Bustling Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, may be the jewel of a 60-mile stretch offering some 90 enticing golf courses to throngs of frostbitten golfers, but not everyone wants to vacation among the t-shirt shops and kitschy fish camp eateries.
Recently, on a 3200-mile car trip to the coastal Carolinas from San Antonio, I found a course and a small town just barely across the North Carolina border, 30 miles north of Myrtle Beach, that offer a bit less hurried, less “packaged tour” feel for the traveling hacker.
Thistle Golf Club, in Sunset Beach, North Carolina, (pop. 6,400) is a 27-hole complex that has drawn accolades since it opened in 1999 and can stand among Myrtle’s well-known destinations such as the Dunes, Caledonia and True Blue tracks.
The three nine-hole layouts wind among the familiar alligator-friendly marsh (34 acres of water) and pine trees of the Carolina lowlands, not unlike what TV golf fans would see at Hilton Head Island’s Harbour Town Golf Links during the annual RBC Heritage tournament. Gators are frequently sighted at Thistle, so anyone with small children or dogs should leave them at home with a sketchy babysitter, but there aren’t that many serious confrontations with golfers. (See Ian Poulter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtbLtuBOOjU
“The most amazing fact about Thistle,” its designer, Tim Cate, told me, “is that, with the exception of minimal wetlands, the site was absolutely flat, without a single contour, and there were no site features or vegetation to work with.” Cate is a “well-kept secret,” says Becky Noble, an executive at nearby (and private) Ocean Ridge Plantation, where Cate has done four courses. “The quality of his golf courses is just immense.”
Thistle’s developers created a 30-acre pond to drain much of the wetlands, said Cate, and created another 30 acres of drive-through waste areas, beach bunkers and native vegetation separation areas to fashion a course that offers broad inviting fairways yet an intimacy and seclusion one might expect at a more exclusive course.
The Thistle was an 80-member club until its purchase in 2013, primarily by Jack Davis (and family) of Windermere, Florida, according to Myrtle Beach Golf Authority.
With a background in coal mining and construction explosives, Jack Davis has accumulated more than 30 golf courses throughout the Southeast and quickly developed a reputation at Thistle for a willingness to add features, such as a waterfall, an on-course bar and a now-underway replacement of the greens, though they will remain TifEagle ultradwarf Bermuda.
The three nines – Mackay, Stewart and Cameron – have a relaxing coherent routing to them, absent blind shots and tomfoolery, and play to about 6,800 yards in all of the 18-hole combinations.
“Mackay is the hardest,” says Thistle head pro Brian Eckley, an affable scratch golfer, “and the toughest hole there is Number 7, a par five, 546-yard, number one handicap that no more than a handful of people have ever reached in two.” It requires two forced carries, and the tree-lined left side stifles your desire to cut the corner, while a bunker awaits you at the dog leg. You’re not done – a masterful layup has to be negotiated before mere mortals reach a challenging two-tiered green.
The club name, Thistle, was chosen by the North Carolina course as a tribute to one of the golf clubs, established in 1815, that had privileges at The Links of Leith in Edinburgh, Scotland, considered the birthplace of golf. The Carolina club exhibits many of the relic trophy clubs and score cards from the time period, as well as the original book, Rules of the Thistle Golf Club, published in 1824, but that’s really the extent of any connection this forested course and its design has to Scotland or true links golf.
The North Carolina Golf Panel placed Thistle at No. 90 in its 2025 state rankings of all courses, but No. 29 of those open to the public. Clearly, North Carolina has mighty golf. Green fees for non-locals run about $165 to $229 during peak season.
The little town of Sunset Beach has plenty of local restaurants, craft shops and a welcoming vibe at the city park, with Thursday markets and popular park concerts. But the beach is the star. Unique on the East Coast in its south-facing direction, the broad and remarkably clean beach was in 2017 suggested by National Geographic to be among the best beaches in the world and is one of North Carolina’s Brunswick Islands.