My wife and I finally got around to two large boxes of newspaper clippings we had saved beginning around 1985, when we moved to Connecticut from New York City. Most of the clips were restaurant reviews of local establishments or recipes from the weekly food columns in the Hartford Courant. But buried among them were a few articles about vacation real estate. And as the sweep of history tends to demonstrate, the more things change the more they stay the same – well almost.
        A Hartford Courant piece on "Investing" dated August 25, 1990 touted one expert's choice of "hot spots for second home" in its headline and focused on the Bend-Sunriver, OR, area and Steamboat Springs, CO, as well as ski areas Killington and Sugarbush in Vermont. But for those who prefer beaches to snow, the article said, three waterfront towns received high marks – Amelia Island, FL; Marco Island, FL; and Myrtle Beach, SC.
        We haven't visited Marco Island, but by reputation, it is both a highly prized and highly priced suburb of Naples, which sports a wider range of housing options. (Note: In the 1990 article, the real estate expert noted a two-bedroom bungalow villa priced at $60,000; things have changed a bit in 25 years.)
        We have a much better feel for Amelia Island and fancy ourselves somewhat expert on the subject of Myrtle Beach, where we have owned a vacation golf condo in Pawleys Island for 15 years and where we made our first golf trip in 1969. Amelia is a resort, about 20 minutes from Jacksonville and close by the charming seaside town of Fernandina Beach. Resident club members have to fight visiting golfers for tee times at the resort courses, but Longview, the Tom Fazio designed course that is essentially private -– resort guests have some privileges -– is a wonderful alternative. After some financial difficulties at the onset of the recession, the resort is now owned by the Omni Group which seems to be steering a steadier course.
        Back in 1990, according to our retrieved article, Myrtle Beach had actually benefitted by the destructiveness of 1989's Hurricane Hugo, the insurance-backed repairs having helped to "spruce up and modernize many condominiums that frankly needed it badly." A quarter century later, many area condos could use an additional rehab, although we wish for no devastating hurricane as a fixer upper. The fact is that, given Myrtle Beach's reputation (and reality) as primarily a golf vacation destination, the area has been slow to snap back from the recession that began around 2008. Of course, that represents a buying opportunity for those looking for either a vacation home for a few weeks a year or a year-round golf-oriented condo or single-family home. We are perpetually confused and miffed at why flights to Myrtle Beach from the Northeast consistently cost three times as much as flying to Charleston, 90 minutes (by car) farther south. If Myrtle Beach's town fathers ever get their act together and cajole the airport authority into solving the cost of flights in and out and other image issues, Myrtle Beach could be a "hot spot" again. Until then, bargains abound.

Myrtle Beach Area Golf Communities to Consider

        The Myrtle Beach area stretches from Georgetown in the south to the South Carolina/North Carolina border on the north end, a distance of about 60 miles. Given that the area boasts 100 golf courses, Myrtle Beach could be one of the densest golf destinations in the world. For those who choose a vacation home in the area, the number of private clubs are outweighed by daily fee and semi-private clubs about 95 to 5, making membership in any one club almost superfluous –- as does the consolidation of golf club ownership in the area. A member of the National Golf Management group of courses, for example, has more than a dozen golf courses at their disposal for deeply discounted prices and a nominal annual membership fee.

Pawleys Plantation, Pawleys Island, SC

Jack Nicklaus 18-hole semi-private golf course
Mix of condos, townhomes and single-family homes
Prices range from low $100s to $1 million
65 minutes to Charleston airport, 40 minutes to Myrtle Beach

DeBordieu Colony, Georgetown, SC

P.B. & Pete Dye 18-hole private golf course
Single-family homes from $500,000
60 minutes to Charleston airport, 45 minutes to Myrtle Beach
Note: Only beach in gated community on SC coast
The beach at DeBordieu Colony is the only one on the South Carolina coast behind the gates of a golf community.

Reserve at Litchfield, Litchfield Beach, SC

Greg Norman 18-hole private golf course, owned by McConnell Golf
Villas, cottages and single-family homes
Prices range from $400K to $1 million-plus
Note: Member accessed beach 1 mile away

Wachesaw Plantation, Murrells Inlet, SC

Tom Fazio 18-hole private golf course
Cottages and single-family homes
Prices from $200k to $1 million-plus
Note: Beach, "Restaurant Row," hospital w/in 5 minutes
The par 3 7th at Tom Fazio's Wachesaw Plantation is one of the toughest one-shotters on the entire Myrtle Beach Grand Strand, with no bailout opportunities for the faint of heart.

Legends Resort, Myrtle Beach, SC

Three golf courses by Doak, P.B. Dye & developer Larry Young
Single-family homes from low $300s.
Note: Hoping bagpiper still plays every late afternoon.

Grande Dunes, Myrtle Beach, SC

Schreiner/Price 18-hole "Members" golf course
Rulewich 18-hole "Resort" golf course
Single-family homes from $330K
Note: Just to west of Intracoastal Waterway but within a mile of ocean.
The Intracoastal Waterway slices its way through the Myrtle Beach area, providing both hazardous scenery for golfers at Grande Dunes' Resort Course.

