County Rankings / South Carolina
The Best Golf Courses in Horry County, South Carolina
Horry County is Myrtle Beach, which means this ranking has to survive an argument no other county in America faces: volume. Forty two courses are on the county list, from a 1927 original to four courses that opened on the same resort property in the same year. Most Grand Strand golf is package golf, sold by the foursome and the condo week. A few courses rise clear of that economy. We score the golf first, then the day, then what it costs you, and the state context is in the South Carolina ranking.
1Dunes Golf & Beach Club
Robert Trent Jones Sr. designed it, opened in 1948, with play in 1949, and it is the course that made Myrtle Beach a golf destination. The par 5 13th, Waterloo, doglegs sharply around a lake and is its signature hole. It hosted the Senior Tour Championship and PGA Tour Q-School finals in its history. Rees Jones has done renovation work on his father's design. It is semi-private, a member club with limited outside play windows, and it is consistently ranked the top course in Myrtle Beach and top five in South Carolina. Every other course on this list exists in a market this one created.
2Tidewater Golf Club
Designed by amateur architect Ken Tomlinson, opened in 1990 in North Myrtle Beach, and named Best New Public Course in America by Golf Digest and GOLF Magazine on opening. It is built on a peninsula between the Intracoastal Waterway and Cherry Grove Inlet. Nine holes play along water and marsh, and the par 5 13th has an Atlantic view. It ranked among America's top 100 public courses in its early decades and again in recent re-ratings. An amateur architect producing the county's second best course is the Strand's best design story.
3Barefoot Resort Dye Course
Pete Dye, opened in 2000 at Barefoot Resort in North Myrtle Beach, the only semi-private course among the Barefoot four. Waste bunkers and bulkheaded water hazards throughout, a closing stretch compared locally to TPC Sawgrass's finish, and host of Golf Channel's Big Break Myrtle Beach. Dye at the beach, at premium Barefoot pricing, is the sharpest test most visitors will ever book here.
4Prestwick Country Club
Pete and P.B. Dye together, opened in 1989 in the Surfside end of the county. More than 1.3 million cubic yards of earth were moved to build its Scottish style berms and bunkers. Over 7,000 yards from the back tees, Dye bulkheads and deep bunkers throughout, semi-private with membership and package windows. If the Dye course at Barefoot is the famous one, Prestwick is the connoisseur's pick from the same family.
5Pine Lakes Country Club
Robert White designed it, opened in 1927, the first golf course in Myrtle Beach, known ever since as The Granddaddy. Scottish born White was a PGA of America president, and local lore ties the club to the founding meetings of Sports Illustrated, held at Pine Lakes in 1954. Craig Schreiner restored it in 2021 to its classic character. Public and semi-private access. History alone would not rank a course fifth in this county; history plus a proper restoration does.
6Grande Dunes Resort Course
Roger Rulewich, Robert Trent Jones Sr.'s longtime associate, designed it, opened in 2001. Seven holes play along the Intracoastal Waterway in a bluff top setting, and the par 3 14th drops from a high tee along the waterway. Ranked among Myrtle Beach's top public and resort courses, at premium pricing. The waterway holes give it the best scenery on the Strand's resort tier.
7Barefoot Resort Love Course
Davis Love III, opened in 2000, one of the four Barefoot courses that arrived together. Its signature is a recreated plantation house ruin behind the 4th green. Consistently ranked among South Carolina's best public courses, with wide fairways and large greens in Love's playable style. Playability is a ranking virtue here, not a compromise: this is the Barefoot course a mixed handicap group can all enjoy on the same day.
8Legends Resort Heathland Course
Tom Doak, opened in 1990, one of his earliest courses. A links style design modeled on British and Irish courses, rare in Myrtle Beach, wide, firm, and open by Grand Strand standards, and a cult favorite among architecture fans. It sits at value package pricing at Legends Resort, which makes it the best architecture per dollar in the county by a wide margin.
The honest tail: much of the remaining list is solid package golf, Gene Hamm and Dan Maples courses that do their job for visiting foursomes, plus two historical entries, Possum Trot, closed in 2019, and Waterway Hills, closed in 2015, which belong in the record but not in any current ranking. The Strand sells abundance. These eight sell something better, a reason to come back to one specific first tee, with Waterloo bending around its lake at the top of the list where it has been since 1948.
The beach bench itself is ranked in our Myrtle Beach town ranking, where the resort courses make their case.