There’s MyrtleBeachGolf.com, and There’s This ...
I'm back on Long Island visiting family and friends this week, and they return the favor by giving me attitude. How dare I not bring my golf clubs!
"C'mon, Jim, it would have been like old times," my brother whines. "Bethpage was calling our name."
Ah, yes. Bethpage State Park. Home of the famed Black Course - host of the 2002 and 2009 U.S. Open Championships. Used to live literally right around the corner, and week after week John and I would repeat the Saturday ritual:
- Roll out of bed at 5 a.m.
- Wait for my sibling and fellow knucklehead to show up on my doorstep a half hour later
- Throw the clubs in the trunk, and schlep over to the clubhouse
- Wait for the feeding frenzy of Black Course-wannabees to clear out (you know, the ones that gobble up the available walk-up times they'd camped out in the parking lot since 4 p.m. the previous afternoon to get)
- Settle single-file in line to get an available walk-up time for our twosome, for one of Bethpage's four other courses (whose best phone-reservation tee times were gone within five minutes once they were made available the week before)
- Get lucky, and secure a 7:45 a.m. tee time on the next-best Red Course
- Plunk down our $50 apiece for greens fees and cart (New York State residents' rate; non-residents pay double)
- Play an orderly 4 ½-hour round on a superbly conditioned and ultra-challenging layout (tee off a half-hour later, and we're talking an insufferable 6-hour ordeal)
I recite this process back to John (as if he'd really forgotten it, but I guess he's still a real glutton for punishment).
"Ask me again," I deadpan, "why I didn't bring my clubs."
I'm quick to remind him of my year-round whereabouts on the Grand Strand, and show him the kind of custom daily golf packages available on MyrtleBeachGolf.com. Should he and one of his teaching buddies decide to come down our way instead, and get in a four-round golf trip the last week of August before school's back in session, I show him what's available in a matter of minutes:
- Early tee times (including greens and cart fees) on four premier tracks (Man O' War, Dunes Golf & Beach Club, Willbrook Plantation and King's North at Myrtle Beach National), and four-night stay in an oceanfront suite - perfect for recuperating after these courses bruise his ego and 30 handicap in the morning, and my three young boys playfully pummel their uncle into submission later that afternoon.
- Price per person (including tax): $558.54 - a shade under $140 a day for golf and seaside lodging during the Grand Strand's peak summer season.
Go ahead. Ask him again why he shouldn't bring his clubs!
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