The final round of my quick Myrtle Beach trip was at Thistle Golf Club with our group. Thankfully, my group was kind enough to set up a morning round which allowed me to get back to Charlottesville at a decent hour!

We had a couple tee times around 9:00am on what turned out to be the best weather day of the short trip! It was chilly early on but things warmed up nicely after a few holes! There wasn’t much wind and not a cloud in the sky for most of the round. The birds were chirping and the trees were blooming, so it was a nice day to be outside!

Thistle is one of the highly-regarded tracks on the North Carolina side of the Grand Strand. Think close to The Pearl, Oyster Bay and Ocean Ridge Plantation, if you are familiar with the area. There are so many courses down this way that even a course crazy golfer like me can lose track of them all!

Thistle was built in 1999 and sits in an upscale housing community. There are 27 holes here, with nines named Cameron, Mackay, and Stewart. We played the Cameron and Stewart nines and from my review of the scorecard that is the shortest and easiest combination. I played the blue tees which are 6,355 yards with a rating of 71.2 (par-71) and a slope of 131. Stewart is a par-35 with three par-3’s, so your par can vary here.

It is always a little difficult to review a 27-hole course without playing all of the holes, but I’m sure you’ll find some common themes between the nines. One of those themes is lots of water! Another theme will probably be sculptured green complexes. Both nines had a couple really good water holes, a few sandy-looking holes and then some community-style holes. I think the course is supposed to have a Scottish look to it, but that never resonated with me.

The Cameron nine starts out with some difficult water holes. Well, difficult if you don’t hit it straight – let’s put it that way! The 1st and 2nd are short par-4’s playing about 350 yards. What makes both of the holes so tough is that water lines one side while out of bounds lines the other. On the 2nd hole you have to carry the water and judge your distance just right to end up with a birdie putt!

On the other hand, the Stewart nine started with a few vanilla holes before it got exciting on the 3rd and 4th! The 3rd is a 178 yard par-3 with more water in play. The water is off to the right while two bunkers guard the green to the left. Everything slopes towards the water, making it tough to recover if you miss the green.

Stewart’s 4th is probably the best hole on the Cameron/Stewart combination. It is a boomerang par-5 with all sorts of options! It a way it reminded me of the 4th hole at True Blue, which is a brilliant golf hole.

The 4th on Stewart doglegs hard right around a lake and you can pick an aggressive or conservative line from the tee. If you can pull off a more direct line then you might be able to get home in two. I hit a decent tee shot but didn’t come close to carrying the water! So, it might help to play the hole a couple times or have something to measure distances.

The conditions at Thistle were nice, with the only curious area being some of the greens. The fairways and tees had a nice overseed that allowed you to dig into the turf and take a nice divot!

The greens were smooth and quick, but didn’t look extremely healthy. They were dormant bermuda but the greens had a mushy feel to them and many areas looked bare. I’m not sure if those areas will perk up once it warms up, if that is a form of winter kill or just compacted sand.

My one gripe about the design is that the greens were very tough to navigate, thanks to ridges in the middle of just about every one! Only a perfect chip and putt stopped close to the hole.

All in all I thought Thistle was a pretty standard Tim Cate design. I didn’t notice that Thistle was all that much different from Cape Fear National or Ocean Ridge Plantation. If you’ve liked those courses then I think you’ll enjoy Thistle.

My only hesitation recommending Thistle is that it wasn’t as “premium” a course as I expected, given the $100 green fee. For example, range balls weren’t included and there wasn’t any GPS on the carts. It might just be that the courses in the area are over-priced this time of year though! If you can find a deal then I say give Thistle a look as it has some solid golf holes.

Course Pictures (click any picture to scroll through the gallery):