By Joe Derus, NorthMyrtleBeachOnline.com

JULY 27 Little River, SC July ― The Glen Dornoch Waterway Golf Links is located just off Route 17 not too far north of the Little River Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway bridge and South of the NC/SC border.

Contrary to the elegant Gaelic-sounding name of Glen Dornoch the course staff is easy going and quite friendly - reflecting the traditional highland hospitality of the course from which it derives its name. The Dornoch name is from a Royal club formed in 1877 located in Sutherland, Scotland.

As you walk up you can hear in your mind’s ear “Ceud mile failte!” That's Gaelic for "A Hundred Thousand Welcomes!" In fact the only better greeting would have been handed some “Scottish Brew” as a summer quencher. The staff is quite proud of their course and rightly so.  
   
When Myrtle Beach Golf Directors arranged our tee times to play Glen Dornoch, to say the least, I was quite excited. I had heard this course is something special, quite beautiful and difficult to play. I am happy to say it exceeded all my expectations, including the difficulty.  Bring a few extra balls, lots of patients and sound judgment when playing this course.

Amid surroundings of old live oaks, pines, and magnolias, I asked our foursome to give me three words to describe this course.  Beautiful, well-maintained and challenging seemed to be the consensus.

Beauty…Lets talk about the beauty first. Even waste areas and wetlands are beautiful on this course and there are many of them. The course follows the natural terrain of lakes, centuries-old live oaks and spectacular marsh, river and waterway views.

If you do not stop once or twice to view a yacht going up the waterway or appreciate something that is unusual for a coastal course - a 35 foot elevation change - you are losing out on this course’s natural beauty of 270 acres of oaks, pines and magnolias.

The splendor of this course is the number one attraction for me. When you get a day like I had - bright sun reflecting off the waterway, a breeze blowing at your back, and playing with good friends – it just makes the day perfect.

Well-Maintained… One gets spoiled playing golf in the North Myrtle Beach area because most of the courses around here are in good form. Most in the area understand that the golf industry is not the same as it was 10 to 15 years ago where course owners could expect "build it, and they will come."  More than just growing grass, now the competition focuses upon the complex management of providing great turf conditions.  It's about creating a playing environment for our golfers to enjoy time and time again, to rave about well after they've left the 18th green.

Good shape, however, hardly describes the superb condition of Glen Dornoch. They do it well - you get the feeling the course has just been closed for a few weeks to get it into top condition.

Glen Dornoch is that way all the time. I do not know how they do it, but you will not be disappointed with the condition of the course.

Challenging…. Golf is one of the few games where the venue makes all of the difference.  You can be a winner there and a loser here – trust me, I know!
 
I love golf because of the level of challenge the course itself brings to my game.  Some courses favor power drivers, with long par fives, tall trees, and greens isolated by water that are just out of your reach.  Other courses require a strong short game with topography that can take a ball every which way except backward on its way to the cup.

Right up front the starter tells you that to get the maximum enjoyment of your game, play from the tees according to your handicap: 0-5 Black, 6-9 Blue 10-25 (most people) White and 25+ Gold.  Since I ranged from 22 to 26 I decided to go with the gold, and I was doing well for the first 14 holes. I then decided I should move back to whites to stop the verbal abuse I was getting from my group.

Play this course to your handicap, because the final three holes will add to your handicap or bring you back to reality quite quickly.

Number 16 par 4, 371 yards (white tee) is one of spectacular beauty. Your tee shots should rest at the top of the crest of the hill. Hitting it too far will result in a severe down hill lie or in a fairway bunker. It is about 211yards to the crest of the hill from the white tee.  The second shot is 160 to the green. Keep the yardage book close at hand as it explains how this and each hole should be played.

However looking at number, 17 a par three 164 yards in the book it looks simple. Just get the tee shot over the water. What the book doesn’t show you is that a tree blocks your tee shot or the bunkers that are 25 feet above the green and the height of the marsh grass that eats low trajectory tee shots alive. How this hole can be considered the number 16 handicap is beyond me.

Number 18 is a par 4, 367 yards. Here a tee shot of only 161 yards is needed to carry the wetlands. This sounds reasonable enough, yet just be slightly off line left or right and you are in the wetlands.

You can go up the right side fairway to avoid the marsh but your second shot becomes longer to the green. Don’t worry if you roll over the cup on 18.  You may wind up on the 9th green as this is a shared green with number 18. 

All of the greens are smooth but difficult to read and they break odd ways… Isn’t that what all high handicappers say?
 
Glen Dornoch was designed by Clyde Johnson in a tribute to the legendary Donald Ross. Since its opening in 1992, the course has been awarded numerous awards including Golf Digest’s Places to Play ++++ ½ star rating. Our group rates it five stars for Maintenance and Challenging and off the scale for Beauty. For the best tee times contact MyrtleBeachGolfDirectors.com