Heritage Club: Dan Maples' Pawleys Island Plantation

Where Rice Fields Met Golf

The drive into Heritage Club tells you what kind of round you're about to play. A canopy of 300-year-old live oaks, draped in Spanish moss, leads you toward a Southern Colonial clubhouse perched over the Waccamaw River. The 600 acres you're about to play on used to be the True Blue and Midway rice plantations, and Dan Maples kept enough of the original landscape intact that you'll forget you're in a planned development at all.

Maples opened the course in 1986, and it has been on Golf Digest's list of America's 100 Greatest Public Courses, peaking at #33 in the 2009 edition. From the back tees it stretches to 7,118 yards at par 71 with a 75.3 rating and 140 slope. That's plenty for any single-digit handicap. From the Blue tees at 6,656 yards (73.2/135), the course gives up some yardage but keeps every bit of the strategy.

A Shotmaker's Front Nine

The front side runs through the woods. Maples uses individual trees the way other architects use bunkers, and you'll notice it on the very first hole, where a single oak sits in a position that punishes the lazy fade and the lazy draw equally. That theme repeats throughout the front. The course rewards players who can shape a ball both ways and punishes anyone trying to overpower a layout that was never built for the modern bomb-and-gouge approach.

The par-5 second is a 598-yard test that asks you to commit early off the tee, and the par 4s through the turn keep asking you to find the right side of the fairway rather than the long side. By the time you reach the ninth, you've usually played enough quiet golf to forget what's coming on the back.

Water, Water, and Number 13

The 606-yard 10th, the longest of the three par 5s, opens the back nine and is rarely reachable in two even when the wind cooperates. From there, water enters the round in earnest. Eleven holes have water somewhere in the picture, and two stand out.

The par-3 13th has built a reputation as one of the toughest one-shotters on the entire Grand Strand. From the back, it's a long carry over a lake to a ridged green flanked by pot bunkers. There's no run-up, no bailout, no second chance. You either hit the green or you reload from the drop zone.

The 18th finishes with a peninsula green that turns the closing approach into a heart-rate spike. It's the kind of hole where a one-shot lead in a friendly match can disappear in a single swing, and where a smart player takes the safe pin every time.

Conditions and Pace

The greens are Champion Bermuda. They run true at a moderate speed and hold approach shots, which is welcome on a course where you're hitting longer clubs into so many of them. The fairways stay tight through the season, the bunkers are maintained consistently, and the marshland borders feel wild rather than landscaped.

One honest note: rounds can run long here. With the water carries, forced layups, and yardage, this is not a course you blow through in four hours during peak season. Plan accordingly, and play the right tees. The White tees at 6,310 yards play to a 71.6 rating and 133 slope and are the right call for most golfers.

What's on Site

Heritage Club has a full practice range, chipping area, and putting greens. The pro shop is well-stocked, and the clubhouse restaurant offers complimentary breakfast and lunch with rounds, which is rare on the Grand Strand. Walking is allowed, though most players ride given the spread of the property and the rhythm of the routing.

Should You Play It?

If you're putting together a Pawleys Island or Myrtle Beach trip, Heritage Club belongs on the list. It's one of the courses that explains why this stretch of South Carolina coast became a golf destination in the first place. The setting is serious. The design has held up almost forty years later. And unlike a lot of resort-area tracks, it asks you to actually think about where you put the ball.

Check the full Heritage Club scorecard on Stymie for hole-by-hole yardages, tee comparisons, and rating data before you book.