Cape Fear National Golf Club (Leland, NC on 02/24/18)

February has been a pretty good weather month, at least for a snow hater like me! It has been rainy, but at least we’ve had above average temperatures. It was looking like a nice weekend towards the coast so I thought I’d take a mini golf trip to the Myrtle Beach area on Saturday and Sunday. It is a long way to go for a weekend, but I love seeing green grass in the winter! Hard to believe it almost hit 80 degrees both days, yay!

Technically, I never made it to Myrtle Beach this trip, as I played three courses north of town. I like to get to Myrtle going through Wilmington, compared to driving farther down I-95 and then cutting across. So, I find it more convenient to play courses between Myrtle Beach and Wilmington as they are easier to get to from Virginia. Fortunately, Cape Fear National is right along that route and it is the course I played first!

Cape Fear National is a course that I’ve heard great things about, and a course that I’ve been wanting to play for years! If my term “Mid-Atlantic wish list” fits geographically, then I’ll use that here! The course is relatively new, opening in 2010 and it is part of an upscale community called Brunswick Forest. Brunswick Forest is a little south of Wilmington, but very accessible now with the completion of I-140, just a few months ago. The newly opened stretch of I-140 made it simple to get here! I’m a bit of an interstate nerd and North Carolina has a lot of interstate news to keep up with!

Cape Fear National is a Tim Cate creation and one of those courses that you hear quite a bit about. Depending on the list you look at, it likely will be ranked among the top public courses in the state. And with all the good golf in North Carolina, that is quite impressive!

Cate has done a lot of work in the area including at Ocean Ridge Plantation (where I played last year) and at Bald Head Island and Thistle Golf Club. I’ve yet to play those latter two courses, but maybe one day! While playing Cape Fear National, my mind kept going back to the Leopard’s Chase course at Ocean Ridge Plantation.

Both Leopard’s Chase and Cape Fear National are newer courses, play similar, and look great! There are some similar design features with waste areas, beautiful bunkering, and water waiting to gobble up stray shots. While Leopard’s Chase has a more wooded look, Cape Fear National has a dunes look to it. There are some pine trees here at Cape Fear National, but from what I heard (played with an off-duty ranger) lots of trees have been removed for housing. Too bad! Throughout the round, you’ll see domestic vegetation and terrain that unfolds in front of you. Besides all the homes on the back nine, the look of Cape Fear National is one of the reasons you’ll want to play here. It looks sharp!

Another thing the course does right is offer some combo tees! Heck, a whole side of the scorecard is devoted to combo tees. There are five regular sets of tees and four combo tees, not sure I’ve ever seen that many tees! It was a bit confusing and took me a moment to figure out what was going on with all those numbers on the scorecard. Heck, I almost asked the starter if there were two courses here!

I played the black/blue combo tees which are 71.0/131/6493. No matter where you choose to play, you’ll need to be sharp. My missed shots were amplified by the wind, but I found that Cape Fear National was an involved course to play. There are fairway bunkers all over, large greens that have 30 yard spans, and water comes into play on at least 12 holes. I was pretty tired mentally at the end of the round trying to calculate how far it was to all the trouble spots. You can miss it in a few places, but I found the course to be sneaky difficult. The fairways always turned out to be narrower than they looked from the tee and my lag putting was tested!

As far as individual holes go, the 3rd and 9th are probably the best holes. The 3rd is a 395 yard par 4 with water running down the left side. If you fan the tee shot right then you risk not being able to get to the green, if you find one of the fairway bunkers. I think it is the best driving hole on the course and one that could spoil your round early, so watch out. The 9th is a 156 yard par 3 with a super wide, but not very deep, green. You have to judge the distance well to find the green and if you come up short you’ll be in the water. If you go long you’ll be in the sand, blasting it back towards the water you tried to avoid!

Other than those two holes, no others really stand out to me. Most of the other holes are your typical East Coast, coastal type holes. Obviously, it is tough to create memorable holes on flat land, there is only so much any designer can do. The collection of par 3’s at Cape Fear National are strong while the par 5’s weren’t my favorite. The par 5’s weren’t my favorite as water seemed to pinch the layup areas in odd spots. For those that care (I don’t) both nines end with par 3’s, and the 18th wasn’t all that dramatic.

The conditions were very good, and the course had that stunning winter look. The overseeded fairways and tees were full and had lots of grass, with few divots. I didn’t get much roll but had very nice lies where the ball sat up. The rough was dormant bermuda and thin, nothing unexpected there. The greens were receptive and rolled pure, although they seemed a bit slow to me.

If you are debating on playing here I’d say give it a shot before all the homes are built on the back nine! It is a worthy stop on your way to or from Myrtle Beach. Like most modern courses, I could do without so many bunkers (or at least move some to the low sides) and wouldn’t mind less undulation in the greens. I paid $63 through a third party website and thought that it was a good deal. Pace of play was right at four hours.

#1 (345 yard par 4):