Arcadian Shores Golf Club

Arcadian Shores Golf Club, opened in 1974 as Rees Jones's first solo design, winds through clusters of live oaks and natural lakes along the north end of Myrtle Beach. Jones applied his father's 'hard par, easy bogey' philosophy to create a course that challenges low-handicap players while remaining fair across all skill levels, featuring 64 strategically placed sand bunkers and lush Tifton Bermuda greens. Two of its holes — the par-three 2nd and par-four 13th — have appeared on the Myrtle Beach Sun News's regional 'Dream 18' list.

Arcadian Shores Golf Club holds a milestone in American golf architecture that its modest profile in the contemporary Myrtle Beach landscape obscures: it was Rees Jones's first solo design, the opening statement of a career that would eventually see him selected to restore and prepare courses for eleven U.S. Open Championships. The nickname Jones would earn later in his career — "The Open Doctor" — traces back to the reputation he began building at this Myrtle Beach course in 1974. Rees Jones came to Arcadian Shores with deep architectural credentials embedded in his surname. His father, Robert Trent Jones Sr., was one of the twentieth century's most prolific and influential course designers, responsible for the Dunes Golf and Beach Club just down the road — the course that had established Myrtle Beach as a serious golf destination in 1948. Growing up in that household, Rees absorbed the craft from childhood, apprenticed under his father's direction, and eventually struck out on his own.

Arcadian Shores was where he proved he could build at the highest level without his father's signature on the drawings. The site provided Jones with a canvas well-suited to his strengths: sandy coastal soil, mature pines and oaks, a relatively open landscape that allowed for creative routing, and the Myrtle Beach market's demand for a course that could attract daily-fee play from traveling golfers alongside local members. Jones designed a parkland-style layout that used the natural terrain sympathetically, threading fairways through tree corridors while incorporating lakes and a carefully considered bunkering scheme that would become his signature. The course stretches to just over 6,800 yards from the championship tees, with a rating of 73.2 and a slope of 137. Five tee boxes provide accessibility across a wide range of player abilities, while the back tee challenge is genuine enough to satisfy low handicappers. Sixty-four precisely placed bunkers define the course's strategic character — positioned not for visual impact alone but to reward proper angle of attack and punish the careless play that results from not thinking through a hole's design.

The lakes are integrated throughout, appearing at decisive moments rather than as decorative features. Golf Digest placed Arcadian Shores on its list of America's 100 Greatest Public Courses in the years following its opening, a recognition that confirmed Jones's debut as more than merely adequate. Two holes — the second and the thirteenth — were selected by Golf Digest experts as part of a "Dream 18" compilation of the best holes in Myrtle Beach, each representing a design accomplishment that stood above the competitive field of nearby courses. The course underwent renovation work in subsequent decades to update the playing surface while preserving Jones's design language. TifEagle Bermuda greens replaced the original putting surfaces, enhancing speed and consistency without altering the fundamental challenge Jones created. The bunkers were restored and maintained in keeping with the original design intent.

Jones went on from Arcadian Shores to build a career that is unmatched in U.S. Open history. His restoration work at Bethpage Black, Torrey Pines, Congressional, and other major venues transformed courses into championship tests that the game's best players praised for their fairness, strategy, and relationship to the traditions of championship golf. All of that began at Myrtle Beach in 1974, on a piece of sandy Carolina coastal ground where a young architect proved he could translate his father's lessons into his own voice.