Black Bear Golf Club

Course has been closed and for sale since August 2016. Great Tom Jackson layout that the Chinese ran into the ground.

All in all the layout is not bad, but the greens are terrible. The greens look like they need to be redone all together. Now I know why it only cost 25 dollars. I will say if the greens were okay I would replay it, just not now.

Where do I start? First off, this was part of golf package on MB golf authority. For $255 bucks, we got 3 nights at a beatdown condo on the ocean, a round w/ replay at Black Bear, same at Crown Park and a round at Arcadian Shores.

This is where we started. Riding into the club, you can tell that this place was probably very nice at one point. Spread out pretty well.

We arrive early in hopes to get some breakfast and split a bucket of range balls before we get started. As we check in at the front desk in the shop, I confirm that we get a free replay as part of our package and he replies "Sure, if you want to." This should have rang a bell right there.

I step into the snack bar portion and ask for a sausage sandwich where I am met with a dumbfounded look and an explanation that they have lost employees and don't have anything other than prepackaged muffins, granola bars, etc. for breakfast even though their menu on display indicates they have plenty. He explains that he is cooking hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch (more on those later.).

My foursome makes our way down to where we expect to have a cart ready and a bucket of balls to find about 16 golfers waiting as well. The setup here has one poor guy walking back under the clubhouse and driving each cart out separately. This is very time consuming - not his fault - this is just poor course management. He gets us the range balls, we step over onto a soggy mudpit of a range, slip and slide our way thru the bag and head over to get our cart.

First tee - WOO HOO! Spanked it right in the middle of the fairway. Only to find out that its more preferable to hit it into the rough as the fairway is a good 2-3 inches tall spaced out by soggy mud. We make our way to the green, or as we called them, "beiges". Every shot to the beige, prompts a splash of dirt/sand. Think Lebron's pre game routine. Their are craters all over and its pretty much a guessing game as to how to roll it.

Hoping it would get better at some point, it did not. 18 holes of luxurious dirt/sand filled craters impersonating greens. We headed to the clubhouse starving and were provided a hockey puck hamburger, hot dog jerky, chips and a drink for the sweet deal of $12. My buddy was short on balls and headed into the pro shop where they only had Nitro golf balls for sale. The cashier actually told him they were "a good deal at only 25 bucks". Were we born yesterday bud? Just insulting. These things go for like 6 bucks a dozen anywhere.

All in all this place is currently a dump, with gross over priced food and junk merch in the 'pro' shop that is overpriced as well. This is just not what you drive 8 hours to go play. Do yourself a favor and find a more favorable place to play like Crown Park right down the street.

the layout and challenge of this course is decent; they are under new management and are offering the best prices in the area but it has been a wet winter and this course drains poorly- one nine was cart path only and the other nine was ninety degree carts; a good choice for you first round of the year.

The course design is decent but conditions on the day we played were poor. Despite allowing carts out on damp fairways, the fairways were not mown on the front side and were about 3-4 inches high. Most of the fairways were mown on the back nine. We got a Hot Deal ($17) so it was not horrible. The new owner was a bit upset over that rate; evidently, only players coming out have been using the cheap GolfNow rate. Given the current state of the course/landscape, his expectation of golfers paying rack rate/small discount is unrealistic.

course is challenging with water on every hole, but not overbearing. Very playable for all levels of play. Will definitely play this course again.

looks great from the road.this guy picked up our clubs and took them somewhere.walked up the stairs to sign in which took awhile.finally got our ticket and went down the back stairs where our clubs and cart was.went to the first hole and it was nothing special,and every hole after that was the same until the 18th hole which was the only hole with a great design and worth playing.

We'v had an enormous amount of rain the past several weeks that has caused flooding. Unfortunately this beautiful course took all the rain and flooding on the chin. It was "cart path only" for the entire 18 holes and many fairways muddy and in the process of heavy over-seeding. Greens were in good shape for the most part. Next Spring this course will be at the top of my list to play again. Mother Nature has been brutal to all area courses in 2015.

Really enjoyed our round at Black Bear. Very playable course with a few challenging holes. Definitely coming back next year. Was not busy which is a shame because people are missing out on a great course. New management and fixing up the kitchen will make it even better for next years round. Expressway makes it a easy 35 minute drive from down Myrtle Beach.

