The Dunes Golf & Beach Club

Exceptional Course I. Cant say enough good about this course !! High Quality Challenging and Professional. This is why Monday After the Masters is hosted here each year !! When my son met Dustin Johnson here it was his dream come true . My son proceeded to Earn a Golf Scholarship and Graduated from BAC in Charlotte. He got his first hole in one at 16 !! Sadly he passed at 22 but Know he is smiling at Dustin Johnson from above !

This is Robert Trent Jones’ first resort course offering and the second course ever built in Myrtle Beach.

Although located barely a block from the beach and with most holes subject to strong ocean breezes, the style of this course is not seaside or links by any stretch of the imagination. It has woodland, parkland and marshland elements, with the ninth being the only hole where a player catches a glimpse of the Atlantic.

Most holes are lined with beautiful old oaks and water comes into play on more than half the holes. RTJ trademarks abound: pushed up green complexes, runway tee boxes, and a generous dose of fairway bunkering. Typical of the Jones’ philosophy of hard par, easy bogey, he offers risk/reward options that must be declared with your tee shot.

The Dunes is still firmly planted among most rankings of the best courses in the U.S. I have a theory on this. In the 1930s and 40s, the club hosted golf writers before the annual Masters Tournament for a “convention.” It was mostly northeastern pressmen being wined and dined and playing warm-weather golf. This hospitality spawned kind words and the course has benefitted from it for nearly a century. That is not to say it is undeserved. The club exudes a certain character and charm that evades so much of the lifeless resort golf that pervades the Grand Strand.

The inward nine far surpasses the outward nine. From the 10th tee on, the course presents one challenging hole after another until the climax of the 18th. The par 5s are excellent scoring opportunities and RTJ did a nice job with the routing to expose players to different wind directions throughout.

This is my third trip to Myrtle Beach and have always wanted to play The Dunes because of its stellar reputation but this was the first time we could get on there. I had very high expectations and they were exceeded. I am a big fan of Robert Trent Jones golf courses and play Hominy Hill regularly at my home in New Jersey. This one is a gem with almost every single hole being just beautiful looking out from each tee. And there are some really unique holes and the course remains very playable with wide enough fairways and many large and deep sand traps around the greens. The course was in perfect condition more like a private course with the tees in great shape as well as the fairways where they had over seeded with rye grass so they were lush and green. The greens were some of the best if not the best I have ever played on. Very fast and rolled beautifully and the pro shop said they measured 11.5 on the stemp meter. I have to mention that they had many, many sand traps but each and every one was edged and maintained perfectly and had plenty of fluffy sand to give you an excellent chance of a good result near the pin. I would say these were the best maintained sand traps I have seen because of the consistency across all the traps I was in and they were all perfectly raked. We saw a crew of about 6 guys out there raking and maintaining the traps while we were playing. The pace of play was outstanding as the course was not crowded and we played 18 holes in 3.5 hours. I would play this again for sure the next time I am in Myrtle Beach and thought the greens fee was a good value considering the beautiful layout and the pristine condition.

Very nice course in great condition. Greens are very quick but run true! Must play if you can get on.

I had high expectations for this course after reading other reviews. My club pro made arrangements for us to play. The weather was brisk to say the least and heavy rain over the weekend may have led to the horrible conditions ,of the fairways. There were divots everywhere. The greens were ok but slow. I found the “old school’ layout boring. There were a couple of challenging holes, and the back nine was definitely more interesting than the front, but overall I could not understand what the hype was about. My least favorite course of all that we played in Myrtle.

Everything from the drive up to the gate to the course layout is old school country club. This is a good thing BTW. Agree with most reviewers that the greens are the best feature of the course. The finest I played during a week-long trip no doubt. Bunkers are everywhere so your scorecard depends on where you miss shots.
I'd play it again in a heartbeat.

Played with a 'once-a-week' player like myself and two others who only get out once or twice a year. We all had a lot of fun. Course was in great shape. Greens were fast enough, and the rough was cut down a bit which helped with the pace of play. Waterloo (#13) is the highlight of course, what a fun (and challenging!) hole. I can see why this hosted USGA events in the past.

Only 1 hole has an ocean view as far as I remember, and that was #9 (see picture). But nonetheless, it's a pretty course. Didn't get to see any gators this time, so I guess that means we'll just have to come back!

Course was in great shape. The warm Feb and cold march seems to have most courses in Myrtle beach area in bad shape but Dunes Club was not affected. Great course!

This is one of the best courses I've ever played. Perfect condition, great layout, and unbelievable views. The staff couldn't have been friendlier including the starter who told us about what hazards to look out for on each hole and gave a great rundown of the course before we teed off. It's expensive but definitely worth it.

I played this course several times in my career. I love the layout and would rank it as one of my all-time favorite golf courses. It was the most manicured golf course I've ever played. However, something has happened when we played it on July 5, 2017. Only one person to help you unload your clubs. The starter handing out business cards to a restaurant he is trying to push. Some of the fairways hardly had any grass (see picture). The best thing about the course was the greens. I was so disappointed to tell my friends how good this golf course and then they looked at me after the round and said why did me play this course. It was not good.

This has been on my playlist five of the six years I've been down here. It's a terrific course. Fastest greens in Myrtle Beach. They roll true. Overpriced? Probably. Heck, I'm on vacation.

I have been going to the MB area since 1987. I have played pretty much all the courses in MB, but this was the first time playing The Dunes. This course along with Caledonia are "MUST PLAY'.

Played when it was a few weeks after Hurricane Matthew. Still a lot of debris laying around. Took away from experience. Would not have mentioned this if it were not that I played other courses in same area that were cleaned up nice.

Our group has taken an annual Sept/Oct golf trip to MB for about 25 years. Having played virtually everything MB has to offer (including many now-closed courses), this year we decided to plunk down the extra money to play the The Dunes.

There's nothing bad to say about the course, except it's questionable whether it's worth the $169-$185 greens fees. The elevated greens are fast and true, the RTJ layout is smart and challenging (from the blue, anyway), the bunkers and fairways are exceptionally well maintained. It's a nice country club setting, no doubt.

We can now say we've played The Dunes, but for $169, it's extremely doubtful we'll play it again. It's an upgrade from the already wonderful public courses of MB, but is it worth the extra $70-plus per round? If that kind of cash means little to you, I suppose so. Otherwise, a day at Heritage Club or Pawley's or Tidewater should satisfy the average/above-average golfer just as well.

(BTW, the "ocean views" mentioned are from the members-only dining room in the Clubhouse, not from the course itself.)

A friend got my group a very good rate to play Dunes. I have heard lots of hype about this course over the 29 years I have been going to Myrtle Beach to play in the World Amateur. So , I would say that my expectations were extremely high.
First of all the greens were fast...very fast for Myrtle Beach summer greens. They had been recently punched but that posed no problem. They rolled very true.
The course was very nice but somehow it missed the WOW Factor for me. Nice greens, nice bunkers, tee boxes and fairways but I have played courses in MB with more of a WOW factor than this.
I am glad I did not have to pay the advertised rate.

I've been going to Myrtle yearly for the last 35 years. I've played every coursed there, including a bunch that have closed down. The Dunes Club, not to be confused with Grande Dunes, is a traditional, tree lined, Robert Trent Jones course. It's also one of the oldest tracks in Myrtle and the former home of the Senior PGA Championship. The greens are the best on the Strand and it'd always in good shape. The Dunes Club is hands down the best in Myrtle Beach.

If there is only one course i could only play in my life the Dunes Golf and Beach club would be that course !