Myrtle Beach Golf Buzz Challenges The Thistle
In this installment of the Myrtle Beach Golf Buzz, Blair O'Neal plays one of the Grand Strand's most underrated courses, Thistle Golf Club. The 27-hole North Strand facility is a tribute to the original Thistle Golf Club in Scotland and features one of the most memorable clubhouses on the Myrtle Beach golf scene. A Tim Cate design, Thistle has mounded fairways, natural water hazards, and deep bunkers. Thistle has emerged as one of the area's most popular tee times, and Blair provides a close up look at why. Enjoy the ride as Blair plays the 4.5-star course.
Blair O'Neal, host of The Myrtle Beach Golf Buzz visits The Thistle Golf Club. Presented by Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday – www.golfholiday.com.
See all news about Thistle Golf Course
TRANSCRIPTION: Blair O'Neal: Hi, my name is Blair O'Neal, host of the Golf Buzz
presented by Myrtle Beach Holiday. Today I'm at the beautiful Thistle Golf
Club and today we're going to go inside and speak to head golf
professional, Gene Weldon.
So, I've made my way into the member's room at the Thistle Golf Club and
I'm with Gene Weldon. Thanks for having me today.
Gene Weldon: My pleasure, been looking forward to this.
Blair: So can you tell us a little bit about the Thistle Golf Club?
Gene: Well, we're located in Sunset Beach, North Carolina. We have 27
holes. Definitely a Scottish flavor. The wind pretty much always blows here as the Scots say,
nay wind, nay golf. So they get plenty of golf in when they come here. The
course itself, a lot of stacked sod bunkers, a few pot bunkers, but it's
wide open. You can really get away with hitting it a little bit crooked
maybe but the greens make up for it.
Blair: Play the low shot.
Gene: Oh yeah.
Blair: On the low end.
Gene: But they're very undulating and fun to play.
Blair: You know, I think it's really interesting, most golf courses have
their tee time spread out nine minutes apart and here you guys do it a
little bit differently, right?
Gene: We do. We have twelve minute tee times, basically what that means to
the golfer is when you're on the first tee with 12 minute times, the group
in front of you is putting out and leaving the green so what that means is
when you get to the second tee, you don't run into the same people that you
just saw. They're on the green down the way. So it spreads it out and
allows the golf course to play maximum four hours, four hours and fifteen
minutes on a busy day. But even a busy day with twelve minute tee times is
not really that busy.
Blair: Yeah. And I imagine it would make it a little more relaxing pace of
play.
Gene: Definitely.
Blair: And I hear that there's a family that's presently living on the
golf course, a family of Bald Eagles?
Gene: We do have a family of Bald Eagles. I've been here about seven and a
half years now and there was one, now there are four. So, we're assuming
it's mom and the boys or the boys and girls, I'm not sure. But we have
actually seen four of them in the air at one time.
Blair: Really?
Gene: And it's quite a sight.
Blair: I bet. I know it's a Scottish layout and inside we have a Scottish
feel to the club house and inside the bar there's an imported bar that's
actually physically imported from Scotland, correct?
Gene: It came out of a little hotel bar up in the northern highlands of
Scotland. We added to it, but you can still the original bar and the dings
in the top of it from all the beer mugs that have been on it.
Blair: Play golf, go inside, have a drink and the specialty drink here I
hear is Scotch. You have a good selection.
Gene: You can pretty much, if it's sold in the United States, the single
malts and the blends, we pretty much have every single one.
Blair: So the Scotch lover this is the place to come.
Gene: Oh, certainly.
Blair: So I hear there's a lot of history here around the golf course.
Gene: We're actually named after the original Thistle Golf Club. It was in
Leith, Scotland. It's not longer there. It was formed in 1815 and we have
the majority of the artifacts on display in the club house, the original
documents for the club, people that had written in. We have them dated
1815, 1818. It's neat to look at if you've never seen the Scottish hand
writing back in 1815, it's absolutely unbelievable.
Blair: Well I took a look and I thought it was really interesting. What
other courses, where are you going to see something like that? So it was
definitely something you guys have that's one of a kind.
Gene: That's true.
Blair: It's not something any other course have.
Gene: No, that is definitely true.
Blair: Yep. And as far making a tee time, how do we go about making a tee
time out here?
Gene: GolfHoliday.com.
Blair: Okay.
Gene: Just go straight to them, or to your package provider through the
hotels, or you can call us direct.
Blair: Sounds good. Thanks so much for having me. The course was amazing,
the clubhouse was amazing. I'm definitely going to come back and play some
golf here soon.
Gene: Sounds great.
Blair: I'm Blair O'Neal and thanks for watching the Golf Buzz. To book
your tee time go to GolfHoliday.com
