The Story
In the late 1940s, Myrtle Beach was a summer beach town with an off-season problem. Newspaper owner William A. Kimbel wrote editorials calling for recreation that could draw visitors year-round; local attorney George W. 'Buster' Bryan answered, rallying fellow citizens in 1947 and 1948 to charter a new club on oceanfront land provided by Myrtle Beach Farms. To design it they hired an ambitious young architect named Robert Trent Jones, who took one look at the site — 'a lovely piece of land studded with live oaks,' with the marshy Singleton Swash emptying into the Atlantic — and fell for his first coastal commission.
What Jones built became his first nationally acclaimed solo design, the course that launched the signature style — long runway tees, bold bunkering, water used as a dare — that would make him the most influential architect of his century. Its emblem is the 13th, 'Waterloo': a par 5 that bends nearly ninety degrees around Lake Singleton and invites you to bite off exactly as much water as your nerve allows. It has been ranked among the top 100 holes in America, and it has been wrecking scorecards since Truman was president.
The championships followed. The 1962 U.S. Women's Open came to the Dunes, won by 23-year-old Murle Lindstrom with a record-setting comeback. The Golf Writers Association of America has staged its tournament here since 1954. The senior tour brought its season-ending Tour Championship for six straight years in the 1990s, PGA Tour Qualifying School finals decided careers on these greens, and through it all Rees Jones — Robert Trent's son — has quietly renovated and modernized his father's design, keeping the stewardship in the family.
When the PGA Tour finally came to Myrtle Beach in 2024, after decades as America's most-visited golf destination, there was never any question which course would host. The Dunes was the second course ever built on the Grand Strand and the seed from which dozens grew — the grande dame of American beach-town golf, still holding court beside the Atlantic.