PART 1: Chad Sullivan, First Assistant at TPC Myrtle Beach​

Greeny: We have a new sponsor: the Hammock Coast Golf Trail down in the Myrtle Beach area. Twelve courses: Blackmoor, Caledonia, Heritage Club, Litchfield Country Club, Pawleys Plantation, River Club, Tradition Club, True Blue, Founders Club at Pawleys Island, Wachesaw Plantation East and Willbrook Plantation Golf Club, and we’re gonna talk about TPC Myrtle Beach this morning with our main man, Chad Sullivan. What’s going on this morning, Chad?

Chad: Not much, man. Thank you so much for featuring us on your show today.

Greeny: Yeah, so, it was funny: during the break I was telling Matty, I’ve only played a couple of golf courses down in the Myrtle Beach area. For some reason, I don’t know, I’ve just never ended up in Myrtle Beach playing golf. So you’re gonna have to break it down for us. Give us a little feedback on this and what’s going down.

Chad: So Myrtle Beach is like a little, they call basically, a slice of golf heaven. You get over 80 golf courses all packed into about an hours worth of coastline in South Carolina. The weather throughout the whole year is pretty much ideal. There are obviously some cold days in the winter and some of the hotter days in the summer, but it’s all well worth the trip.

Matt: You know, Chad, I came down years ago. We would do a golf trip in February and did Myrtle Beach almost every year and you know, you have your choice of golf courses but it was never even that bad in February. It was pleasant.

Chad: Yeah, February’s a great month. You can come down and you can catch a couple cold spots but at the same time I think I have eight years of memories of 75 degrees in February playing golf in a short-sleeved shirt, and enjoying every minute of it.

Matt: In that time of year, the deals are just going crazy. I mean, it’s really inexpensive to take a bunch of guys down there and play an outing.

Chad: It really is. At the end of the day you can play two, three rounds of golf for the same price back home in the Northeast and some of the other areas of the country and the world. You can catch two, three rounds of golf in Myrtle Beach for essentially the same price.

Greeny: So let’s talk a little bit about TPC Myrtle Beach. It was home of the 2000 Senior Tour Championship, and Dustin Johnson has his World Junior Golf Championship down there. This is a high quality golf course.

Chad: TPC Myrtle Beach is a championship layout. From top to bottom, the conditions are always top-notch. Our maintenance crew at TPC does a fantastic job providing the golfers with a great spot. You can play it anywhere from 5,000 yards all the way up to the tips at 7,000. It’s pretty much all you could ask for.

Greeny: So what are we talking about for rates right now, and do you have any good packages going on whether it’s somebody coming down for a weekend or somebody trying to put a group together?

Chad: Yeah, absolutely. If you’re ever looking for a round at TPC Myrtle Beach specifically you can always check us out at tpcmyrtlebeach.com. But there’s so many great package providers down here. You’ve got Ambassador Golf, Myrtle Beach Golf. There’s just so many different options if you cruise the internet, or you can talk to a golf package provider that would love to help you set up a package for, you know, it can be yourself as a single golfer or you can bring all the way up to 40 guys from back home and you can come down and enjoy a terrific setup.

Matt: You guys have your own site, Waccamawgolftrail.com. Do you actually put these trips together for guys, too?

Chad: Yeah. The Hammock Coast Golf Trail is a fantastic piece of the south end of Myrtle Beach. They can put together anywhere from one round all the way to eight. You can touch every golf course on the Hammock Coast Golf Trail.

Matt: Yeah, I noticed Litchfield is pretty prominent that side of the beach. Most of these golf courses are right around that area. And that’s my favorite part of the beach.

Chad: I myself live with my family on the south end of Myrtle Beach, you know the Hammock Coast Golf Trail area is really a quaint, slower side of Myrtle Beach, and there are so many great restaurants you can check out. There are not enough meals in the day for you to hit up every one of those spots!

Greeny: It’s supposed to be 70 degrees or something here tomorrow. So I’m assuming it’s gonna be 70 plus down there tomorrow. I’m looking on your site right now and I’m looking at TPC Myrtle Beach. You can get a 9:10 tee time tomorrow Matt, for $68. Right now you can get that.

Chad: You can’t beat that. You can’t beat that at TPC.

Greeny: So tell me a little bit about the course itself. Some of the holes out there. You have a favorite? If you’re like me, everybody’s got that one hole on a golf course that just gets them every time and you know, it’s like the 12th hole, you’re thinking about that 12th hole all day long and when you get there, you’re like, “I am not gonna let this 12th hole dominate me.” And then you hit it out of bounds. What’s your favorite hole? What’s that one hole that just gets you every time?

Chad: Personally, for me, it’s such a love-hate relationship with the 18th hole at TPC Myrtle Beach. It’s 600 yards, a par five and you’re coming back to the clubhouse. There’s a creek down the right hand side that feeds into a pond that finishes to the left side of the green and the fairway. You can make a really, really easy birdie – or you can make the hardest 8 you’ve ever made in your whole life.

Matt: I’ve never had a 600-yard par five where I thought birdie was easy to make.

Chad: I guess we don’t all hit it like Dustin (Johnson), right?

Matt: Right (laughing).

Greeny: When we start talking about this, right now we’re obviously not in peak season are we? What’s kind of the peak and the off-peak times for the Myrtle Beach area?

Chad: The peak time for Myrtle Beach really is that March-April-May window in the spring. You cannot beat the weather. Once you get down into the end of the summer, early fall, there’s almost what we call a mini (fall) season and October is such a great spot to come down and play golf. But that spring season is really … every course is in top-notch shape and you just can’t miss the weather at that time.

Greeny: The other thing I ran across on the site was “get a quick quote.” What does that mean, and what do I do?

Chad: Essentially, you can do a little bit of the planning yourself with setting up your dates for the trip that you’re looking at. And you can pick your preferred times and you can, I think you can give a really good picture (of what you need by filling out the short form), and it will (forward the information to the Hammock Coast Golf Trail staff who will respond back with a) quote for you.

Matt: Chad, is it feasible to be able to play 36 holes this time of year, you know, two a day for three days or something like that? Do we have enough time or is it not busy so much that you could possible do that?

Chad: No. I would say this. There’s easily a 36-hole day (opportunity) when we get into Daylight Savings Time. You can certainly plan it accordingly, catch one of those early tee times and then turn around and play again in the afternoon and watch the sun go down.

Greeny: I’m looking out here right now. If you click on the golf packages site, I mean there’s a ton of packages out there. November to Remember. Golftoberfest. Sizzlin’ Summer Special.

Chad: They have so many different specials and you can really pay to make it to exactly what you’re looking for as a group or as an individual. You can come down and play just afternoon (rounds), let it warm up a little bit, play afternoon rounds. Or you can set up 36-hole days like we were talking about. There’s just so much versatility when you have so many golf courses within a (short) drive.

Greeny: Now, where do you stay? Do you guys have hotels that you are affiliated with as well?

Chad: There’s so many different spots on the south end. There are so many different good travel providers and (with) some of the Hammock Coast Golf Trail packages, they’ll work with the resorts and their own accommodations and make that all kind of a one-stop shop. You really can’t beat the convenience of it.

Greeny: Well Chad, man, we appreciate you coming on. We appreciate you and the Hammock Coast Golf Trail being a new sponsor with us. We’re gonna focus on a different golf course each week. Man it’s gonna be awesome, and hopefully Matty and I can get down there and play some time.

Chad: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having us and if you get a chance, come down and check out TPC Myrtle Beach.

Greeny: All right. Thanks a lot, man.