Myrtle Beach Golf News

Myrtle Beach golfers are ready to feel the Love again and Barefoot Resort is accommodating.

The Love Course, which closed for a month in the wake of a wildfire that ravaged parts of Horry County in late April, is reopening on June 1. The Love Course has been ranked among America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses by Golf Digest and is one the Myrtle Beach area’s most popular layouts.

The course escaped the fire without any damage but had to be closed for the reconstruction of a bridge that linked the 16th tee and fairway. The layout crafted by Davis Love was playable as soon as the fire was extinguished but beyond repairing the bridge, Barefoot officials wanted to make sure visiting golfers received the same level of experience they have come to expect.
 

“We’ve completed the bridge on 16 Love and we are ready to get everybody out there again,” Jeff Diehl, Barefoot’s director of marketing, said. “We are very excited. (People) are itching to get out there. The phones won’t stop.”

The course wasn’t affected but the woods surrounding several holes were burned, so while the bridge was being repaired, Barefoot took the opportunity to remove dead trees. The removal of the trees opened up the course and will allow air to better circulate through the property, which should benefit the already outstanding bentgrass greens.

Barefoot is home to four high-end golf courses that opened simultaneously in 2000. The Norman and Dye courses were unaffected by the fire, but like Love, the Fazio Course, which was just named one of America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses by Golf Digest, had to be closed in the fire’s aftermath.

The Fazio layout is scheduled to reopen on July 1. The Fazio Course also managed to avoid the fire’s wrath but a 570-foot bridge linking 12 green to 13 tee was destroyed and its reconstruction will take a little longer. Trees that were damaged by the fire are being removed on the Fazio Course as well.

Golfers returning to the Love Course this week (and Fazio next month) can expect to find a superbly conditioned layout. Both courses have been maintained as if there were open, and the greens have been aerified and are in impeccable condition.

“Nobody has been out there for a while so the course has been groomed and groomed and groomed,” Diehl said. “It’s going to be perfect. I can’t wait to get back out there myself.”
Starting Monday, the wait will be over.

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