MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina – Caledonia Golf & Fish Club and True Blue Golf Club, two of the most decorated courses in all of golf-rich South Carolina, have opened 2023 with another national honor.
The Mike Strantz designs earned a spot among “Golfweek’s Best 2023: Top 200 resort courses in the U.S.,” the magazine’s annual ranking of the nation’s premier destination layouts. Golfweek’s panel of experts evaluated courses from coast to coast and when the scores were tallied, Caledonia was ranked No. 49 and True Blue was No. 85.
“We are delighted to be ranked among America’s 100 best resort courses by Golfweek,” said Bart Romano, the director of golf operations at both layouts. “This honor is a testament to the design work of the late, great Mike Strantz and the staff at both courses, who work tirelessly to ensure Caledonia and True Blue exceed the expectations of golfers who travel from across the country to play.”
Strantz’ first solo design, Caledonia helped put the man who came to be known as “The Maverick” on the road to golf course architecture stardom. Carved from a stunning piece of Lowcountry land, the course winds through centuries old live oak trees draped in Spanish moss and has been one of Myrtle Beach’s best since it opened in 1994.
With those historic oak trees framing many holes, Caledonia is a shotmaker’s course, rewarding an intelligent brand of golf. The layout’s creativity and beauty reaches a crescendo on the unforgettable, par 4 18th hole, which demands a carry over water to a green that resides in the shadow of the course’s acclaimed clubhouse.
True Blue is a much more muscular design, featuring some of the area’s widest fairways, massive greens and expansive waste bunkers. The breadth of the layout provides ample latitude, especially with the driver in hand, but playing to the proper spots off the tee and on the approach is vital to success.
Mike Strantz earned his reputation as a maverick because of a willingness to buck conventional wisdom and that trait is on full display at True Blue, which is home to five par 5s, five par 3s, and a hole that features two greens. That diversity and the ability to control the nature of the challenge via how the course is set up are at the heart of True Blue’s considerable appeal.
On the web: CaledoniaGolfandFishClub.com, TrueBlueGolf.com
Leave a Reply