TPC wins state honors; Colonial Charters agreement reached

Tim McDonald,
Contributor

Myrtle Beach, S.C. - The Myrtle Beach Tournament Players Club has been named the 2005 South Carolina Golf Course of the Year, beating out courses from across the state, including Charleston and Hilton Head.

The award, given by the South Carolina Area Golf Course Owners Association, places emphasis on contributions to community and the game of golf, as well as considerations such as quality of the course layout, maintenance and management. The Myrtle Beach TPC course is not ranked in the Top-25 of South Carolina courses by Golf Digest.

It becomes the fifth Myrtle Beach-area course to win the state award since it began in 1996. The others are Myrtle Beach National King's North, Arrowhead Country Club, Tradition Golf Club and Wild Wing Plantation.

Only one Myrtle Beach area course has won national course of the year: The International World Tour Golf Links won it in 2003 despite the fact it did not win the South Carolina award.

Colonial Charters reaches agreement

Colonial Charters - the owner of the Colonial Charters Golf and Country Club golf course and homeowners reached an agreement that will apparently keep the course intact while adding 335 housing units. The agreement was approved by the Horry County Council on Nov. 29.

Course owner Mike Matheny and homeowners had been at odds since Matheny first tried to redevelop part of the course to make way for housing, a trend that has become all too common at the Grand Strand in recent years, and one which infuriates many residents of golf communities.

Matheny submitted a plan to the Horry County Commission this summer that called for as many as 300 condominiums to be built. Two holes, the practice range and the clubhouse would have been affected. But the plan stalled because it ran into opposition from neighborhood residents and because it would have required re-zoning. Matheny then supplied a sketch draft, according to Myrtle Beach Online and others, that would close the back nine holes for single family housing. That plan, would not have required a zoning change.

Residents were angry and concerned.

"You close the back nine of a course, you've just signed the death warrant for that course," said Dee Weiss a resident of Colonial Charters and a realtor. "When those nine holes close, what are those of us who bought homes or condos surrounding the course now looking at? We're looking at weeds."

Weiss said she and others expected Matheny to propose a scaled-down alternate plan from the original, eliminating a hotel and six three-story condo buildings at the entrance to the neighborhood.

"We expect future development," Weiss said. "We've learned to live with it here in Myrtle Beach where construction is absolutely monumental - but none of us expected to see our property values plummet on the loss of a golf course."

The new plan is a compromise that has appeased both sides.

• The Grand Strand has lost a media tournament considered an institution. The Golf Writers Association of America will not hold its tournament next year in Myrtle Beach, due to the fact that the Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday marketing cooperative withdrew its support.

Golf Holiday Vice President and Director of Marketing Bill Golden told Myrtle Beach Online the organization is pulling its support because the 51-year-old event occurs during one of Myrtle Beach's busiest seasons, the spring, and because public relations and marketing people were mainly attending, instead of full-time golf writers.

"The types of participants have changed," Golden said. "It's not the golf writers any more. It was not an event for golf writers, it was a networking event. To host a media event, you have to have media people."

Also, the 2005 Myrtle Beach Open, a tournament that pitted club professionals from Horry, Georgetown and Brunswick Counties, has been cancelled.

December 14, 2005

Veteran golf writer Tim McDonald keeps one eye on the PGA Tour and another watching golf vacation hotspots and letting travelers in on the best place to vacation.