Distance between courses

[Mark Mingelgreen]

First time participant – is it unusual to be playing as far north as Sunset Beach, NC and as far south as Pawleys Island? Looks like I am going to have to leave an hour or more for travel time on those two days.
I am in Flight 33.

Mark

[Ryan Stratulate]

Yup usually you will get a south, a north and two centralish courses on your selection. Honestly the drives aren’t that bad at all. “Knock on wood” I also don’t find traffic to be terrible down in MB either, so barring an accident the drives are pretty easy and quick.

[Harry (The Hack) Radley]

That is normal Mark but you also have to remember that school is back in so there will be a lot of yellow buses stopping at every 2nd corner so allow a few more minutes just in case.

One of the guys that is staying with me, Landon Asakawa has an easy course on Wednesday being only a drive and a wedge from where we are staying

Oops sorry thats my game. For Lanny it will be a driver, 3wood, 3 wood, schank, cold top, bladed wedge and 4 putts. …… Luv ya Lanyard but you are a rope around my neck, see ya at 3.30am at the airport on Thursday morning

[Mark Hancock]

As Ryan said, it is pretty standard to get a far north and a far south course. For the long North/South drives, utilize Carolina Bays Parkway (Hwy 31) and try to avoid Hwy 17 as much as possible. Carolina Bays Parkway is a limited access, so you can really move.

[Wayne Rhodes]

Hi, Mark, and welcome to the WA. As others have said, the distribution of courses is typical, which is why lots of folks like to stay near the middle of town, near the Convention Center. But even if you stay far north or south, you’ll be close to one course, have a long drive to your course on the other end of the Strand, and have a reasonable drive to the two courses in central MB. Traffic is not bad at all here this time of year. Our “rush hour” is typically dinner time. Use Hwy. 31 as much as possible. Make sure you have decent directions before setting out. Allow yourself 15 extra minutes of margin. Have fun !

[Rick Kimbrell]

Welcome to the WA Mark. Something to know about any of the courses you may draw (maybe with the exception of Legends courses), most of them do not have extremely wide driving ranges and with 90+ people it gets crowded quick and you can end up having to wait to get to warm up. I tend to leave very early for my courses so I do not feel rushed. Thankfully our start times are 9:00am now instead of earlier like they were 30 years ago when I first started playing. The 9:00am also helps avoid some of the school bus traffic.
If you are staying centrally, the drive (both ways) to the up north courses is usually not bad if you can take 31.
Courses out towards the west on 501 are usually not bad to get to in the mornings but in the afternoon coming back traffic tends to be pretty bad.
I find traffic headed to the down south courses to be the worst and does not matter whether you are headed there or coming back. Just allow yourself ample time.
For anyone, I would recommend a good traffic GPS app on your smartphone, if you do not already have one. I use WAZE and find it very helpful letting me know where traffic jams are. Also in giving me the fastest route to the course I am headed to. And, I find it generally better than the GPS apps that most vehicles have these days.
Good luck, have fun, and hope I run into you at the Convention Center.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by Rick Kimbrell.

[Harry (The Hack) Radley]

Better to run into him at the convention centre rather than run into him on the freeway

[Rick Kimbrell]

Words of wisdom Harry, words of wisdom. You da’ man!!!

[tommy seymour]

It’s probably quicker for me to ask …Does Grande Dunes , Farmstead , Litchfield , Arrowhead have practice ranges ? Thanks and have a safe trip down !

[Alex Grebel]

Mark, welcome!! I always plan to get to the course about an hour before and just relax, putt, hit a few balls, meet my foursome, etc. feeling rushed off the first tee is no fun!

So yeah, on those further away days I want to be on the road around 7, 7:15 at the latest. I wound up with only one central course this year (Pine Lakes – which is the most central of then all!) along with two north and one south. But none in NC. Hey, it is what it is!

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