Twenty minutes over the state line sits the best kept promise on the Strand. Thistle plays like a links trip without the passport: firm turf, wind that matters, and 27 holes kept in the best condition of any course in its price range. Golfers reward it with a 4.7 across more than five hundred reviews, and the ones who write the reviews keep saying the same thing: why did nobody tell me about this place sooner.

The only TPC on the Grand Strand holds a 4.6 across more than eight hundred reviews, and the score comes from golfers who showed up expecting a championship test and got one. Fazio design, tour conditioning, a strong finishing hole over water, and a bag drop that runs like a tour event. It sits in Murrells Inlet, an easy pair with the Pawleys Island courses below.

Caledonia is the course people fly in for, and 788 reviewers holding it at 4.6 confirm the reputation survives contact with reality. The drive down the live oak avenue is the most photographed entrance in golf around here, and the Mike Strantz design behind it delivers eighteen holes with no filler. Pace can run slow in peak season because nobody wants to leave. Plan the afternoon accordingly.

Nobody on this list has more reviews than Rivers Edge, and holding a 4.5 across 1,397 of them is the statistical headline of this whole exercise. An Arnold Palmer design draped over the marsh of the Shallotte River, it delivers the scenery of a top shelf course at a mid shelf price, which is exactly why so many groups keep it on the permanent rotation.

Arrowhead sits ten minutes from the airport and still holds a 4.5 over 1,313 reviews, which tells you everything about how it is run. 27 holes along the Intracoastal, conditions that outperform the rate, and a staff that golfers name in their reviews. It is the easiest high floor round in central Myrtle Beach.

Grande Dunes gives you the widest fairways and the biggest Intracoastal views in central Myrtle Beach, and 925 golfers rate the experience a 4.5. It is the forgiving round on this list, the one where the twelve handicaps in your group post a number and everyone still gets the postcard scenery from the bluff.

Four courses share the Barefoot property and the Dye is the one the reviews elevate, a 4.5 across 775 rounds. It is the sternest of the four, all angles and railroad ties and visual intimidation, and it stays in the kind of shape that makes the resort villas across the street the smartest golf address in North Myrtle Beach.

Across the road from Caledonia and cut from the same Mike Strantz imagination, True Blue plays bigger, wider and wilder than its famous sibling. Golfers hold it at 4.5 over 655 reviews. Play them both on the same trip and take the argument about which one is better home with you.

A Pete and P.B. Dye design with 1,121 reviews holding a 4.4 makes Prestwick the sleeper of the south side. The greens draw specific praise for speed, the rate stays friendly, and it plays five minutes from the airport, which makes it the smartest arrival day or departure day round on the beach.