Shaftesbury Glen- Myrtle Beach’s Top Golfing Experience!

Doesn’t the best golfing experience occur when you go to place that is comfortable, you are engaged by the golf courses and you meet the nicest people? I had that happen to me when I rolled into the Shaftesbury Glen Golf & Fish Club located in West Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on the tale end (I tell tales right?) of my inaugural 5-week, 8-state, 4,231-mile ‘East Coast Golf Journey.’ First of all, I stayed in a Shaftesbury Suite in the Castle Clubhouse right on the golf course. The experience reminded me of Muirfield Village when I stayed in the Jones Villa with the Memorial Garden right outside my door. Not a lot of golf courses offer this option and it is a real treat! I stayed in the Ben Hogan Suite at Shaftesbury Glen.What better way to start a golfing vacation then to be warmly welcomed, then drop your stuff off in your suite and walk a few steps to the first tee? Okay two birdies in the first four holes and a 38 on the first nine holes played is a good start too. I am sold on Shaftesbury Glen Golf & Fish Club and I have not even caught a fish yet!

I met Ryan McCarty, the Director of Operations, at Shaftesbury Golf & Fish Club in the pro shop and later interviewed him in front of the Scottish Castle that is a clubhouse downstairs and five Shaftesbury Suites upstairs. The suites are large! He spoke of owner Paul Himmelsbach and how he caddied as a young lad at Winged Foot Golf Club and brought that type of golf course design to South Carolina. The ownership group of brothers Paul and Jack along with Marvin Arnsdorff started with Heather Glen and Glen Dornoch. Later they converted Himmelsbach family farmland into the Shaftesbury Masterpiece of generous and manicured fairways leading to well-bunkered elevated bent grass greens. Ryan grew up playing golf in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and moved to Myrtle Beach to be in the golf business year round. Though second in the title, the fishing in the Waccamaw River, behind the castle clubhouse is reported to be as good as the golf by golfers and fisherman alike.

CLICK here for a VIDEO INTERVIEW with Ryan McCarty, Director of Operations.

After the early morning interview with Ryan (can you tell I was a bit mellow in the interview?), I headed east to play Heather Glen and Glen Dornoch. To play Heather Glen, named the Best New Public Golf Course in 1987 is an extraordinary experience. The golf is tranquil, surreal and challenging but it is the Scottish charm in the atmosphere that will bring me back there. There’s a sense of connection not only with the game of golf and its history but with people. People like Sam Patrick, a beloved friend of owner Paul Himmelsbach. Paul remembers  Sam and shares his spirit with those of us who never met him with a picture and tribute in the pro shop. Sam, a Scot would great golfers in a full dress kilt and give them a hearty welcome with his Scottish accent. A trip to Scotland with Sam and a visit to Royal Dornoch is what inspired Paul’s second course Glen Dornoch. Sam was part of Heather Glen for over 20 years since it first opened to nearly his passing in 2010. The picture remains and so does his spirit at Heather Glen and across Highway 17 at Glen Dornoch.

I like the plaque on the par-3 4th hole on the White Nine and the memorabilia in the clubhouse for Jim Whelehan’s phenomenal feat. From Rochester, New York he came down on a golfing holiday with the Glens Group and beat all recorded odds by scoring two aces, same hole, same club, same ball, same day on March 1st, 1992. Assuming there were 17 other holes in between the same ball is what is remarkable to me. I played 36 holes in one glorious day (Heather Glen & Glen Dornoch), 8 par-3s and nary an ace. Though I did deuce the long White 8th and par the impossible 17th while being mesmerized by the vast lowlands and the waterway at Glen Dornoch. You know you are good when they have to time stamp your aces on the Hole-In-One plaque in the clubhouse. My consolation prize that day was time stamping my two scorecards. No plaque needed Paul, though tradition has spoken and said “I did the Glens!”

CLICK here for a BEAUTY VIDEO of Glen Dornoch Waterway Golf Links & Wildlife too!

Glen Dornoch is right on the Waterway which is the Intercoastal Waterway, a.k.a “The Ditch” where I call home in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Beauty wise, it certainly is no ditch, rather it is an enticing blue passage that links the Atlantic Ocean to the Waccamaw River. Never more beautiful than the stretch near Glen Dornoch. The golf course immediately adjacent to the Waterway include the 8th green, 9th hole, 16th green and the 17th and 18th holes. As exceptional as those views are, my favorites are from above on the tee on the downhill straight-away par- 5 8th hole and from the elevated fairway of the par-4 16th green. Wildlife is abundant here with deer, squirrels and even a woodpecker (see above video) saying hello to me and making my visit to their home special. You will likely see a cruise ship pass by within pitching distance. Big boats passing by is a bit unusual but the nautical feel definitely enhances the golfing pleasure. The 9th & 18th double green complex sits right out in front of the clubhouse with the Waterway as a backdrop. Don’t miss spending some time rocking in the rocking chairs on the veranda and taking in the million-dollar view.

