The PGA Tour announced Wednesday it will in 2024 launch a new full-field tournament, the Myrtle Beach Classic in South Carolina. An opposite-field event to be played the same week as one of the Tour’s designated events, the new tournament will be played at the Dunes Beach and Golf Club.
Visit Myrtle Beach will sponsor the new event and offer a purse of $3.9 million with 300 FedEx Cup points going to the winner. A four-year agreement was announced, but the dates of the event were not. The full 2024 Tour schedule is yet to be determined.
“We are thrilled to announce the debut of the Myrtle Beach Classic, an exciting new playing opportunity for our members in one of our country’s most recognized and visited destinations,” PGA Tour President Tyler Dennis said in a media release announcing the news. “With its incredible passion for golf, the Myrtle Beach community is a natural fit to bring this tournament to life. We look forward to partnering with Visit Myrtle Beach for a first-class tournament at a championship venue in Dunes Golf and Beach Club.”
A new tournament in South Carolina is set to debut in 2024 ⛳️
The Myrtle Beach Classic will be one of two stops in the Palmetto State next year.
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) May 10, 2023
The course at Dunes Golf and Beach Club was designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr., and nine holes (the back nine) opened in 1949. It was renovated by Jones’ son, Rees Jones, in 2013. It is ranked by Golfweek’s Best as the No. 4 public-access layout in the state, and it comes in at No. 143 on Golfweek’s Best list of all classic courses in the U.S. The course is best known for its brilliant, often elevated and tilted greens, many of which feature brisk runoffs in multiple directions, confounding players on approach shots.
The layout also features one of the most extreme examples of a dogleg in golf. The par-5 13th boomerangs around a lake, almost turning back on itself as it juts to the right. Jones Sr. called it one of his best examples of “heroic architecture,” and it will be interesting to see how Tour pros tackle the hole.
The club hosted the PGA Tour Champions’ season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship from 1994 to 1999, and it was the site of PGA Tour Q-School Finals in 1973, with Ben Crenshaw taking the medalist spot. Among other top-tier events and national championships, it also hosted the 1962 U.S. Women’s Open, won by Murle Lindstrom.
The Tour noted that the Myrtle Beach Classic will be one of its two stops in the Palmetto State in 2024, along with the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links, an event that made its debut in 1969.
