Go deep! Five big-hitting Myrtle Beach golf courses

By Brandon Tucker,
Senior Writer

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If you like big fairways and a lot of dogleg lefts, head to King's North at Myrtle Beach National. (Courtesy of Myrtle Beach National)

Some golfers just can't leave driver in the bag, even on the tightest, tree-lined, O.B.-filled fairway.

For those free-swinging big hitters who never saw a fairway their driver didn't like, we present five Myrtle Beach golf courses where, from the back tees, you'll have plenty of opportunities to hit the big stick, and the phrase "iron off the tee" isn't in the vocabulary.

Grande Dunes Resort Course

To put your long game to the ultimate test, head to the championship tees at Grande Dunes Resort, Myrtle Beach's longest track at over 7,600 yards (plus five additional sets of tees if your hubris can be controlled).

Designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr.-apprentice Roger Rulewich, there's a good amount of fairway on most holes to swing away, just beware there's loads of out of bounds and natural wetlands.

Championship tee yardage: 7,618

Barefoot Resort, Love Course

Of the four signature courses, the Barefoot Resort's Love Course is the most free-swinging of the bunch with the most appetizing landing zones.

Along with two very reachable par 5s in two, the fourth hole plays under 300 yards from the championship tees, so swing for the fences here and use the recreated slave quarter ruins behind the green as a backstop. The fun just begins once you reach the greens here, enormous in size and ultra-smooth bentgrass greens.

Championship tee yardage: 7,047

King's North at Myrtle Beach National

The fairways are generous at King's North at Myrtle Beach National, and what's even better, is that it's easy to find your ball in the pine straw if your tee ball finds the Carolina pines lining the holes (though there's plenty of water to navigate, especially on each par 3).

If you play a right-to-left ball flight off the tee, you'll especially love King's North, which has plenty more hook holes than fade holes, including the delightful par-4 third hole that you can drive from the tee (so long as you carry over 230 yards from the tee).

Championship tee yardage: 7,017

True Blue Plantation

It's reputation as one of Myrtle Beach's most penal courses (due largely to Mike Strantz-designed imaginative green complexes) often overshadows the fact True Blue Plantationhas some of the widest fairways on the Grand Strand.

The catch, however, is there's practically no rough here, so if you miss fairway, you're in waste bunker. Even so, it's almost always a good decision to hit the big stick - and there are even five par 5s at True Blue.

Championship tee yardage: 7,062

Shaftsbury Glen Golf & Fish Club

This 2001 Clyde Johnston design is the most straightforward off the tee of the Glen Golf Group courses. There's a lot of turf out there, and on most holes, even if you find the woods, you'll be able to hit a rescue shot out.

And you'll want to blast your drives as close to the green as possible, because Shaftesbury Glen Golf & Fish Club's A.W. Tillinghast-inspired greens and splashed, deep bunkers are the true defense to what appears to be an easy course from the tees.

Championship tee yardage: 6,935

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August 24, 2009

Brandon Tucker is a Senior Writer and Special Projects Editor for the WorldGolf.com Network, where he contributes not only golf and travel articles, but photo essays, videos and more. His golf travels have taken him across the U.S., including more than 50 Myrtle Beach-area golf courses, and to such destinations as Scotland, Wales, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany and Malaysia.