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 You can travel the length and breadth of the Grand Strand to enjoy the work of Rees Jones, Willard Byrd and Dan Maples. But the only place you can appreciate these three great architects together is by walking outside your front door at the Sea Trail Resort and Conference Center, just north of Myrtle Beach in tranquil Sunset Beach, NC.
And Sea Trail is the only place in the region where this trio signed their work, their three “Courses of Distinction” named for the men who left their design legacy in the only all-amenity resort in the Myrtle Beach area. Yet while brought together geographically, you’ll be astounded at the different experiences that await you at all three layouts. Many truly believe you can capture the essence of Grand Strand golf while never leaving the Sea Trail resort.
Challenging? The Rees Jones Course played host to a local qualifier for the 2006 U.S. Open and Sea Trail also hosted the 2006 Carolinas Senior PGA Championship.
Playable? All three courses are just under 6,800 yards from the tips, around 6,300 from the white tees and between 5,500 and 6,000 from the gold tees, with similar slopes in the 132(back) to 122 (gold) range.
 The Dan Maples Course was Sea Trail’s first, and Golf Digest honored it as one of the North Carolina native’s greatest when the magazine named the course one of the “Best New Resort” courses in America in 1986. With five holes winding along scenic Calabash Creek and underneath elegant canopies of century-old oaks and carved through native Southern pines, the Maples Course is a classic southern experience, right down to the rocking chairs under one of those huge oaks just steps from the 18th green.
The Maples Course has its own clubhouse with an airy, shaded “back porch” overlooking the 18th fairway. It even has its own custom club-fitting and club-making shop with prices comparable to the mall stores. The relaxed atmosphere prepares you for a delightful round that will challenge you, but won’t beat you up, unless you spend too much time playing from behind the thousands of trees that border the course! Possibly the most scenic of the trio, the Maples Course is known for its wildlife, with nesting pairs of osprey visible in the spring and early summer.
The diversity of this design is the definition of Dan’s layout. Each side also features a pair of forced-carries on back-to-back holes, challenging your game just enough to make every round a unique experience. The approach to the sharply doglegged par-4 seventh, downhill over a pond, prepares you for the tee shot at the eighth, where you’ll drive out of a narrow chute, over a lake, to reach a wide, diagonal landing area. Then on the back nine, a short carry is necessary off the tee of this wickedly tight pine-bordered dogleg left par-4, warming you up for the longer carry you’ll need to clear the pond and reach the fairway of the more wide-open, but uphill par-4 14th.
Though well-bunkered, all of the par-3s and nearly every other hole on the Maples Course, offer an opening to run the ball onto the green. Until the finishing hole, a marvelous little par-4 that should be a driver and a wedge, but that wedge has to avoid three good sized bunkers in front of the green.
 The Rees Jones and Willard Byrd Courses play out of a sprawling, shared clubhouse less than a mile from the quaint Maples clubhouse. While sharing similar topography, the Jones and Byrd layouts couldn’t be more different. Much of Jones’ acclaim has come from his renovations of major championship courses like Donald Ross’ Pinehurst #2, A.W. Tillinghast’s Bethpage Black and Baltusrol, his father Robert Trent Jones’ Congressional and Hazeltine and Tom Bendelow’s Medinah for the most recent PGA Championship. But the man known as the “Open Doctor” has designed four of Golf Digest’s Top 100 on his own and there’s no doubt that his Sea Trail layout is a Rees Jones original.
The signature mounding of the Jones Course is evident from the first drive off the first tee, the mounds framing the wide fairways around the entire course. The greens are significantly smaller than those on the Maples Course and water is visible on 11 of the holes, though not always in play.
Another unique feature of the Rees Jones Course are back-to-back par-5s to finish the front side, the shorter eighth hole with a slice of lake piercing almost the entire approach to the green, the ninth with large, menacing bunkers on the right hand side in the landing area for the drive and another on the left hand side on the approach. If your driver’s working, you’ve got a chance for some serious momentum with the two par-5s, then a short dogleg right par-4 at #10 that wraps around a lake.
You’ll very likely hit four different clubs from the four par-3s, two of them over water. In most cases, Jones has designed his holes so that if he offers you an open tee shot, there’ll be trouble around the greens, and vice versa. The finishing hole, a potentially-reachable par-5, is a perfect example. A wide fairway gives way to mounds and bunkers on the outside of the dogleg right with a well-guarded green providing a small opening for those daring enough to try to reach it in two.
Among Willard Byrd’s great designs is the Atlanta Country Club, yet his signature course at Sea Trail is considered one of his most outstanding, and possibly the toughest of the trio. Built around several man-made lakes, the Byrd Course challenges you with numerous forced carries and water very much in-play on 10 of the 18 holes. Be especially wary of the flags signaling almost-hidden hazards in numerous places on this course. The water’s much more obvious as you play from the island tee on the par-3 second and the 135-yard carry off the tee at the par-5 third. Unlike many other courses, where waste areas are fairly easy to play from, you’re encouraged to avoid them here.
 Featuring the smallest greens of the trio, Byrd also protects them with some diabolical bunkering through the stretch of holes 7-12, then asks you again to lay-up and then carry a pond to approach the par-5 13th.
The 18th of the Byrd and Jones’ Courses finish at the shared clubhouse, home to Magnolia’s restaurant and a huge pro shop that includes, among the latest equipment and apparel, a great selection of kids golf and beach clothes and accessories.
Beach? We’re not just talking bunkers here. The Sea Trail shuttles can get you to the Atlantic Ocean in five minutes, and the Village Activities Center features a terraced outdoor pool in a lush tropical setting with its own deli and bar, a kiddie pool, whirlpool, and indoor heated pool and whirlpool for the cooler months. The Activities Center also has a weight room, cardio equipment, fitness classes, a sauna and licensed massage therapists. Lighted tennis courts and bike rentals are available and arrangements can be made for fishing excursions, horseback riding and all the other activities to make a Sea Trail vacation complete. If you decide to escape the quiet of the resort, the many activities of Myrtle Beach are just a hop, skip and a jump away.
54 holes of golf on three courses of distinction. Certainly a spot to circle on your next Myrtle Beach excursion. In fact, you might just want to spend your whole vacation here. And as you gaze at some of the homes along your route through these signature layouts, you might want to ponder joining those who’ve settled in for a lifetime of great golf. For more information, visit www.SeaTrail.com or call (800) 624-6601. For tee times, call (800) 546-5748 or locally (910) 287-1122. Why travel the entire Grand Strand to play Jones, Byrd and Maples when they’re all in one place?
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