5 Reasons to Start Playing Golf

Thousands of people all across the world enjoy the sport of golf, but if you are new to the idea or just starting out, perhaps you would like to know the benefits of taking up this fabulous sport. There is nothing like waking up early in the morning and heading to one of the beautiful North Myrtle Beach golf courses, the greens bathed in golden sunshine, as you step out of the car and head off for a day of golfing. So, here are seven reasons you should either start, or continue, golfing.

1. Relaxation: Everyone needs some time for resting, relaxing and rejuvenating, especially in today’s crazy busy world. Being outside on a North Myrtle Beach golf course is a great way to relax and take advantage of South Carolina’s deliciously warm weather as you enjoy being out of doors. Resting is an important part of life and golfing is an excellent way to incorporate it into your routine.

2. Social Life: With so many people loving to golf, it is easy to become part of a great golfing community. Gather with old friends or make new ones as you delve into this incredibly fun sport.  Golf is a wonderful way to connect with people, as you enjoy spending time together, playing a sport everyone can enjoy.

3. You are Only Competing with Yourself: For lots of people the strain of heated competition against other people is not what they are looking for. Sports can quickly turn from fun to frustrating when competition is the only goal. If this sounds like you, then look no
further than golfing for a great sport where the only person you have to compete with is yourself.

4. Young and Old: Golf can be enjoyed by everyone. From summer camps for kids and teens at the North Myrtle Beach golf courses, to competitions for the seasoned pro, golf is a great way to get the family together and spending time with each other. Grandparents and grandchildren alike can enjoy learning and playing golf. A great sport for the entire family.

5. Being Outside: With so much of our days spent crammed in offices, sitting behind computers, drumming on keyboards, stifled by white walls and small elevators, it is important to carve out time for being outside enjoying the beauty of our surroundings. Nature has a way of calming us, smoothing our frazzled calendars and crazy schedules. Golfing is an excellent way to enjoy this and so many other benefits from being out of doors. Spending time on a North Myrtle Beach golf course is a wonderful way to let the South Carolina beauty of South Carolina wash over you.

So if you are just starting out, or looking for a reason to start golfing, rest assured there are many benefits to playing this sport. Whether you want to get away from the office for a little while, start spending time with your family, get to know some other golfers or just enjoy the great outdoors, golfing is a fabulous sport and a fabulous way to do all of these. What are you waiting for?

Varieties of Golf Games

The most common kind of golf game that is played, among both professionals and amateurs, is stroke play. However, there are many other forms of the game that can be played on North Myrtle Beach golf courses and can be just as fun as stroke play.

The most popular variety of golf other than stroke play is match play. Although stroke play is the most popular form, many professionals and amateurs indulge in match play, either in tournaments or casually against friends. Match play pits two golfers against each other. The player with the lowest score on a hole wins the hole. If both players tie, the hole is halved. The player who wins the most holes at the end of the round is the winner. A variety of match play is the skins game, where instead of the lowest score winning the hole, the lowest score earns a skin, which is a designated amount of prize money. A halved hole results in the next hole being worth the combination of the prize money of the current hole and the halved hole(s).

Another variety of golf is stableford. Stableford is not much different from stroke play. The distinction between stableford and stroke play is the scoring system. While stroke play adds up the number of strokes for each hole, stableford assigns a point value for each score. A bogey is worth one point, a par is worth two, a birdie is worth three, and an eagle is worth four. The player with highest point total at the end of the round is declared the winner.

While many varieties of golf are similar to more popular varieties, a unique variety of golf is Bingo Bango Bongo. In this game, each hole has five points available; one (the Bingo) for the first player on the green, one (the Bingo) for the closest player to the hole after all players are on the green, and one (the Bongo) for the first player to get their ball in the hole. The lowest score on the hole earns two points. In order for this game to be properly played, the honors system must be observed, where the farthest player from the hole plays first and the lowest score on the previous hole tees off first.

Although the overwhelming majority of serious golfers on our popular North Myrtle Beach golf courses indulge in stroke play in order to measure themselves against par, these varieties on the game of golf can be a fun way to keep things from getting stale, or a way to earn a little money from your friends.

