I had forgotten how pretty it is on and around the golf course at Heritage Plantation in Pawleys Island, SC.  Live oak trees are to the Low Country of South Carolina as lights are to Paris or skyscrapers are to New York City, and Heritage has these 200- and 300-year old gnarly monsters in profusion.  They are beautiful to look at but horrible to work the golf ball around.

        The design of the circa 1986 Heritage, which is a mile west of Highway 17, the main coastal route through the Carolinas, is often credited to Larry Young, but as one long-time resident of Pawleys Island said, “Trust me, Larry must have had a lot of help.”  Indeed, the guiding hand for Heritage was the prolific Dan Maples, but the inspiration for the golf community came from Young, a developer who was instrumental in helping to put Myrtle Beach on the map as a premier golfing destination.

Even the par threes at Heritage look like doglegs to the right, although the play is directly over the water to the green beyond.

        A bit overleveraged even before the latest recession hit, Young is no longer a major player on the Myrtle Beach golfing scene, but Heritage is a fine legacy for him.  He took great care to keep housing and golf as separate as practical.  You cannot imagine a single live oak having given its life for the sake of the layout, and that could explain the profusion of doglegs around the trees, most of them to the right.  In retrospect, I cannot recall many out of bounds stakes, but I did spray the ball beyond the immediate field of play a few times.  It was tough to find any alleyways toward the green once you were in those trees.

        The putting greens at Heritage are generally enormous and multi-tiered, which makes placement of tee shots important, the more so because the doglegged two and three shotters outnumber the straight ones.  Our threesome, not the straightest hitting group, found very few sand bunkers during our round.  The bunkers that guard the putting surfaces, big and steeped, were more problematical than the fairway bunkers, which played their parts more as framimg than hazard.  The dogleg holes featured sharp angles, almost all favoring a fade, and it was tempting to skirt the trees at the crook of the leg to avoid long approach shots from the elbows.  Three times I had putts of more than 50 feet.

        All those trees tend to affect air circulation, and Heritage’s turf conditions were not quite at peak form yet, or as good as some of the other courses in the immediate area, like the widely praised Caledonia Golf & Fish Club, True Blue  (both designed by Mike Strantz) and Pawleys Plantation, a Jack Nicklaus Signature course.  The greens looked a little “furry” but were deceptively fast.  On one of the largest, I hit to the top level, well above the pin just eight feet below the crest of the green.  I ran my putt along the ridge, stopped it just at the top, and watched it roll 10 feet past.  The greens were fast enough for me.

        Heritage is a gated community just eight miles north of Georgetown, SC, and about 35 minutes from Myrtle Beach International Airport.  Single-family homes range in price from the $200s to over $1 million with views across the marsh.  The semi-private club is open to the public but offers memberships as well.  Using the Myrtle Beach Golf Passport, a $39 discount card that is available to second-home owners and full-time residents in the Myrtle Beach area, my green fees were just $60, which included not only a cart, but also two drinks and lunch.  The “rack rate” for Heritage during the current “high” season is $125.

Live oak trees dominate the scene at Heritage Plantation.

by Tim Gavrich

        Each private club takes on a different atmosphere, its own separate character.  Some are strict golf clubs and are demure, out-of-the-way operations that the outside world barely knows exist.  I think of Palmetto Golf Club in Aiken, SC, as emblematic of this type of club.  Other clubs are larger in scope, with deep membership rolls and lavish clubhouses; they add tennis, swimming, and other sides to the club experience for their members.  Wynlakes Golf and Country Club on the outskirts of Montgomery, AL, which certainly falls into this latter category, does an excellent job of balancing the needs of a family for a rounded communal experience with the needs of a golfer for a challenging layout.

        [Editor’s Note:  The community that surrounds Wynlakes Golf & CC features single-family homes that range in price from the high $200s to $1 million.  If you would like more information about properties for sale in the community or about other golf properties in the Montgomery area, please contact me.]

        Opened in 1986, the course at Wynlakes was designed by Joe Lee, who produced such well-known American venues as the Blue Monster at the Doral Resort and Pine Tree Golf Club, both in Florida, as well as the original Dubsdread course at Cog Hill Golf Club outside of Chicago.  Cog Hill and Doral are annual stops on the PGA Tour schedule.  These Lee designs are known for being solid tests of golf with large, undulating greens and sprawling, many-fingered bunkers.  Wynlakes exhibits these hallmarks of Lee’s architectural style as well.

