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The time comes in practically every golf course's life when it needs a little work done.
Greens shrink. Their grasses mutate. Sand splashed from thousands of greenside bunker shots raises their edges and distorts their perimeters. Trees grow, encroaching on playing lines and depriving turf of valuable sunlight. Underbrush, left untamed, turns areas permitting fun recovery shots into lost-ball territory. Tee boxes, once crisply flat, become crowned as thousands of footfalls and mowing passes press them down at the perimeters.
Infrastructure also devolves. Old irrigation systems leak. Years of organic matter buildup clogs drainage lines. Root structures deteriorate. Cycles of heat and cold, dryness and deluge threaten to upset dozens of acres of sometimes temperamental plants.
Golfers' expectations and tastes in course design change over time, too. The type of course a particular client wanted a particular architect to build in the late 20th century might have come to be seen as too unfriendly for the 21st-century player, who has more access to information about architecture than ever before, and more choices of golf courses to play.
Out of this consideration comes an important question: Should we restore this golf course, or should we change it?
This was the question that overhung Pawleys Plantation Golf & Country Club, a popular and scenic semi-private course south of Myrtle Beach that experienced a comprehensive renovation this summer.
Renovating Pawleys Plantation
Pawleys Plantation is a Jack Nicklaus Signature design from 1988 that, until this year, had experienced very little in the way of updates. Its original bentgrass greens were replaced with TifEagle Bermuda grass around 2000, but other than some subtle bunker work in the 2010s and the occasional removal of select trees, it was in stasis, with the aforementioned creeping changes happening every year.
Owner/Manager Founders Group International knew Pawleys Plantation deserved investment, and as part of the course's 30th anniversary celebration in the fall of 2018, FGI invited the Golden Bear himself to come back, inspect the course and make recommendations for the future.
"The bones are here," Nicklaus said during a presentation to the membership. "It's a really nice golf course. It just needs a little TLC."
An architect who regards his original work as sacred may define "TLC" as to-the-hilt restoration. Another might see a particular course as a lost opportunity, ripe for reinvention.
In the case of Pawleys Plantation, Nicklaus came down somewhere in the middle, closer to the former perspective. Restoring the greens to their original perimeters and expanding fairway mowing lines was central to his recommendations. He acknowledged that the course was meant to be difficult by design, but the circumstances surrounding architecture and the course's specific purpose had changed over the years.
"It used to be a totally private golf course," Nicklaus said. "Now, you have outside play. When you bring outside play in, you want to move it around."
The 18-time major champ and figure behind the design and construction of more than 400 courses worldwide was acknowledging something anyone who has played Pawleys Plantation knows all too well: it is one tough golf course and tough courses can be slow to play. All of the factors that cause a course to change over decades had made it even more brutal. Indeed, the course’s original stout but still reasonable back-tee Slope figure of 140 surged to 150 by the beginning of 2023, when architect and longtime Nicklaus Design associate Troy Vincent oversaw the $3-million renovation project.
Pawleys Plantation's evolution into a resort course with a membership drove the biggest change to its design, which revolved around several original expansive, manicured bunkers that defined significant playing areas on 11 holes. These hazards interacted with turf areas almost like enormous puzzle pieces, meandering along fairways for dozens of yards and wrapping almost completely around the green on holes like the par-4 8th and 16th.
"The biggest thing here is eliminating a majority, if not all, of the big bunkers," Vincent said at the beginning of the project, echoing Nicklaus' own recommendation. "A lot of them will be gone.”
Two factors underpinned the decision to drastically reduce Pawleys Plantation's complement of sand. The first was practical: large bunkers require considerable time, manpower and funds to maintain to the standards members and visitors have. The second was functional: many of the largest bunkers were seen as overly penal to middle- and high-handicap golfers. If the toughest shot in golf is a 50-yard bunker shot, Pawleys Plantation's original design had far more opportunities for that specific nightmare than most other courses.
Difficulty was the main feature of golf courses built when Pawleys Plantation was built. Lately, broadly speaking, the concept of "playability" has supplanted difficulty as a sign of design success. Courses that don't beat up higher handicappers with excessive hazards and instead load more of the challenge into interesting green complexes are seen as both fashionable and functionally superior. In addition to the removal of hundreds of trees, the drastic reduction in bunkering was aimed at making Pawleys Plantation more playable.
"It comes down to giving people enough room to play golf," Vincent said.
Pawleys Plantation 2.0, reviewed
If you play a golf course enough times, it gets under your skin. It becomes a character in your life.
For my formative years in this game, that was Pawleys Plantation, where my parents have owned a home since 2000. Over more than 500 rounds in the decade and a half before I moved to Florida in 2014, it beguiled, challenged, often frustrated, occasionally rewarded and molded me as a golfer. It taught me how to drive the ball straight, to shape iron shots, to splash deep greenside bunker shots from a variety of stances. It helped prepare me to play long, tough, demanding courses in high school, college and beyond. It taught me how precious a par or bogey save could be. The final three holes have ruined many a good score for me, but on the occasions where I've played them in even par or better, I have been genuinely satisfied and encouraged by the accomplishment. The common thread through my favorite golf courses is that they inspire me to become a better player. Pawleys Plantation is just that sort of course. It's tough as nails but also seems just conquerable enough to keep me looking forward to my next round there.
As a result, it is more difficult for me to be objective about Pawleys Plantation than any other golf course.
I was able to play two rounds on the new-look course in October, less than a month after it reopened. As excited as I was that it would finally receive some long-awaited updates, I was apprehensive about how the proposed changes would strike me - particularly the reduced bunkering. One of my most cherished skills in growing up playing the course was the strong greenside bunker game it instilled. Would it still be the same test I knew and loved?
Overall, I came away from my 36-hole re-acquaintance very pleased with the project's results. The reclamation of the lost putting surfaces and valuable fairway width, as well as the felling of trees around all hole corridors, was a home run. The course's greens were never huge by design, but some of them had shrunk down close to nothing, making approach shots nearly impossible, even from ideal areas. Pawleys Plantation remains one of the best second-shot tests I've seen, but with the greens back to their original sizes, every golfer once again has a fighting chance to make at least a couple of birdies.
The only tinge of melancholy I felt when playing Pawleys Plantation 2.0 was when I looked at the new, reduced bunkering scheme. Whatever their original intent, I thought those large puzzle-piece bunkers helped set the course apart, aesthetically, from others in the crowded Myrtle Beach golf market. They also seemed like a nod to Harbour Town, where his collaboration with Pete Dye helped launch Nicklaus' own design career, as well as give rise to the signature-architect movement. The long bunker that started out in front of Pawleys' par-4 12th tee and wound its way all the way to the green appealed to me for its excess. It wasn't practical; rather, something closer to land art. As someone who regards golf courses as equal parts art and playing field, I must admit I was a little sad to see it and several other big bunkers go.
At the end of the day, though, I'm not in charge of maintaining those features, so I understand my affinity for some of the course's excesses is less important than sustainable maintenance. Even with some of its quirkier characteristics gone, Pawleys Plantation remains a compelling golf course, and a beautiful one. The removal of trees behind the green of the par-4 16th opened up hundreds of yards of views across the marsh to Pawleys Island proper, taking an already pretty hole and making it truly beautiful.
"Essentially, the reset button was pressed on 30-year-old problems," said Christopher Allen, who shepherded Pawleys Plantation through its renovation in his role as superintendent. "Without the selfless efforts from our maintenance team, FGI construction team, Henderson golf, and of course Troy Vincent/Nicklaus Design, this project could not have been done in this time frame. I am proud to have been a part of it. The future has never been brighter for this property."
I am glad to agree.
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