Barefoot Resort, North Myrtle Beach, SC

Four golf courses by Fazio, Love III, Dye and Norman
Condos and single-family homes from $200s
Note: Davis Love course features "ruins" behind 4th green

Note: There are dozens more golf communities in the Myrtle Beach area to fit every price range and style of play. Please contact us for more information or to build an itinerary of golf community visits in the area.

        If you read the headlines of some of the top business magazines and newspapers in the U.S. this past year, you might have gotten the impression that the game of golf is on life support; that devoted golfers are dying off, that they aren't being replaced by millennials (18 to 34), that the recession that began in 2008 simply hastened the sport's demise, that Tiger Woods' growing irrelevancy on the PGA Tour eroded any slight lingering interest in the sport, and that the lack of new golf community development is a strong signal that no new golf courses will be built again...ever.
        That is all sensationalist drivel. Certainly, the overbuilding of golf courses through the '90s and into the '00s created an unsustainable supply, and the 100-plus courses we have lost annually in each of the last few years is a reaction to that. But just like the demise of chains

like W.T. Grant and Kmart did not signal the end of retail and the vaporization of Eastern Airlines and Pan Am did not predict the end of air travel, a relative few golf courses that could not compete with stronger better managed clubs does not imply the end of golf. On the contrary, only the strong survive.
        The above media-induced myths are easily dispatched:
        Baby boomers have begun the re-migration South that was stalled by the recession. Many of them, during their earning years, were casual golfers, grabbing a round during company outings or charity fundraisers but never wanting or daring to spend time away from family on the weekend. That is hard to do when you are cheering –- or coaching -– your kids on the soccer fields. But in retirement, there is no such Hobson's choice, and many boomers are engaging with the game. The clubs in the golf communities we follow are all reporting modest to significant increases in the number of golf club memberships, spurred further by lowered initiation fees and such innovative programs as "legacy" memberships (children and parents of members are members in their own right without payment of additional initiation fees or dues).
Baywood Greens on the Delmarva Peninsula is just a few hours from population centers in the Northeast. The golf industry should spend less time apologizing for its shortcomings and more on touting the availability of the game and how its handicap systems makes it fair for all.
        As for millennial disinterest in the game of golf, that is just not true, according to the National Golf Foundation, which indicates that 25% of all golfers, or 6.2 million, are members of the 18-to-34 year old age group. I have personal, albeit anecdotal, evidence of young persons' interest in the game. Our son is now 25, squarely in the millennial group, and much of his free time is spent on the golf course. He was a competitive junior golfer and a collegiate golfer, and I attended many local and regional tournaments with him that included hundreds of other junior golfers. There were thousands more competing nationally and many more thousands who played recreationally, as I did when I was a teen. Did they all give up the game when they graduated from college? The interest that is stoked at a young age does not evaporate, even given the challenges of new careers and tight budgets. Interestingly, according to NGF, the millennial group spends about $5 billion per year on golf fees, equipment and clothing.
        The media has always overstated the influence of Tiger Woods on golf's popularity. Just as professional baseball has flourished well after Babe Ruth's passing, golf was enormously popular before Tiger Woods joined the PGA Tour in 1996 and it will survive as he becomes just another player. Golf's issues are more about marketing than about anything inherent in the sport. Clever though they were, the past year's series of ads under the title "While we're young" were strategically dumb, an advertisement to those who might take up the game that wasted time awaits and a reminder to the rest of us that good 4 ½ mile walks are indeed spoiled if they take more than four hours. Better to advertise that golf is the only real sport (except, perhaps, bowling) in which you can have a lot of fun competing against yourself when no one else is around; and when you have the opportunity to play against another human being, golf's handicap system provides the most even of playing fields. (Unlike tennis, for example, where competitors of differing abilities will be bored silly.) This democratic nature of golf should be hammered home to potential golfers -– that they need not fear an imbalance of ability when the pro matches them up with, say, a 15 handicapper. Golf needs to stop apologizing for its shortcomings -- and for the perception that it is a "rich" man's sport -– and start promoting its inherent fairness to all players. (Note to the golf industry: Maybe hire Lindsay Vonn to compare the waiting times for a day of skiing and golf.)
        New golf courses are scheduled to open in the coming few years, giving further credence to the sport's viability. But it is true that many of the most publicized newer courses –- like the famed Bandon group on the Oregon coast and the upcoming Cabot Cliffs, which will join Cabot Links in a remote area of Nova Scotia –- are financially and literally out of reach of most middle-class golfers. And even new golf community courses, like Esplanade outside Naples, FL, will only appeal to those able to pay $700,000 and up for a single-family home in the community. Those responsible for promoting the game should work to divert some money into more aggressive promotion of reasonably priced golf, as in Myrtle Beach, Hilton Head Island, even the courses in the Pinehurst area that aren't part of the famed resort there, many that are good and reasonably priced (and for those seeking a golf home, located in nice golf communities).
        A good weekend of golf is closer than many folks think. There are a couple of dozen golf courses, for example, on the Delmarva Peninsula, just a ferry ride from New Jersey and well under six hours from Manhattan, that do not get their fair share of play and yet are challenging and reasonably priced, as are nearby hotels and resorts. (Long Neck, DE's beautiful, well-conditioned and challenging Baywood Greens, for example, charges less than $40 for green fees between now and March, cart included.)
        Golf isn't dead. It is just waiting for a proper wake-up call.