Summary:
Our Myrtle Beach travel group played Crow Creek in Calabash, NC on Saturday, June 2, 2018. This Rick Robbins design held up extremely well during the 2018 harsh winter and we were met with immaculate playing conditions which was a pleasant surprise. Tropical Storm Alberto had soaked the area earlier in the week and every course we played on was wet and slow except for this beauty. I had an 8-iron approach on the first hole, caught it fairly well and watched it bounce hard from the front of the green to the back. The course’s website advertises V8 bentgrass greens, and these were clearly new, beautiful, and held up very well after the winter.
If you can drive it you can score here but if you are crooked, you’re going to struggle with the ample forced carries over water, troubling sucker pins, and loads of bunkers. After playing a couple holes, the course reminded me of Thistle from a conditioning standpoint, and the visuals on the tee shots, but didn’t have Thistle’s share of wooded parkland routing that they boast on on one of their nines.
Value: (4.25 out of 5.0)
Crow Creek would be considered a middle end play but provides excellent bang for the buck. The combination of perfect conditions and a very reasonable replay rate ($35) make this a must play for your northern end golf packages. We got paired up with one of the local senior players and he indicated the word was out on this course. It was popular with all levels of players (five sets of tees make it playable for everyone) and that became evident when we tried unsuccessfully to book a replay in the afternoon.
Facilities: (4.25 out of 5.0)
The course has a nice clubhouse and full service grill and is serviced by an all grass driving range and two beautiful manicured putting greens. Once on your cart, you travel under a tunnel to the other side of the road where the practice range, large chipping/putting green, and first tee all reside in a nice orderly distance from each other. You buy your range balls ($5.00 for a small bag) at the shed adjacent to the range. The layout makes sense because once golfers are staged in the cart area, they are moved to the other side of the road for warmup and front nine play which reduces cart traffic around the clubhouse. You travel back under the tunnel to play the back closer to the clubhouse.
Customer Experience: (3.75 out of 5.0)
We pulled up to the bag drop and there were a lot of players arriving simultaneously. The cart guys got us unloaded reasonably well but seemed a little harried trying to get everyone saddled up and across the road, with ample time to warm up. A special thanks goes to the gentleman manning the pro-shop counter in the afternoon. After our round we inquired about a replay and he had nothing for a couple hours, but made a call to Sea Trail Dan Maples course and got us on there for the reduced price replay rate of $29. This was a well appreciated effort. The only ding I’ve got is an important one. There were only two fresh water stops on the course. Every track in the Myrtle Beach area should have at least two per nine because of the frequent hot and humid conditions. So carry plenty of water with you from the start.
Overall Rating: (4.0 out of 5.0)
If you are staying in the north at Sea Trail or the Glens Village, you could add this course to a package that included Thistle, and Perl East and West courses. You’d be playing some great tracks on some excellent conditions. Don’t miss out on playing Crow Creek!
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