Golf on historic rice plantations of South Carolina for a special treat.
By Joan Ewart
Plan your next golf vacation just 20 minutes south of Myrtle Beach!
Nothing could be finer...
Just a few short miles south of Myrtle Beach South Carolina, well known for it's 100 plus golf courses, you'll find Georgetown County, a monument to the fine tradition of the southern way of life. Tradition reigns supreme even to this day as many families have been there for 175 years or more. You'll find the same names in the All Saints Cemetery on King's Highway that belong to the movers and shakers of today. The people behind those outstanding golf courses that are #1 on your "hit" parade.
Believe me you'll find golf in this area...and perhaps the best golf to be found in the Myrtle Beach area. One of the oldest golf courses in the area is Litchfield Golf and Country club, now we know that many of you have heard of or even played golf at Litchfield, or perhaps played it's sister course, River Club, but did you know that both of these outstanding courses exist on what was once a rice plantation extending from the Waccamaw River to the Atlantic Ocean. Litchfield Plantation came into being approximately 1794 and a plat from that time shows an Avenue of Oaks and a house with two chimneys at either end, today you can still see that house, totally renovated and offered as a wonderful Bed and Breakfast Inn, with an adjacent restaurant aptly named The Carriage House Both are totally steeped in the charm of a another day, elegant and authentic in detail, intimate and very special.
In the same area of Litchfield Beach is a fine old plantation, Willbrook, that now boasts 3 beautiful golf courses that include Willbrook and The Tradtion,(part of the Myrtle Beach National stable of courses) and The Reserve, a relatively new private course.
Play golf on such outstanding courses as Caledonia (voted the "Most Beautiful Golf Course"). We believe you'll agree when you drive down that long avenue of old oaks with Spanish Moss to the clubhouse and the now fallow rice fields, that it is indeed a baurtiful site. Caledonia is on the site of "Waverly Plantation" circa 1750 and in continuous ownership by the Allston and Lachicotte families. Robert Allston was Governor of South Carolina from 1857 to 1859 and his papers for expenditures for his rice plantation from 1834 to 1857 survive to this day, but as was the case with many wealthy planters of the day, the Allstons lost much of their fortune as a result of the economic turmoil of the Civil War. Philip Lachicotte bought Waverly Plantation in 1871. Waverly Mills rice was famous and in fact won a Gold Medal in the 1902 Charleston Exposition, but by 1911 the rice culture was totally dead in South Carolina. True Blue Golf Club is also in this section of Pawleys Island and a monument to the old plantations of yesterday. If you look closely, when you play golf at these golf courses you may spot Doc Lachicotte having lunch in the clubhouse.
Gracious southern plantations abound in this area, names like Brookgreen, Hobcaw Barony, (home to Bernard Baruch in the early 19th century), and Wachesaw date well back to antebellum times. Brookgreen is now the site of Huntington National State Park and Brookgreen Gardens, floral and sculpture garden without peer.
Wachesaw Plantation, backing up to Brookgreen Plantation has it's own abandoned rice fields, but today is an outstanding Tom Fazio private golf course and residential area. It is the most thoroughly researched plantation in the area. Archeologists dug and sifted for 3 years marking slave cemeteries and Indian burial grounds. The original plantation house setting on a bluff overlooking the Waccamaw river burned about 1890. In the section known as Richmond Hill there are remnants of a Revolutionary Fort with outline of old trenches still visible. You can play this wonderful golf course when you buy into some of our outstanding Myrtle Beach golf packages.
We wanted to give you food for thought the next time you go to play golf in Georgetown County just south of Myrtle Beach. It's an ideal place for a golf vacation, with your foursome or your family. You can absorb the histroy and ambiance of a long ago past, even as you play the outstanding golf courses. For more information about the area and the golf...visit www.myrtlebeachgolfsecret.com - you will truly discover the secret behind golf in the Myrtle Beach area.
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About the author:
Joan Ewart, an artist, a writer and world travler, devotes many hours to authoring and maintaining major travel web sites. Publishes many articles on travel spots around the world. You'll find this article and be able to book a Myrtle Beach golf vacation at www.myrtlebeachgolfsecret.com
