Caledonia Golf & Fish Club

The live oaks lining the entrance to Caledonia have been standing since before the American Revolution, and the drive in takes two full minutes through Spanish moss and filtered Lowcountry light. It is the first signal that this property operates on its own clock. Mike Strantz built the course in 1994 on a former rice plantation along the Waccamaw River in Pawleys Island, roughly 25 miles south of central Myrtle Beach. He died in 2005 at fifty, leaving a small body of work; Caledonia and its sister course True Blue are his two contributions to the Grand Strand. Both rank among Golfweek's Top 100 Resort Courses.

You're playing 6,526 yards, par 70, slope 138. Shorter than most of its peers in the region, with the slope telling the real story. Strantz routed 18 holes through tidal marsh, mature hardwoods, and former rice paddies without a single interior home in sight, which is genuinely rare on the Grand Strand. The opening hole sets the tone: a short par 4 around 350 yards that rewards a placed iron off the tee more than a driver swung in anger. Position over power, precision over distance.

The greens are where Strantz's reputation was built. They aren't large, but they're deeply contoured and often pitched toward collection areas that leave difficult recovery shots. The 12th, a par 3 of roughly 170 yards across marsh, funnels anything short or right into trouble. Play centre-left, accept the two-putt, and don't chase a pin in afternoon wind off the water. The 18th, a par 5 back toward the antebellum-style clubhouse, is one of the more photogenic finishing holes in the Southeast and the contours can turn a birdie chance into a scramble.