SANTEE, South Carolina – Sure, South Carolina is one of the best states in the U.S. for golf. Myrtle Beach might well be the best single city in America for golfers, given the number and variety of its courses. The Kiawah Resort in Charleston is world famous, with its Ocean Course a popular site for the biggest tournaments, and nearby Wild Dunes will make some noise later this week with the re-launching of its Links Course.

Still, places like Santee – a charming little town located midway between the big cities of Charleston and Columbia off Interstate 26 – shouldn’t be taken lightly by any golfer. Its citizens take their golf seriously.

Santee has just 900 year-around residents, but it has more golf courses (three) than it has main streets (two). Many of the restaurants and businesses on those streets have “Welcome Golfers’’ messages on their marquees. You’ve got to like the enthusiasm, and it’s nice to be welcomed.

Water sports were once the main industry in this town, especially fishing. Striped bass, we were told, originated here. There are two world-class fishing lakes — Marion and Moultrie – plus two rivers and two canals in the area. But now, town leaders say, golf has supplanted fishing as the biggest thing going in Santee.

One reason golfers are coming is undoubtedly the cost. Because golf rates everywhere are constantly fluctuating we have steered away from giving price information in our reports. Still, it’s necessary to at least point out that Santee golf is a bargain. Golf packages were on sale for as little as $56, which included greens fee, cart, one night’s lodging on a substantial breakfast. As always, deals are seasonally based but they’re ongoing Santee since the sport can be played year-around.

The heart of everything here is Clark’s Restaurant and Inn, which celebrates its 70th anniversary in 2016. The rooms are comfortable and the restaurant is clearly upscale and it has a boutique shop like you’d find in a major resort. Oh, yes, Santee’s three golf courses are all within a mile of Clark’s and another 10 are within a 20-minute drive.

Bill Clark is the owner of the Inn and Restaurant while his brother Cholly owns one of the nearby courses – Santee National. Santee National opened in 1989 with Porter Gibson the architect of record and it underwent a renovation in 2005. Its trademark are five strategically situated lakes that frequently bring water into play.

It’s a more wide-open layout than he other two in-town layouts – Santee Cooper Country Club and Lake Marion Golf Club. They are part of the Santee-Cooper Resort, which is owned jointly by a group representing five families. Todd Miller, who migrated from Peoria, IL., is the general manager of both courses and has been at Santee-Cooper for 18 years.

Both courses are quite decent layouts, despite showing the effects of a horrendous storm six weeks ahead of our fall visit. Twenty inches of rain fell in a five-day period and ensuing flooding resulted in the closing of some of the roads for nearly a week.

Santee-Cooper Country Club, designed by George Cobb and opened in 1967, is the oldest of the three courses. It has two notable features right off the bat. The drive in is over a mile after you pass the entry gate and the first tee shot is over water, with players immediately warned that no mulligans will be allowed.

The rest of the course features lots of dogleg holes and the elevated greens make course seem longer than its listed 6,589 yards from the back tees. Most striking of the doglegs was at the short par-4 fourteenth.

Our favorite Santee course was Lake Marion, located beside Santee-Cooper. Architect Eddie Riccoboni designed the layout, which opened in 1978. It has tree=lined fairways border lakes and 47 bunkers – a beautiful layout that is both challenging and fun.

In addition to the economic benefits of playing golf in Santee, it’s also a big positive that everything is so close. While Clark’s is the center for both lodging and dining, Lake Marion has 24 villas available with 10 more under construction and there are motels in the heart of town as well.

Despite the coziness of the town, there are a wide variety of places to go once your round is done. The Fish Market and Grill at Palmetto Shores, just a 10-minute drive, is an excellent dining spot in Summerton. In addition to the usual chain restaurants, an excellent we found a most-friendly sports bar called Oasis. It’s not hard to miss, since it has a variety of recreational items (one’s a snowmobile) implanted on its roof.

We also found a quality seafood place (Captain’s Quarters) and Lone Star Barbecue and Mercantile also looked interesting for both its food and entertainment, though it has limited hours and was closed while we were there. In addition to the eating places in town another 17 are accessible by boat.

