Pearl Golf Links: 5 Things You Need to Know About the West Course

March 22, 2011

The Pearl features both the East Course and the West CoursePearl Golf Links helped lay the foundation for the North Strand’s explosive growth during the height of the Myrtle Beach golf boom. Dan Maples designed a pair of scenic layouts along the banks of the Calabash River and a host of multi-course facilities followed suit in Brunswick County, N.C.

Here are five things you need to know about the West Course at Pearl Golf Links:

1. Bring Your Driver: The fairways are generous and it’s a links-style layout so there is room for the ball to roam. In the words of head pro Jimmy Biggs, “you have to be doing something wrong to miss a lot of these fairways.”

2. Weigh Your Options: Pounding the driver at the Pearl is encouraged, but so is good course management. The layout offers risk-reward decisions on everything from relatively short par 4s to long par 5s. The choices you make will likely define your round. Here is one word of caution.

“There are a lot of risk-reward shots and some of them just aren’t worth the risk,” Biggs said. “A very narrow chance at birdie could be a big chance at triple bogey. If you are going to succeed and shoot a low number you are going to have to be smart.”

3. Speaking of Risk-Reward: The West Course has five par 5s, including two of the last three holes, and they are mammoth, ranging from 534 to 614 yards long. The West Course is the only Myrtle Beach area layout with two holes that exceed 600 yards. The 614-yard, 14th hole is one of the area’s five longest and No. 16 (604 yards), narrowly missed the list. The eighteenth hole presents players with their final (and most difficult) risk-reward decision. The green is reachable in two, but it takes a great effort.

4. Smooth, Fast Greens: Many Grand Strand courses are understandably moving towards miniverde bermuda grass greens, but the Pearl maintains L93 bentgrass on both layouts, the preferred surface for many visitors.

5. What you will remember: When people take a golf trip they want to play courses they will remember, and the Pearl’s West Course delivers on that account. Beginning with the 15th green backing up to the Calabash River, the final four holes are the layout’s most scenic. Who can forget playing playing two of the longest six holes of any Myrtle Beach golf course during the closing stretch?

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