1. 125,000 golf balls a year are hit into the water at the famous 17th hole of the Stadium Course at Sawgrass (pictured).
2. The longest drive ever is 515 yards. The longest putt ever is a monstrous 375 feet
3. Phil Mickelson, who plays left-handed, is actually right handed. He learned to play golf by mirroring his father’s golf swing, and he has used left handed golf clubs ever since.
4. The chances of making two holes-in-one in a round of golf are one in 67 million.
5. Tiger Woods snagged his first ace at the tender age of eight years old.
6. Balls travel significantly further on hot days. A golfer swinging a club at around 100 mph will carry the driver up to eight yards longer for each increase in air temperature of 25°F.
7. The longest golf course in the world is the par 77 International Golf Club in Massachusetts which measures a fearsome 8325 yards
8. The highest golf course in the world is the Tactu Golf Club in Morococha, Peru, which sits 14,335 feet above sea level at its lowest point.
9. The longest golf hole in the world is the 7th hole (par 7) of the Sano Course at the Satsuki Golf Club in Japan. It measures an incredible 909 yards.
10. The largest bunker in the world is Hell’s Half Acre on the 585-yard 7th hole of the Pine Valley Course in New Jersey.
11. The largest golfing green is that of the 695-yard, 5th hole, a par 6 at the International Golf Club in Massachusetts, with an area in excess of 28,000 square feet.
12. The driver swing speed of an average lady golfer is 62mph; 96mph for an average LPGA professional; 84mph for an average male golfer; 108mph for an average PGA Tour player; 130mph for Tiger Woods; 148-152mph for a national long drive champion.
13. There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
14. The first golf balls were made of thin leather stuffed with feathers. Tightly-packed feathers made balls that flew the farthest. Feather balls were used until 1848.
15. The youngest golfer to shoot a hole-in-one was Coby Orr, who was five years old at the time. It happened in Littleton, Colorado, in 1975.  More at Into The Rough:

Throughout the history of professional golf, there has been a large number of great golfers. However only a handful of golfers’ careers have emerged as true legends. To become a legend of golf, one must have had a lasting impact on the game, through major wins, incomparable records, or otherwise. Using these criteria, it is easy to identify five legendary golfers: Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Tiger Woods, names which are synonymous with some North Myrtle Beach golf courses. Although many other golfers could be identified as legendary, these five stand out as unanimous choices on the legendary list.

Bobby Jones is probably the least recognizable name on this list. This at least partially due to the fact that he was never a professional golfer; Jones made his career as an amateur golfer. By the time his career ended in 1930, Jones had 27 top tens in 31 major appearances, winning 13 of them. Jones is probably most famous for his unique Grand Slam, where he won all four major tournaments in one calendar year, 1930 in this case. Jones’ legacy is Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, which he founded and helped design, and the Masters Tournament, a major championship hosted by the club.

Following Jones in the 1940s, Ben Hogan became one of the first standout professional golfers in the United States. Hogan was, and still is, known for his large influence on modern swing theory, authoring several books on the subject. In addition, Hogan was known as possibly the greatest ball-striker ever, winning nine professional majors. He is also only one of five players to have won all 4 current professional majors.

After Hogan’s reign, Arnold Palmer took the throne. Fittingly nicknamed “The King,” Palmer was widely known and influential due to his status as golf’s first television superstar. In his career, Palmer won 62 times on the PGA Tour, including seven professional major championships, coming a PGA Championship short of winning all four majors. After his career, Palmer dabbled in other golf course-related fields, including ownership and architecture. There are three North Myrtle Beach golf courses that are designed by Palmer: Myrtle Beach National’s South Creek and West Course and King’s North.  To this day, Palmer is known as one of the most popular figures in golf history.

After Palmer’s career had been established, another legend took the golfing world by storm. Jack Nicklaus is widely regarded as the most accomplished golfer of all-time, winning 18 professional major championships (the most all-time) and 73 PGA Tour victories despite playing a limited schedule. After his playing career, Nicklaus became a renowned golf course architect, assisting in the construction of many golf courses, including Muirfield Village Golf Club in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, where he hosts the Memorial Tournament every year, not dissimilar to the way Bobby Jones founded Augusta National and the Masters. The Long Bay Club in North Myrtle Beach is also a Nicklaus design.

In the modern game of golf, only one name can really be considered legendary. Since the late 1990s, Tiger Woods has won 14 professional majors and 74 PGA Tour events. Woods is also the youngest player to win a career Grand Slam (win all four professional majors in a career), having done so three times. Woods’ career is most definitely not over, and at least a few more wins are sure to occur between now and the end of his career, although he seems to be on the decline. It should be interesting to see if Woods can break Nicklaus’ all-time major championships record by winning four more professional major championships.

