Sneak peak at the Members Club golf course at Grande Dunes in Myrtle Beach

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. – Even if you’ve played the Grande Dunes Resort Course, perched mightily above the Intracoastal Waterway in Myrtle Beach, you may not even know there is a second golf club tucked further back within this massive new resort and residential complex.

It’s the Grande Dunes Members Club: an exclusive, member’s-only club, with one exception.

Guests of the Marina Inn, which sits on the waterway right next to Grande Dunes’ Resort course, can tee it up on the Members course and even book golf packages on both courses. Though these privileges are mostly unadvertised, you’ve got access to both so long as you’re at the Marina Inn.

Both courses generally cost about the same. So the question is, should you favor the newer, exclusive Members Course over the dramatic Resort Course?

Well, the two courses, other than being upscale offerings with all the bells and whistles, are entirely different. The Resort Course dazzles the eye with a collection of holes along the waterway, and a championship yardage stretching north of 7,600 yards.

The Members Course on the other hand is a Nick Price design (with the help of Craig Schreiner, who also renovated Pine Lakes Country Club opening March 14th), and the Zimbabwe native wanted it to resemble his favorite courses of South Africa. As a result, it’s a rolling, shot-makers course with a lot of links qualities (right down to the fairways that aren’t overseeded, giving more of a purist look in the winter) and features firm, fast bent grass greens. You want to play approach shots lower to the ground and utilize the landscape a little more than the more target-style Resort Course, especially when the wind kicks up - which is often at Grande Dunes.

“I don’t know what it is,” noted my forecaddie Mike Boaz. “But when the wind is 5 mph in Myrtle Beach, it feels like 15 here.”

It’s also a little more wide open here and there are no houses along the perimeter, so you won’t be nervous about hitting any multi-million dollar villas lining any fairways like on the Resort Course.

But my favorite thing about the Member’s course, after three rounds of golf over five hours long, is that you feel like you have the course to yourself. It’s a country club setting amidst a sea of resort courses. I got around in under three hours and didn’t see another group on the golf course. For those who like scooting around a golf course in no time - it’s worth the price alone. If you don’t need the Waterway views or the over-seeded, green fairways in the off-season, the overall experience at the exclusive Members course is better.

The Members Club at Grande Dunes is an exclusive hideaway from the heavily-trafficked Myrtle Beach courses and is available to guests of the Marina Inn onsite.

Stay tuned to WorldGolf.com for plenty more on my week’s trip to Myrtle Beach, including some photos and a review of the incredibly scenic Oyster Bay Golf Links in Sunset Beach.

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