Ah, Myrtle Beach. Sun, sand, golf, and another round of margaritas, please.
It’s impossible not to slide into kick-back mode in Myrtle Beach, where almost everything around you demands that you take it easy. After all, what’s the rush?
Myrtle Beach is part of the Grand Strand, a stretch of beaches along the South Carolina coast that hosts about 10 million visitors per year. Visitors come for the beaches but soon find other diversions, including world-class golf, fishing, boating, diving, and plenty of after-hours entertainment.
For conventions and meetings, Myrtle combines a beautiful location with world-class amenities. The area offers eight live entertainment theaters, with a total of more than 11,000 seats, and there are approximately 460 hotels and more than 89,000 total guest units, all in a town that has a scant 26,000 permanent residents.
The first two words you hear when you arrive are beach and golf. The beaches need little explanation, as the area is dominated by a 60-mile stretch of sand that’s the rival of any on the East Coast, including Florida.
“The reason I came to Myrtle is that I’ve got too much sand between my toes,” jokes Larry Hilliard, who owns Myrtle Beach-based Nu Horizons Dive and Travel (http://southcarolinadive.com). “I’ve always loved the beach, and this area in particular. I used to come to Myrtle in the 1960s when a lot of the roads were dirt. Then I just decided to move here permanently.”
Hilliard has seen the town grow tremendously over the years, but says it still retains some of its original small-town feel.
“The place has gotten so much bigger and there’s a lot more to do now than just sit on the beach,” he says.
Hilliard and his staff take hundreds of visitors on guided underwater dives of local shipwrecks and reefs, proving that as gorgeous as Myrtle Beach is, there’s a whole other world under the ocean.
As for golf, Myrtle bills itself as “The Golf Capital of the World.” There are more than 104 courses in the area, and every year players shoot an estimated 4.13 million rounds of golf. And the golf isn’t just for the serious-minded; Myrtle Beach is home to nearly 50 miniature golf courses.
But get past the beach and the golf and a score of attractions come into focus. There’s family friendly minor league baseball every spring and summer with the Myrtle Beach Pelicans (www.myrtlebeachpelicans.com), an affiliate of the Atlanta Braves. The Pelican’s Nest Stadium is small enough to make you feel close to the action, the tickets are inexpensive, the parking is free, and team mascots (Splish and Splash) divert the kids if they grow bored of the game; group ticket discounts are available.
One of the real hidden treasures in the area involves actual hidden treasure, however. Myrtle Beach, it turns out, is a haven for scuba diving. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to sift through a shipwreck in search of valuables, Myrtle Beach is the place to go.
“We’ve had people find all sorts of stuff down in those shipwrecks,” Hilliard says. “Every once in a while someone will come up with a sword scabbard or a Revolutionary War rifle.
“People come to Myrtle for the water, but we offer a different kind of experience,” Hilliard continues. “A lot of people are really amazed at what you can see underwater.”
The beautiful Composite wreck is 175 feet long with a portion of the craft sticking out of the sand. Brass spikes and china have been found amidst the rubble. Divers with some previous experience may want to venture out to the wreck of the Governor, a sunken Civil War steamer. The Governor, it turns out, is a digger’s delight; military belt buckles, rifles, cannon balls, bullets, and other artifacts are recovered from the wreck on a regular basis.
“With the Governor, we’re not 100 hundred percent sure that’s the name of the ship,” Hilliard says. “We’re still looking for the ship’s bell, that would tell us the name for sure. So it can be like detective work underwater.”
But before he can add more, Hilliard is called away to load up for another dive. Like the many terra firma treasures in Myrtle Beach, there’s a whole world under the ocean that can’t be kept waiting.