One of the most significant and recognizable characteristics of European golf is the way in which European golf courses differ from American golf courses, such as those found in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. While premier American golf courses are known for their lush, green grass, large, white sand bunkers, somewhat hilly terrain, ponds, and developed green complexes, European courses are mostly instantly recognizable based on their links design, featuring deep, brown pot bunkers with steep walls, browner fescue grass, narrow creeks, and flat terrain, which promotes wind. In addition, distances in Europe are measured using the metric system, rather than the U.S. customary system employed in America.

 The unique features of European golf promote a distinctive style of play. This style is mostly dictated by the wind that is so prevalent on European links courses. Whereas American golf mostly promotes a higher ball flight and to land the ball on the green with an approach, European golf promotes a lower ball flight and the bump-and-run approach, where the ball hits in front of the green and rolls on. This is directly due to the wind factor prevalent on European golf courses.

Due to these distinctive features, it is only natural for European golfers to have their own tour to compete on. Three tours are operated in Europe, very much like the way golf is structured in America. These tours are the elite European Tour, similar to the PGA Tour in America, the European Seniors Tour, similar to the Champions Tour in America, and the developmental tour, the Challenge Tour, similar to the Web.com Tour in America. The European Tour introduced a major championship, the Open Championship, in 1860, in addition to conducting the biannual Ryder Cup matches in conjunction with the PGA of America.

As a golfer, it is important to understand the differences between these two styles of golf, especially since it is the goal of many to one day tee up their ball where the game was born. Until that time arrives, enjoy playing nine or 18 holes of golf year-round in North Myrtle Beach, SC on such courses as Eagle Nest Golf Club near Little River.

Many golfers take for granted the structure employed by most golf course designers when they are designing a course and there is no exception for the more than 100 golf courses in the Myrtle Beach area. For almost everyone on a North Myrtle Beach golf course today, the idea of a “front nine” and a “back nine” is almost second nature. However, once this is thought about, one may wonder what caused this structure to be the prevalent one in today’s golf courses, as 18 and nine seem to be rather strange numbers to settle on.

During the mid-1700s, the golf courses had varying numbers of holes. The well-known courses of the time had anywhere from five to 22 holes. The first to reach the now-accepted 18 holes was The Old Course at St. Andrews. The Old Course consisted of 12 holes, 10 of which were played twice for a total of 22 holes. However, the golfers at St. Andrews decided to condense the first four holes into two, creating a course of 10 individual holes and a round of 18 holes, as eight holes were played twice. The idea of 18 separate holes was created when St. Andrews punched another set of holes into the eight greens that were played twice, effectively creating 18 distinct holes. One set of holes was played as the “outward nine” and the other set was played as the “inward nine.” This is how the idea of a front nine and back nine was created.

Most golf courses adhere to this structure closely, although the idea of double greens has not found widespread use anywhere besides Scotland. Even though this idea has not found traction, many other features introduced by St. Andrews have caught in today’s golf environment. For example, the idea of an outward nine and inward nine has led to most golf courses labeling their scorecards with “OUT” and “IN” when referring to front nine and back nine scores. Also, due to the double greens at St. Andrews, different colored flags were used for the front, or outward, nine and for the back, or inward, nine. This feature was adopted by many other courses, even though it is normally not necessary for these courses as they do not feature double greens.

St. Andrews also set the size of the hole in 1891 to the modern-day diameter of 4.25 inches, due to the size of the first golf hole cutter, built in Musselburgh, Scotland in 1829. St. Andrews is the location of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, the European ruling body of golf (equivalent to the PGA in the United States) as a result of this history. The Old Course is still standing today, and avid golfers still make it their life goal to travel to Scotland and play it at least once. Until then, enjoy the readily available tee times and the natural beauty found on the Myrtle Beach golf courses and championship golf courses sprinkled throughout North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

The First Tee of the Grand Strand is a non-profit organization in the Myrtle Beach area that uses golf to cultivate character in local youth. The First Tee National School Program will be part of every physical education class in Horry and Georgetown Counties’ elementary schools. Additionally, after school and Saturday programs are offered where golf is used to teach life skills resulting in young students gaining confidence, improving their behavior and progressing with peer interaction while learning the disciplined game of golf.

