County Rankings / South Carolina
The Best Golf Courses in Georgetown County, South Carolina
Georgetown County is the south end of the Grand Strand, the Waccamaw Neck, and it holds the Strand's best golf per mile by a distance. Seventeen courses sit on this list, most of them in Pawleys Island and Murrells Inlet, many built on former rice and indigo plantations under old live oaks. Two Mike Strantz designs face each other across one road; a Dye, a Nicklaus, a Norman, and a Fazio all hold ground here. We score the golf first, then the day, then value and access, and the public golfer wins this county, because the top of the list is bookable. The state picture is in the South Carolina state ranking.
1Caledonia Golf & Fish Club
Mike Strantz's first solo design, opened in 1994 on a former 18th century rice plantation in Pawleys Island, routed through a canopy of centuries old live oaks. The par 4 18th plays over water to a green set in front of the clubhouse porch, and it is the Grand Strand's signature finishing hole. Caledonia is ranked among America's top 100 public courses with a consistency that has survived three decades of new competition, and peak fees around $150 to $200 are high for Myrtle Beach and low for what the course is. Intimate, shaded, exact: the county's best.
2True Blue Golf Club
Strantz's counterpoint, across the street, opened in 1998 on a former indigo plantation: very wide fairways, huge waste areas, and large greens, a scale borrowed from Pine Valley and Pinehurst rather than from its sibling. Golf Magazine has put it on its Top 100 Courses You Can Play. Where Caledonia whispers, True Blue talks loudly, and the argument over which Strantz is better is the county's best bar debate. This ranking gives Caledonia the nod on finish and atmosphere, and True Blue the golf at full volume, one place behind.
3TPC Myrtle Beach
Tom Fazio's design, with Lanny Wadkins consulting, opened in 1999 in Murrells Inlet as part of the PGA Tour's TPC network. It hosted the Senior Tour Championship in 2000 and now houses the Dustin Johnson Golf School, a pipeline that keeps its practice and conditioning standards at tour level. The par 5 18th along water is its signature. Public access at premium Murrells Inlet pricing. The most polished resort product in the county.
4Pawleys Plantation Golf & Country Club
Jack Nicklaus's 1988 design, where the back nine leaves the trees and plays out into the salt marsh to island style greens. The short par 3 13th, played into the marsh wind, is the hole the county photographs, and the closing stretch is all marsh views. Its status is private with semi private and package access, which is why a Nicklaus this good sits fourth rather than first: access counts in our scoring, and the three courses above it can be booked by anyone.
5DeBordieu Club
The hardest card in the county: Pete and P.B. Dye's 1987 Lowcountry links in the private DeBordieu Colony, par 72 at 7,146 yards with a 75.5 rating and a 145 slope. It has hosted the Carolinas Mid-Amateur and U.S. Open Local Qualifying. On difficulty and Dye pedigree it belongs higher. On access it belongs here, private beach community golf that most golfers will only hear described.
6Heritage Club
Dan Maples's 1986 design on a former rice plantation, with giant live oaks, a plantation cemetery on the property, and an avenue of oaks at the entry that is a Pawleys signature image. Ranked among the Grand Strand's best public courses for decades and part of the Legends Resorts group. Heritage is the county's traditionalist choice, and its placing says the tradition still plays.
7Reserve Golf Club of Pawleys Island
Greg Norman's 1997 private design in the Litchfield Reserve: par 72 at 7,151 yards, rated 73.9 with a 140 slope. Long, stern, and private, the Reserve is the county's members' examination, ranked below the Dyes on pedigree and below the public courses on access, respected by everyone who has played it.
8River Club Pawleys Island
Tom Jackson's 1985 design puts water on 15 of 18 holes, an island green par 3 at the 14th, and an 18th played over water. Jackson was a prolific South Carolina architect and River Club is his longtime Waccamaw Neck favorite, a public and semi private fixture that package golfers have trusted for forty years.
9Blackmoor Golf Club
Gary Player's only Grand Strand design, from 1990, built on a former rice plantation in the Wachesaw area of Murrells Inlet: par 72 at 6,614 yards, rated 71.1 and 126. The singularity of it, Player's one entry in a market where every other major name built repeatedly, gives Blackmoor a distinction its yardage alone would not.
10Litchfield Country Club
Willard Byrd's 1966 design, among the first courses on the Waccamaw Neck, a classic shorter Lowcountry layout under the oaks with public and package access. Litchfield is the traditional counterpart to the modern Pawleys designs, and its tenth place is a judgment that the moderns passed it, not that it faded.
The next group is honest middle and back of the list golf. Founders Club, Thomas Walker's 2008 rebuild on the old Sea Gull site, brings sandy waste areas and rimless bunkers to a public course. Indigo Creek, Willard Byrd's 1990 Murrells Inlet design, plays 6,747 yards with a 140 slope as the South Strand's value play. Tradition Golf Club, Ron Garl's 1996 design with its island green par 3, is a popular mid tier package course. Georgetown Country Club, a nine hole private club in Georgetown, is the county seat's small golf. Wachesaw Plantation Club, Wedgefield Plantation Golf Club, and Willbrook Plantation Golf Club complete the 17; their verified records were not in hand, so they close the list as a group rather than with detail we cannot stand behind.
Seventeen courses on one neck of land, two Strantz designs across one road, and a Dye, a Nicklaus, and a Fazio within a few miles. The oaks were here first. The best of this golf finally lives up to them.