Pine Lakes, the Granddaddy, and the Birth of Sports Illustrated

This course goes by a nickname, the Granddaddy, and it earned it honestly. Pine Lakes, originally called Ocean Forest Country Club, opened in nineteen twenty seven as the very first golf course in Myrtle Beach, the seed from which the entire golf coast grew. It was laid out by Robert White, a Scot who was the first president of the Professional Golfers Association of America.

But Pine Lakes has a second, stranger claim to fame. In nineteen fifty four, a group of Time and Life magazine employees, some sixty seven of them, stopped here on their way home from Florida. Over drinks and dinner at the clubhouse, they hashed out plans for a brand new kind of publication, a weekly built entirely around sports.

That magazine launched that August, and its name was Sports Illustrated. So on this quiet, tree lined old course, two American institutions trace their beginnings, the Myrtle Beach golf boom, and one of the most famous magazines in the country. Not bad for a clubhouse where the servers still traditionally greeted golfers in tartan vests, pouring a complimentary bowl of clam chowder as you came off the course.