Scary prospects along the right side of the par 4 5th hole at Wynlakes sends most drives well left.  The green is well guarded and elevated, making approaches from the safer left side especially challenging.  Photos by Larry Gavrich

        As golf courses go, Wynlakes is not particularly difficult from any set of tees.  The tips, at 6,979 yards, play to a rating of 73.3 and a slope of 126.  Although houses sit along one or both sides of most fairways, they are well back, leaving ample room for recovery shots or pitch outs in most cases.

        Wynlakes begins somewhat awkwardly, with a 583-yard par five that doglegs hard to the left around two fairway bunkers.  Even a straight drive may force players to curl their lay-up shot around trees that line the left side of the fairway.  This is Wynlakes' only strange hole, and its transgressions are by no means horrible.

        After two slight dogleg-left par fours, the player encounters the first of four stout par threes.  The fourth hole weighs in at 183 yards from the tips and 158 yards from the middle “Member” tees.  The shot plays slightly downhill, all carry over a corner of A.W. Dale Lake to a deep rectangular green surrounded by grass hollows and bunkers.  A green in regulation on this hole is well earned.

Trees along the left side and near the green at the par 5 starting hole at Wynlakes make a layup down the right side of the fairway mandatory.

        Wynlakes features a good amount of water, but in all but three cases, the player has options to go around or play over the hazards.  Oftentimes, this allows the aggressive players to put their scores at risk in pursuit of an easier next shot.  The sixth hole is an excellent example of this choice.  It is a hard dogleg left around a pond where the player can choose to play to the right of the pond, leaving a mid-iron shot to the green, or directly over it, leaving as little as a half-wedge.  Taking the short route requires a drive that carries at least 250 yards from the back tees.  A ball hit too far left will definitely find the hazard, but a well-executed shot will create a great birdie opportunity.

        Wynlakes’ front nine is long and challenging, but the back nine is more charming and dramatic.  Hole 11 is the longest of Wynlakes’ four par threes and is also the only hole on the course without a bunker, but by no means is it a pushover.  At 202 yards from the back tee box, the long iron plays to one of Wynlakes' largest greens and the one with the boldest contours of any putting surface on the course.  Various ridges and slopes separate the green into three distinct sections.  Playing the hole on consecutive days could demand different club selections, especially if the wind is kicking up, and even different shapes to the shot.  Such variability of play on a particular hole day to day is often what separates the thoughtful designer's work from the mundane.

Bunkering around the 12th green is indicative of the protection designer Joe Lee provides for many of the putting surfaces at Wynlakes.

        The back nine exposes an interesting quirk of the routing at Wynlakes.  After holing out on the par four 15^th, players must walk (or ride, as is most often the case) about 350 yards to the 16^th tee — a journey past the putting green, driving range and clubhouse.  The final three holes are laid out in a triangle — used, no doubt, by members wishing to test out what they’ve been practicing on the range late in the afternoon and evening.  This is the finest three-hole stretch on the golf course.  It begins with a 548-yard par five, a straightaway hole that invites a big swing off the tee.  Trouble awaits on the second and third shots.  The green sits hard by a pond, with bunkers protecting its outer edges.  Depending on wind (which is abundant at Wynlakes) and firmness of the fairways, one might be tempted to try for the green in two, making a wide range of scores (from 3 to 8) a distinct possibility.

        The 17^th changes the pace beautifully at a crucial point in the round.  Many golf courses’ penultimate tests are long par threes with abundant trouble, ready to extract bogeys and worse while making players work hard to save par.  The 17^th at Wynlakes, by contrast, is a mere 136 yards from the back tees — a late birdie opportunity.  But this is not a smart place to relax:  Water bordering the entire left side of the sloping green and a bunker on the right mean a careless swing could easily lead to a big score late in the round.

Wynlakes' massive clubhouse frames and dwarfs the finishing hole while a lake dominates most of the front of the green.

        Like many courses, Wynlakes saves on of its stiffest challenges for its closing hole.  At just under 440 yards from the back tees, it boasts a narrow fairway guarded by bunkers and water with a green that follows through on the theme of protection.  The putting surface is huge but, as at number 11, the bold internal contouring forces the player pressing to end the round on a high note to consider much more than merely finding the green in regulation in order to avoid a crushing three-putt.  The 18^th at Wynlakes provides a solid ending note to a solid golf course.

Winlakes golf by the numbers:

Championship tees: 6,979 yards/73.3 rating/126 slope

Chairman: 6,575/71.1/124

Member: 6,347/69.9/123

Founders: 5,625/66.4/111

Forward: 4,826/68.7/120 (women’s)