Myrtle Beach Golf News

Competition, camaraderie and the opportunity to play under PGA Tour-like conditions are just a few of the reasons more than 3,000 people from across the globe flock to Myrtle Beach every year to compete in the Golf.com World Amateur Handicap Championship.

But chief among the tournament’s allure, especially for new players, is the quality of golf courses participants get to play, and the 2010 event, which will be held August 30-September 3, has the strongest course lineup in the Golf.com World Am’s 27-year history.

Fifty-five Myrtle Beach area courses have committed to host the event (which is now accepting entries), and 37 of the 55 have earned four stars or more and 11 of them have earned top 100 honors in the last three years.

Tidewater, King’s North, Grande Dunes, Leopard’s Chase, Glen Dornoch, Rivers Edge and True Blue are just a sampling of the courses that will again return to the World Am rotation. (View a complete course list)

“The Golf.com World Amateur Handicap Championship takes great pride in making sure players get to play some of the nation’s best courses,” Dave Macpherson, the tournament director, said. “The experience on the golf course is at the heart of what makes this event special and the participation of Myrtle Beach’s best courses is a big reason why.”

The two biggest additions to this year’s lineup are the Love Course at Barefoot Resort and the TPC-Myrtle Beach, which will be hosting all four days of the tournament.

The Love Course, which has been ranked among America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses, is hosting the tournament for the first time, joining the other three layouts at Barefoot as part of the World Am team. The Love Course has been one of Myrtle Beach’s most popular courses since it opened 10 years ago, and is famously home to the faux ruins of an old plantation home.

The TPC is a former host of the Senior Tour Championship and unquestionably one of the area’s best. The home course of PGA Tour star Dustin Johnson and one of only 17, 5-star layouts in America, TPC will significantly enhance the World Am’s course lineup.

The World Am is a 72-hole tournament that is open to all golfers – young and old, male and female – with a verifiable handicap. Players are separated by age and gender – there are six different divisions – and placed in tightly grouped flights based on the game’s most comprehensive and accurate handicap system.

Each flight, which includes approximately 48 players, plays a different Myrtle Beach area course everyday and after four rounds, all flight winners and ties advance to the World Championship Playoff on Friday at the famed Dunes Golf & Beach Club.

Thanks to its handicap system, the World Am provides players the opportunity to compete on a level playing field, something the list of past world champions bares out. Players with handicaps as low as two and has high as 34 have hoisted the winner’s trophy.

While competition is an integral component of the event, it’s far from the only attraction. Each night players gather at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center to enjoy the World’s Largest 19th Hole, the event’s social hub. The World’s Largest 19th Hole provides three hours of free food from some of the area’s finest restaurants, free top shelf drinks, live entertainment and a golf expo that features instructional clinics from some of the game’s leading names.

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