Crow Creek Golf Club

Opened in 2000 and designed by Rick Robbins, Crow Creek is a fun, challenging golf course whose design reflects many architecture principles of Jack Nicklaus, for whom Robbins worked for a number of years. Large, undulating greens, many short grass chipping areas and a number of water features all come into play routinely, creating a golf experience that appeals as much to the club’s membership as its thousands of annual vacation visitors. It sits two miles north of the North Carolina/South Carolina state line in the town of Calabash, on a 500-acre homestead owned by the McLamb family.

Crow Creek is a par-72 golf course, with the traditional arrangement of four par threes, four par fives and ten par fours, spread out evenly over the two nines. Two of those par fives are monsters, checking in a longer than 560 yards from the tips, which contribute to the course’s total length of 7,101 yard from those back Black tees. The course is eminently fair, though, always providing a place to miss along with a place where golfers absolutely do not want to miss. This is true on holes like the par three 13th, whose green forms a peninsula into a pond on the right. There is a fairway chipping area left of the green for players to bail out, rewarding prudent play over recklessness.

Crow Creek’s practice facilities are excellent, as one would expect from a course that has a sizable membership in addition to its yearly vacation contingent of golfers. The practice facility includes a large grass driving range and two practice greens where players can hone their putting and chipping before and after their appointed rounds.