The Average Joe Reviews Legends Heathland

By Joe Derus, NorthMyrtleBeachOnline.com
Little River, SC | June 16, 2010

The Legends complex of three golf courses are located just off route 501 near the Tanger outlets.

Heathland, the course being review, is part of the Legends Group of courses of Moorland, and Parkland located at this facility. Two other courses, Oyster Bay (read Joe's review)  and Heritage, are located at separate facilities in Sunset Beach, NC and Pawley’s Island, SC, respectively.

Rated "Top 10 New Resort Courses in the World" by GOLF Magazine in 1990, Myrtle Beach Golf Directors selected the Heathland course and could not have made a better choice. Legends managers strive for a look that the staff perfectly groom the courses every day.  Heathland is in such pristine condition the fairways look like artificial turf.  As we played, we found the large greens run true with consistent speed on all.

Everything we saw about the course, beginning with friendly golf staff and extending to the waitstaff in the clubhouse, met very high standards. Why is waitstaff important to golfers? because you’ll  get a full buffet breakfast and lunch and two “drinks” with your green fees. Getting an early morning tee time leaves time enough for breakfast, golf and lunch afterwards. The quality of the food is so good and the service so friendly you won’t mind taking on the really challenging Heathland course. A casual golfer may just decide to chill out after a tough round.

Heathland is a return to traditional Scottish golf - the style of links with little or no trees, but, instead, high, rolling moguls and strategically placed bunkers and vegetation. In keeping with Scottish tradition, Heathland does not have hole numbers or yardage markers on the course. The golfer must use the yardage book provided on each cart to get hole distance to the hole and playing strategy. This is invaluable Information. Keep a tight hold of your book.  It took our group a couple of holes to figure this out. This book describes how best to play this course, no if and or buts.

Heathland insists upon keeping your ball in the fairway.  A long drive with the ball just slightly off fairway puts you behind vegetation and makes your second shot critical.  
 
I will give you my take on the difficult par four number 16. Since it is close to Memorial Day and not too far away from the anniversary of the invasion at Normandy on June 6th 1944, I thought describing playing that hole in terms used for the invasion would be appropriate.

For this to make sense you have to understand Allied Command divided the Normandy coastline into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.

From and elevated tee box you look down on a canal that runs right through the fairway. This canal (like the English Channel) had to be crossed.  Our group began its Normandy invasion of number 16.

One went for Juno, took the long tee shot and got safely across the canal (During the Normandy invasion, the Canadians stormed Juno and penetrated further into France than at any other location).

The other two went all out on Gold (The British’s task at Gold was to proceed inland then turn right march through enemy territory) and split the difference between safety and challenge. One received a penalty stroke and one just made it.

I laid up on Omaha Beach (where the Americans faced the most heavily fortified beach) short of the canal hoping to hit a good second shot over Pointe du Hoc (the massive German concrete cliff-top gun emplacement at Omaha Beach).

Well I landed short of the wall and had to scale over a very high wall, out of the sand. This is just another reason to keep the ball in the fairway. Number 16 is considered the most difficult on the course. We all eventually landed safely on the inland side of the canal.
 
Another quirk at Heathland is the difficulty in finding the tee box on number 8.We drove around in circles looking for the tee box, I am just glad the group behind could not see us too well they may have had a good laugh. Here a sign or two would help locate the tee box, without destroying the “traditional look” of the course.

In summary, I found that  tee shots just slightly off in a wide-open course can get you in trouble; how well rewarded a straight tee shots make second ones much easier and even with near perfect greens the wind will blow your ball off line. And that last line is the one excuse you can use, all day and tell’ em the Average Joe said so.