Over the last four days, I played four excellent golf community courses in the Myrtle Beach area, all in South Carolina, that were fun to play and in nice condition. And, like most golf courses along the Grand Strand, they are accessible to the public. Homes beside the fairways of the four layouts are a mix of single-family and condominiums and, in general, they were priced at the low end of the local scale. If you are okay sharing your golf course with traveling visiting golfers and locals, you will pay appreciably less for a home than in the half dozen or so private golf communities of Myrtle Beach.
        The four, in order of play, were Pawleys Plantation in Pawleys Island; Tidewater in Little River, SC; TPC of Myrtle Beach in Murrells Inlet; and Willbrook Plantation in LItchfield Beach. Pawleys Plantation features a Jack Nicklaus golf course with a split personality between its two nines: The front nine layout threads its way between large bunkers and live oak forests, whereas the back nine runs mostly along the marsh that separates the community from the island and Atlantic Ocean beach, one of the nicest on the east coast. Condominiums are currently selling as low as $184,900 and single-family homes from $265,000.
        Tidewater was designed by the relatively unknown Ken Tomlinson, but don't think that it is in any way inferior as a layout. It is perennially one of the best reviewed and most popular courses on the Grand Strand. Located just below the North Carolina state line a couple of miles inland, it features impressive reviews of marsh, inlet and the beaches beyond. Single-family homes at Tidewater start at $230,000.
        TPC of Myrtle Beach is part of the network of TPC courses throughout the nation, and members of the local course have access to many of the other clubs. The gentleman I was paired with at the TPC course was over the moon at what he said was the best bargain in golf in Myrtle Beach, just $1,500 per year in dues. The course is one of the more challenging by Tom Fazio but characterized, for the most part, by the designer's large, cloverleafed trademark bunkers. Although some areas of the fairways were a little thin, the greens were in nice shape, although not cut on a day where temperatures reached well into the 90s. TPC sits inside the community known as Prince Creek, which features a number of different neighborhoods. Condos are priced from $150,000 and single-family homes from $220,000.
        Willbrook Plantation is located along a two-mile road that is home to two other golf courses, including Tradition Club and the private Reserve at Litchfield. Surrounded by plenty of marsh, Willbrook can become a bit damp after typical Low Country downpours, but on the day I played it, it was dry as a bone, although the Bermuda rough was sticky and tough to emerge from. Willbrook is the only community in which no homes are for sale under the price of $449,000, but it is a nicely landscaped, mature and gated community with a fine golf course at its center.
        If you would like more information on any of these communities or on the many golf community options in the Myrtle Beach area, please contact us.

        Zillow, the online real estate resource, has published a list of the best cities and towns to buy a vacation home with golf as a major activity. In order to qualify for the list, 15% of the area within five miles of a town must include golf oriented homes. (Zillow ranks the towns also by other activities, including large bodies of water, like oceans and lakes; amusement parks; historical sites; and national parks.)
        Zillow ranks vacation towns on a range of attributes, including price to rent ratio, median home value, median rent and a home value 12-month forecast, and rolls them all into one "Second Home Index" on a scale of 1 to 100. The coastal town of Calabash, NC, rates a perfect 100 on that scale.

Calabash, NC, tops the list
        I know Calabash for two things, its indigenous approach to frying sea creatures and the number of golf courses in the immediate area. The frying substitutes cornmeal for flour in coating the seafood. As for the golf, we count 135 holes of golf with a Calabash address, most of them located adjacent to real estate. All available for public play, they include 27 holes at Brunswick Plantation and 36 holes at The Pearl. The others include Meadowland and Farmstead, close to each other and part of the same group; Carolina Shores; and Crow Creek. The real estate in most of these communities is bargain-priced, with a mix of multi-unit buildings and single-family homes. Overall, Zillow indicates that the median home price in Calabash is just under $96,000.
        Brunswick Plantation, for example, is a sprawling 1,200 acres and includes 1,200 single-family homes and 800 multi-unit dwellings. Of the 60 homes currently listed for sale in Brunswick Plantation, condos begin under $60,000 and single-family homes from $181,000. Crow Creek condos begin at just $114,000; the least expensive single-family home currently for sale is 4 bedrooms, 3 baths priced at $340,000. A relative few number of lots are still available in these communities for those who would like to design their own homes.

Big Cats anchor Sunset Beach golf offerings
        Sunset Beach, NC, just north of Calabash, also rates highly on Zillow's index of vacation towns with a golf orientation, no doubt owing to the presence of a few golf communities with multiple courses. Ocean Ridge's collection of golf courses, known as the "Big Cats" because they are named Tiger's Eye, Leopard's Chase, Panther's Run and Lion's Paw, provide 72 holes of golf inside the gates of a popular golf community. Sea Trail, another local golf community, adds 54 holes, Sandpiper and Thistle Golf Club add another 27 each, and the unique Oyster Bay, which features oyster shell faces on some of its greens, kicks in another 18. If another complex, Angel Trace, had not closed for business recently, Sunset Beach would equal Calabash for golfing excess.
        Ocean Ridge features only single-family homes, with prices starting at $340,000. There are also more than 100 lots still available at prices starting around $16,000. Prices in Sandpiper and Sea Trail are generally lower, Thistle, which is a much smaller community than the others, generally higher.
        Other towns in Brunswick County, NC, show up on the Zillow list, as do plenty of towns in Florida. You will find the Zillow list of golf vacation home towns if you click here.