|
|
Golf's Holiday Camp
Funny enough, it was a hiker along the Long Trail in Vermont many years ago who tipped me off about Mrs. Fraunce's Kitchen. It's long since gone, sad to say, a victim, I finally learned, of a fire caused by a pot left untended on the stove. Driving around a very different Myrtle Beach these days, the restaurant comes back to me, as does a pressure-packed ace made on the 18th hole during a round of miniature golf that had a direct bearing on my marital status. Looking for Mrs. Fraunce's is like driving around Florida. My wife used to say, "Look, there" and if you weren't quick enough, there went a piece of old Florida, an Art Deco building or a funky joint, or something worth turning your head for, sandwiched amidst the sprawl of Anytown, USA.
Mrs. Fraunce's was a small concrete house in a middle-class neighborhood, tucked back from the bustle of Highway17. Mercedes parked alongside the house next to trucks and sedans. You weren't sure but you persevered. No one ordered at Mrs. Fraunce's. You ate whatever was on. The night my wife and I found it, before heading to a minor league baseball game, we had pork chops and green beans and sweet tea. There was no desert, sadly; I'd had visions of homemade pies but it was welcoming and hospitable, wholly unpretentious and filling, traits that Myrtle Beach has somehow managed to hold on to despite the success and double-edged sword of stroking tourists for so many years.
Miniature golf has also come a long way in Myrtle. There's special effects, active volcanoes and faux crashed cargo planes framed by clouds of fog. Haven't played those. The one I remember was just a regular old layout. The hole-in-one came along the Strand, next to a bar that touted itself as the birthplace of that appalling country band, Alabama. (My wife saw them up close and personal working production on some of their tours after they hit it big. There are stories.) We played that night to determine the date of our wedding. The ace, my first, and the pinnacle of success under pressure in golf, stalled the wedding date for another six months. It's in the hole!
Myrtle Beach, 120 courses and counting, succeeds directly competing with Hilton Head and Pinehurst, which is, frankly, amazing. The golf is not cheap, despite the cheesy trappings, and it's almost uniformly of a high standard. Golf's Graceland was the way it once seemed to me but those not deflected or even depressed by the commercial sprawl and schmaltz are always pleasantly surprised and, as I quickly was, won over. No wonder they keep coming back. There's no mystery to golf's success here. It starts with a quality product. Then add Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday, the marketing and promotional arm, a trend-setting colossus, as effective as they are enthusiastic and genuine in spreading the gospel. The location is ideal for the major cities of the Northeast, never more so than at present when many are reluctant to fly. It's not right on the interstate but driving along the blue highways is half the fun. And the beach itself is very much underrated.
No, after 15 years of annually traveling to Myrtle Beach, hitting the pancake houses, diving into the plentiful seafood and scouring the woods chasing the little white ball, the courses that I haven't enjoyed are far outweighed by the ones I have. The Dunes Club, the TPC, Possum Trot, Pine Lakes, Tidewater, Caledonia, King's North, Myrtle Beach National, Arrowhead, Belle Terre, I've played abominably poorly and almost unconsciously well on many of them, where is almost immaterial. How Myrtle Beach has continued to be so hospitable and gracious to invading hordes of increasingly impatient Yankees is one of the great travel industry success stories - and mysteries.
Driving by this last time down, a quiet weekend before Easter, the sign blinking over the driveway to Waterway Hills had been switched to accommodate the time change: $81 and $65 twilight. That's the course with the gondola that connects to the pro shop. It is not one of my favorites but I had a good time here, too.
The Dunes Club, host to a PGA Tour Qualifying School (won by Ben Crenshaw) and numerous Senior Tour Championships, is a wonderful course, one of my eternal favorites. The logo, an alligator with a ball in his mouth, is also one of the best in golf.
It's a course similar to one that I think every golfer has, where he returns periodically to measure himself and his game against the past. It's also one of the few courses that I can remember. There's not a bad hole on it and a discussion of the best hole on the golf course can take enlightening and spirited turns. It's a He-Man's course, RT Jones Sr., lots of wind, dispiriting bunkers filled with a top quality brand of sand that swallows a ball and that you never see at home. It's tight and taunting but scenic and sustaining. The Dunes is a test of the previous year and I always look forward to returning, as I imagine do those who relish a return to the great old courses of Scotland.
There are, thinking back to Mrs. Fraunce's, other restaurants I like in Myrtle Beach, but I'm not going to mention them. There is one though worth passing along, another slice of days gone by. Occasionally, for some reason, I'll fly into Raleigh, a longer drive to Myrtle but not without its diversions. In the spring the azaleas are just beginning but the wisteria grows as high as the barns, way into the treetops. I always enjoy the drive. There is, too, the obligatory stop at the Char-Grill, not far from Carter-Finley stadium and the North Carolina Museum of Art (same exit, turn left, right on Hillsborough). It's an old hamburger stand, in a supermarket parking lot. You write out your own ticket, checking off your order, and send in along a metal slot. The Chicken Breast Sandwich has a star on it on the ticket. It costs $3.60, I think it was, a steal. A couple of those, a milkshake too thick for a straw (they thoughtfully provide a long spoon), turnovers, the ½ pound Hamburger Steak Sandwich, they've got you covered. Never miss the Char-Grill. There's others, great bbq joints, but I try and hit the Char Grill on Hillsborough; they've got a Web site, and stay open on the weekends until 2 in the morning. If I've played well, on the way back to the airport, I treat myself to one of the apple turnovers.
Even after all the visits to Myrtle, the wrong turns, driving through small towns at all hours of the day, especially in early morning, in all kinds of whether - there was that one town I couldn't help but notice had a restaurant that offers the pleasures of something called the "Gone with the Wind Room" - the billboard also noted "Bikers Welcome" - I've never regretted visiting this corner of the world, which still feels like a foreign country to me (My! I had no idea the Steve Miller Band was still rocking me baby). Golf aside, schmaltz aside, Easter traffic aside, I've never left Myrtle Beach feeling not only gently tolerated but genuinely welcomed. Ultimately, a traveler asks for little else.
The LPGA Comes to Town
2001 PGA Merchandise Show
The 2000 Open at St. Andrews
Southern Pines, North Carolina
|
