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The first hole at Lundin Links is everything Golf Odyssey says it is, one of the best starters int he world.


    This is the time of the year that many publications take a deep breath, meaning they cut and paste from their dozen or so issues during the year and spit out a special "best of" or "review" issue.  Ironically, the most faithful subscribers feel a bit cheated with an issue that repeats what they read just a few months earlier.
    Subscribers to Golf Odyssey, which reviews golf vacation destinations, should not feel cheated at all with

Kingdom of Fife golf's most glorious neighborhood?  Right on!

their publication's 2008 in Review issue, the December edition.  Editors David Baum and Craig Better treat their readers to an offbeat and entertaining grab bag of odds and ends they encountered during their excursions around the world in the prior 11 months.  Consider the Irish caddie who transposed an 8 and 6 in calculating yardage, and then admitted to dyslexia after his player's iron shot wound up 20 yards short.  Or how about the noted golf course designer the boys happened upon while he was raking a trap on one of his layouts in the Caribbean?  
    Golf Odyssey tempers the offbeat with serious disquisitions on golf courses they have played around the world; and where my own trips have taken me to places they have reviewed, I can only say they are spot on.  Although I might have played a better opening hole than their favorite opener of the year, at Scotland's Lundin Links, I can't recall one; and their description of the hole and its glories match my own vivid and fond memories.  And to their comments about the surrounding Kingdom of Fife being the "most glorious golf neighborhood," I second that emotion.

    The year end issue also includes a comprehensive list of "platinum" places to play arranged by categories with which most golfers will identify, not just "top 100" or the like.

    If you are a traveling global golfer, or want to feel secure about that expensive impending trip to Pebble Beach or Pinehurst, consider seriously a subscription to Golf Odyssey.  I like it because, like me, David and Craig travel anonymously, paying their own way for accommodations, golf and food.  And like Golf Community Reviews, they are unique in that they review objectively the courses they play, never accepting any promotional fee or other consideration that might color their opinions.  You can trust their judgment, and in this world of Madoffs and Blagojeviches, that is worth more than the modest subscription price.  Click here for the Golf Odyssey sign up page.

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    Upon our arrival on Saturday in Pawleys Island, SC, we were greeted with the news that the Wedgefield Plantation golf course had closed, the owners filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.  I reviewed the course here in 2007 (click here for article). 
    Wedgefield, never rated near the top of Myrtle Beach's long roster of golf courses, nevertheless was sporty and fun to play.  More importantly, it

The southernmost golf course on the Grand Strand of Myrtle Beach has moved 10 miles north, with the closing of Wedgefield Plantation.

anchored the very southern end of the Grand Strand.  A classic low country course with magnolias and dogwoods and ponds that played host to non-bashful but friendly alligators, Wedgefield was located 10 miles from Pawleys Island and the vaunted Caledonia, True Blue, Heritage and Pawleys Plantation, as well as the totally revitalized Founders Club, formerly Sea Gull Plantation.  Wedgefield's adjacent affordable homes were priced at 50% of those in the "plantation" golf communities of Pawleys Island.  Wedgefield was a place for golfers on a budget to live the golfing lifestyle.

    When Wedgefield first opened in 1974, just at the beginning of the golf course explosion, Myrtle Beach offered around 35 courses, and Wedgefield found its way onto the list of courses open to package players down for a long weekend or buddy-golf week.  But by the late 1980s, the Strand had become oversaturated with courses, topping the 120 mark.  Today, the number is 95, and only the financially strong and well located survive.
    Sadly, Wedgefield was not one of those and now finds itself in the dustbin of Myrtle Beach golf history along with Robbers Roost, Marsh Harbour, Beachwood, Deer Track, Bay Tree Plantation and half of the four courses at Wild Wing, all among the two dozen or so Myrtle Beach area courses that have closed since 2005.  Add to that list Winyah Bay, the only other course in Georgetown and which, for a few years, held the distinction of furthest southern course on the Grand Strand.  It closed in 2005.  Efforts to sell lots and build homes on the former course have fallen well short of expectations, and four years later, just a couple of homes have been built there.