After some Golf Channel and a restful night of sleep in the suite, I felt inspired to put on my knickers and grad my hickory play set and look for a match. Was it mere coincidence that I met my old (as in long time) Mitch Laurance in the pro shop at Shaftesbury Glen Golf & Fish Club? Or by simple Scottish fate that the golf gods would bring together two lads wearing knickers and brandishing hickory-shafted drivers? No Academy Awards to be given here though the clubs certainly look vintage and deserving like those in The Greatest Game Ever Played. We met and headed to the first tee to put a peg in the ground.

CLICK here for a VIDEO of Hickory Golf played by Mitch & Andy.

Before sailing that feathery down the first fairway courtesy of the Sunningdale Special Express, the voice of hickory golf himself, spoke of his connection to golf history through playing hickory golf. Who can dispute him who yields an authentic 100-year old club created by Jack White same as the driver used by Bobby Jones during his Grand Slam year of 1930.

Sporting my blue and gold checkered knickers I followed the master with a smash of my own. Right down the pretty goes our first tee shots. Hickory golf at its best, two grown men in knickers playing a twosome at Shaftesbury Glen Golf & Fish Club, a.k.a. Hickory Golf Central of the Southeast United States.

I managed to corral the popular golf radio host under a tree for an interrogation of his life, my life and more importantly more insight into Myrtle Beach’s top golfing destinations known simple as the Glens Group—Heather Glen, Glen Dornoch, Shaftesbury Glen Golf & Fish Club and the Glen-less in name only Possum Trot Golf Course.

CLICK here for a VIDEO Interview with Mitch Laurance, Biography & Shaftesbury Style!

If you have ever listened to or certainly if you have ever met Mitch Laurance you know him as an interesting guy with a cadre of looks, voice inflections and stories to quickly communicate his love of life and golf, especially hickory golf. His Curriculum Vitae includes Woodstock, working on production of Saturday Night Live the first five years of the show, including filling in on stage when needed, then moving to LA to become an actor, which is what brought him to golf.

With a twin brother and a younger brother growing up on Long Island he played all sports, especially baseball but never golf. An actor friend relentlessly encouraged him to try golf and he finally gave in. His friend said he would pick him up at six-thirty the next day to go golfing and Mitch’s response was to question the time since it would be getting dark at that time. He was immediately hooked by his inability to get the ball up into the air. He learned how to and after playing in the Crosby Pro-Am for 16 years and being a regular on the celebrity golf circuit he brought his game back east. Once an actor, always an actor, even though he was up and early for hickory golf at Shaftesbury Glen.

Before I left Shaftesbury Glen I met Hugh Royer III, a former PGA TOUR player and renowned instructor. Even though the state-of-the-art teaching facility of the South Carolina Golf Center was still under construction, I was hoping to edge my way in for a “Learn to Golf the Write Way” lesson where I receive needed professional help in return for a featured story about the experience. Understandably that did not happen as father Scott Cleary and his golfing daughter Haley had awaken at 3:45 am over in Lexington, South Carolina and driven 125 miles for a morning of instruction with Coach Hugh. The interaction of student, instructor and father was magical. I could understand why they had come so far as Haley was having fun as juniors in high school do and what I overheard instruction wise seemed brilliant to me. I still don’t understand why I didn’t get priority though, my swing needs a lot of help, her swing looks flawless.

Hugh’s father, Hugh Royer Jr. played on the PGA TOUR for 14 years, coached golf at Columbus State and was the block from which Hugh was a chip. The elder Royer, a member of the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame,  won the prestigious Western Open in 1970 while the younger Royer won the Western Amateur in 1987. Both tournaments were first organized by the Western Golf Association starting in 1899. In all that time only Junior and the Third have been a champion father and son combination. Hugh was giving his lesson to Haley in between phone calls with family about his father’s condition. Son left right after his lesson commitment to be with his father who passed on a few days later after a short illness. Life is like golf, sometimes there is a good swing, a good shot played and then a bad bounce at the end. My heartfelt sympathy goes out to Hugh and the Royer family.

Long ago, sports psychologist and noted author, Chuck Hogan gave Mitch a life tip that has stuck with him ever since—‘How you do one thing is how you do everything.”

With that I will close by noting that the folks at Shaftesbury Glen Golf & Fish Club present an immense golfing experience. Staying in their Shaftesbury Suites in a Scottish Castle within a pitch of the first tee box of an impeccable golf course with bent grass greens is unmatched in the Myrtle Beach area. They did that one thing right. Add Heather Glen and Glen Dornoch Waterway Golf Links and you can image the rest!