From Coastal Carolina’s now regularly ranked football squad to its basketball programs to a baseball team that won an NCAA Division-I national championship in 2016, sports fans have reason to flock to the Chanticleers.
It’s no shock that many of them explore the teal in conjunction with some golf.
Five courses near CCU’s Conway campus are easy choices just a few miles away. A round in the morning and athletics competition in the afternoon or evening aren’t just available; they’re easy.
These are the five properties who allow that to happen.
SHAFTESBURY GLEN GOLF & FISH CLUB – 11.6 MILES FROM CAMPUS
Due to its location, Shaftesbury is considered a true Conway locals’ golf course, despite its age. The Clyde Johnston track opened in 2001 and has already restructured a couple times over. The most recent switcheroo happened right around the same time Coastal was winning that baseball national championship. Shaftesbury moved to Sunday Bermudagrass greens and added some 250,000 square feet of waste bunkers – an alteration that made this English countryside course even more unique.
MYRTLE BEACH NATIONAL – 4.6 MILES
While Shaftesbury pushes the envelope in terms of distance from CCU, a Saturday afternoon round at National (pictured right) during the fall will allow players to still hear the cheers from Brooks Stadium. The King’s North, SouthCreek and West courses were opened in the early 1970s, a decade before CCU went DI in most of its sports (the Chants added football in 2003 as a Football Championship Subdivision team before moving to FBS in 2017). This is arguably the most popular multi-course property in the entire area for a reason, as the Palmer design group did wonders with all three tracks.
WILD WING – 2.8 MILES
On April 1, 1993, Wild Wing debuted a four-course layout. The approach was a little ahead of its time for that neck of the woods on the western edge of Carolina Forest (the area didn’t blow up for another 10-15 years). It was eventually scaled back to the 18-hole Avocet Course and accompanying nine-hole Hummingbird tracks in lieu of the property boom of the early 2000s. Absolutely none of that takes away from what Avocet provides. The straight-line layout is a quality example of golf that takes you away from it all amid a beautiful environment.
BURNING RIDGE GOLF CLUB – 2.1 MILES
Much like Wild Wing, Burning Ridge (top photo) utilized an addition by subtraction strategy when it closed down one half of its then-36-hole property in 2005. The Gene Hamm layout stuck with the old East Course and re-branded itself as an option for package play more than its first two and a half decades of operation. What remained is an ultra-playable track where Coastal fans making a quick trek into town for a football game or baseball series can sneak in a round in the morning and be sitting at the sports complex for an early afternoon kickoff or first pitch.
GENERAL JAMES HACKLER COURSE – 0.0 MILES
Once known as Quail Creek, Hackler is the working model of the Professional Golf Management program at CCU – as well as the turf management students at neighboring Horry Georgetown Technical College. That youthful enthusiasm is felt in every aspect of customer service, and some 11 years after the rebranding and partnership agreements, the on-campus Hackler Course draws a staying power from the affiliations.
