve golfed Las Vegas several times and it is always a treat. This trip we played at Painted Desert. The course was very well taken care of, the fairways were narrow, and the price was right. Las Vegas golf can be expensive, but this was a good bargain. It wasn’t a long course, but fun with some challenging tee shots nonetheless. The greens weren’t the truest I’d seen, but they had some decent speed and you must approach them fairly high to keep the ball from running off the back.

The drive was a short 20 minutes off the strip and not too confusing. We pulled up and saw a surprising amount of people on the practice tee and putting greens for a supposed off season. Of course, we all know that spring and fall are perfect times to play golf in Las Vegas. We were paired with some nice playing partners although one was a definite betting man and really wanted to take someone’s money.

One of their signature holes was the very nice 187 yard par three #8 with water on the left, which makes it challenging as well as aesthetically pleasing. On the 277 yard par 4 #14, I drove the green, which is always fun…yeah, like I do that all the time…whatever

Anyway, I liked the course and I liked playing in Las Vegas as always. I wasn’t even hungover from the night before…