Great course, but the greens are not playable. From the 1st to the 18th, they were barely any grass and very bumpy. Sjhould hae been aerated and/or top dressed. Tees and fairways are OK but the one-put pickup rule is the only salvation. Too bad as this course is a local favorite. One of the first to use the Champion bemuda greens ten years ago. Don't bother til they straighten out the greens.

The greens were horrible. Not playable. We will never go back or recommend it.

First of five rounds on the grand strand and we booked this for $35 as a good opening around after being off for winter. Now Myrtle Beach has just had 9 days of off and on rain so we knew the course would be wet and it was wet and cart path only. The course is a decent layout... nothing too technical with fairways pretty open. Water comes into play on several holes but nothing most people can't handle. Biggest issue was the greens were in very rough shape. Many seemed to be more packed mug (dirt) than actual grass. Someone at another course said that is because the winter grass is dying off and the new grass will be starting. But out of 5 courses we played only Black Bear and Aberdeen had this issue with the greens and they are just down the road from each other. Strange.

As for staff... nobody was manning the bag drop when we arrived so we parked and had to carry out clubs around the club house to the starting area. The starter was probably in his 80's and didn't really seem to have a club how to run things. Never called out names, never called out times or let anyone know when to go. Then they ran out of carts and got backed up on the start as they waited for carts to come in.

The round played about 5.25 hours in wet condition so I guess that is not too bad for cart path only.

All in all... for $35 I can't complain and I am sure that this course when dry and greens have filled in would be nice to play for the right price.

I absolutely love the layout of Black Bear, and Tom Jackson is one of my favorite architects. With that being said, I was very disappointed with the staff and lack of a ranger patrolling the course.
My wife and I had a 9:34 tee time, arrived at course at 8:45, but we actually didn't tee off until approximately 10:05. No reasoning from the staff except to say "We're busy today." I did notice that there was a 5-some of ladies playing on #10 when we arrived so I think they were sending people off on both nines.
The greens are Bermuda, but there are little tufts of grass growing up that easily push your putts off course. Obviously the greens haven't been cut in a while, plus there was a lot of debris on the greens that should have been blown off at the very least. The fairways were in excellent shape, not a bad lie anywhere.
Unfortunately, it took 3 hours to play the front and an additional 2.5 hours to play the back. I can't stand slow play as it negatively affects my score. I was surprised that I managed to shoot 78 from the white tees.
The final kicker, the group behind us kept hitting into us even after I asked them to please wait until we cleared the area. I told the starter at the turn and he said he would talk with them but it did no good. At the 14th hole I had had enough and hit their ball back at them. I waited for them to say something but they didn't come forward at all and they didn't hit into us again.
I don't know if I ever will play this course again even though it is an awesome layout. Staff needs to be more customer oriented instead of thinking only of dollar signs!

Black bear was an overall good experience. The place was really crowded with appeared to be regulars but the pace was still good after the first few holes. Course is fairly easy with very few water hazards in play.

Fairways were good for this time of year. Staff friendly.Would definitely go back

Had to wait 1 hr. To tee off, all carts out. Had to wait on EVERY hole. Round took 5 hours to play. Very poor drainage. Course was soaked. Greens were almost all PAINTED sand. Layout is nice. Course may be more enjoyable in the summer when the grass comes in.

Pros hop staff not friendly. Overall it's a track that needs an infusion of attention and work. Greens were fast because it was like putting on pavement. I'm glad that I didn't pay more than the hot deal price. Would not return.

The course was extremely busy and we were 45 minutes late starting as there were no carts available at the cross-over. It was a busy day everywhere as the forecast was very favorable. Even though it was this busy, pace of play was very good once we got going. Reasonably challenging with very fast greens. Difficult to two putt.

Arrived 20 minutes early for our tee time but had to wait for over an hour to tee off as the had a high school match in a shot gun start on the front nine.
Most of the greens had weeds on the greens. Overall condition of course was poor even for March. If you're staying in Myrtle Beach this course is not worth the drive to Longs, SC to play. Pay a few extra bucks and play closer to town.

It appears to get a tremendous amount of play and maybe that explains the terrible conditions of the greens. Green speed was fast but they were very very dry (which is a little strange considering the course was CPO due to all the wetness). The dry greens seemed to show every spike mark and that made the greens impossible to trust a line.