On a national level the U.S. Kids Golf is an organization whose mission is to teach golf to kids in a fun manner so as to encourage family interaction. U.S. Kids Golf sponsors kids-only golf tournaments around the country for ages five to 14. These one-day tournaments are opportunities for boys and girls to compete against other kids their same age on either a 9-hole golf course or an 18-hole golf course. This year, North Myrtle Beach golf course Eagle Nest Golf Club was part of the U.S. Kids Golf Local Tour as it held a tournament on November 17.

Elsewhere around the country such organizations as Young Golfers of America Association features programming to encourage kids to pick up golf clubs and learn the game, which in turn promotes imagination, integrity and honesty. These programs seek to do more than teach golf. They have an eye on the future of kids throughout the nation, not as golfers, but as successful adults.

The next time you make a tee time with visions of playing a terrific round of Myrtle Beach golf, why not invite a child along. Get them involved in a local golf program and you will be doing more than fostering a new addition to your group of golf buddies. You will be promoting the values, character and discipline that come with learning the game.

 The most common way amateurs like to cheat is to shave strokes. Golfers do this by carding a lower score than they actually had on the hole when they finish the hole. For example, a player takes five strokes to get in the hole on a par four. However, he cards a four and tells his fellow players he had a par. Often golfers do not pay enough attention to the other golfers in their group, so this slides by. However, golfers who do pay attention can call them on their cheating and force them to take the score they actually had. If a fellow golfer realizes that a golfer shaved strokes at the end of a competition after they have signed their scorecard, then the cheater can be called on it and disqualified for taking a lower score than he actually had.

 Another, sneakier way golfers may attempt to cheat is by illegally moving the ball. Often, a golfer will approach his ball, only to see that the ball is sitting in a divot or well down in the grass. This makes for a more difficult shot on a North Myrtle Beach golf course. However, it is illegal to move it when the normal golf rules are in play. Many golfers will attempt to cheat by improving their lie when his playing partners are not looking. During a wet day or winter season, however, “winter rules” may be in play, meaning that a player may improve their lie in their own fairway, and sometimes the rough.

 These are the two most common ways golfers may cheat on the course. It is important to be aware of your partners’ practices on the golf course, as cheating is completely dishonest and an insult to those who have played the game the way it is supposed to be played: honestly.

By adjusting swing speed according to the distance from the green, the golfer can hit more greens in or under regulation. The increase in swing speed and the decrease in the length of the backswing offer greater control to the golfer on difficult approach shots. With an increase in the length of the backswing, there is a greater chance for error and many times approach shots will fall short, fly long or miss to the left or right, leaving the Myrtle Beach golfer with a potentially difficult shot onto the green. An increase in swing speed and the decrease in the length of the backswing, however, reduce the chance for error and increase the golfer’s control of the shot, resulting in more hit greens. These hit greens result in more birdies and pars, while a missed green at Myrtle Beach golf courses such as Eagle Nest Golf Club can result in bogeys or worse.

In addition to an adjustment in swing speed, hitting a longer club and reducing swing speed may help a Myrtle Beach golfer hit more greens and thus make more pars and birdies, especially if the player is not hitting his approach clubs well. Sometimes, a player cannot swing fast enough to propel the ball onto the green at Eagle Nest Golf Club. In order to compensate for this the player may opt to take a longer club and decrease swing speed to propel the ball the proper distance and increase control. For example, if a golfer is about 100 yards out, then it may be a little too far away for him to hit a partial-swing approach shot with a wedge. To compensate, the Myrtle Beach golfer can hit his 9-iron instead of his wedge and take some speed off of his swing. This kind of shot can hit the ball the proper distance with greater control, thus hitting more greens in or under regulation and making more pars and birdies. However, the disadvantage of this shot is that it is often lower than the normal wedge approach shot into the green, and is more difficult to stop on the green as a result.

Oftentimes, a golfer won’t have a shot from the fairway; instead, he may have a shot from the rough. When hitting from the rough of a Myrtle Beach golf course, it is particularly helpful to remember that the golfer does not have to help get the ball into the air. When the golfer does try to help the ball into the air, it more often than not results in poor golf shots. To hit a good approach shot from the rough, the golfer simply needs to increase their swing speed slightly to compensate for the distance lost by the long grass.

 Of course, these tips will not instantly help a player become a wizard from inside 100 yards. It takes practice in order to become comfortable with the swing speed required to hit certain shots.