The Dunes Golf & Beach Club

9000 North Ocean Boulevard, Myrtle Beach, SC 29572

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If you have a Myrtle Beach bucket list, The Dunes Golf & Beach Club should occupy the pole position. A Robert Trent Jones Sr., classic, The Dunes Club was the first course to bring national attention to the area and it remains the Grand Strand’s premier layout.

The Dunes Club is ranked among the nation’s top 100 public courses by Golf Digest, Golf Magazine and Golfweek, and it’s always in impeccable condition. The greens are large, undulating and, without question, the area’s fastest.

Universally regarded as one of RTJ Sr.’s finest courses, The Dunes Club features generous fairways and elevated greens protected by often cavernous bunkers. While the layout doesn’t play along the ocean, it does enjoy a rolling piece of property that offers a view of the Atlantic on the par-3 9th hole.

The Dunes Club is strong from the 1st tee through the 18th green, but the course is most known for holes 11 through 13, a stretch memorably dubbed "Alligator Alley.” Holes 11 and 12 play along a beautiful saltwater marsh and No. 13, otherwise known as "Waterloo,” is the area’s most iconic hole.

A 90-degree dogleg right, No. 13 plays around Lake Singleton and it’s the ultimate risk-reward hole, culminating on one of the layout’s most diabolical greens. Make par here and you will have a story to tell.

But The Dunes Club isn’t about one stretch of holes. This is one of the area’s best courses and it has the history to back that claim. The Dunes Club has hosted six Senior PGA Tour Championships, the U.S. Women’s Open, and the finals of the PGA TOUR’s Q-School (where Ben Crenshaw and Gary McCord earned their Tour cards), among other high-level events.

If it hosts your next golf trip, you are in for a treat.