CARLSBAD, California – Little-promoted fact: one of golf’s iconic tournament venues celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2015.

La Costa, the Southern California site for 35 PGA Tour events and two LPGA tourneys, reached that milestone with the admitted realization that “things ain’t what these used to be.’’

The Mercedes Championship, also known as the Tournament of Champions, put La Costa in the world golf spotlight from 1969 to 1998 before relocating to Hawaii.

In its La Costa years the tourney was played on nine holes of the resort’s Champions course and nine on the Legends course. It became one of the most popular events on the PGA Tour every year, with a great list of champions that included Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson, Lanny Wadkins, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods.

La Costa wasn’t without a big event for long after the Mercedes left. A year later the World Golf Championship’s Accenture Match Play Championship moved in. It stayed until 2006 (with the exception of a visit to Australia in 2001). Then that event moved to Arizona.

Losing those big ones was a blow to owners of the resort, which was immediately well received after original architects Dick Wilson and Joe Lee completed their work in in time for the facility’s opening in 1965. Wilson and Lee, who also created Cog Hill’s Dubsdread course in the Chicago area during that time period, had a long run as successful designers but updating was clearly needed.

The courses were shut down for more than a year after the two PGA Tour events left. Architect Damian Pascuzzo, working with PGA Tour player and 1988 Tournament of Champions winner Steve Pate and consultant Jeff Brauer, eventually completed a major renovation in 2011.

Even before that renovation was completed La Costa had 18 holes ready for the debut of the LPGA’s Kia Classic. After being played at another California course, Industry Hills, in 2011, the Kia Classic was back in 2012 – but for the last three years it has been played at Aviara, another course in Carlsbad. Not only that, but the Women’s Tennis Association held one of its tournament at La Costa, but it’s gone now, too.

The biggest competition of the year at La Costa is a college tournament, hosted by the UCLA men’s team, but don’t be deceived by that. It may seem like La Costa’s days in the spotlight are over, but don’t believe it. I’m told a big tournament will be coming soon.

Things are happening behind the scenes.. That was evident during our visit. The shops, restaurants, tennis facilities and spa were busy and everyone – guests and staff – was in an upbeat mood. Interesting, lots of families – with children of all ages – were clearly having a good time. All that speaks well for La Costa’s future.

The return of a big tournament shouldn’t surprise anyone. The resort still has all the facilities necessary to take on such an event. In fact, it’s better equipped to hold a big one than some of the facilities hosting them now.

And, don’t ever forget that equipment giants TaylorMade, Titleist, Cobra and Callaway are all based in the area. That should play into the course selection process for big tournaments.

As for the courses, the Champions layout is more tournament appropriate. In the redesign the Pascuzzo-Pate team put in 78 bunkers. They’re very steep, with many having fingers that make them look even bigger than they are. And, at 7,172 yards from the back tees, Champions is about 200 yards longer than the still respectable Legends layout. Legends was cart path only when we played it, having been re-opened for only two weeks after being closed four weeks to facilitate an overseeding project.

La Costa’s membership appreciates the value of being a tournament site and the resort’s new owner, Omni, is taking an aggressive approach, too. The hotel chain assumed ownership two years ago. In October it announced a golf-for-free birthday promotion at its 11 golf destinations. In November it will bring in a new line of power carts that will have GPS capabilities at La Costa.

Dallas-based Omni has 60 hotels in the U.S., Canada and Mexico but all of its 360 golf holes are inside the U.S. border. California has another Omni golf facility,s at Rancho Las Palma. Florida also has two Omni golf resorts – Amelia Island Plantation and Orlando at Championsgate.

The others are Tucson National in Arizona, Grove Park Inn in North Carolina, Hilton Head Oceanfront in South Carolina, Interlocken Hotel in Colorado, Mount Washington in New Hampshire, Bedford Springs in Pennsylvania, Barton Creek in Texas and Homestead in Virginia.

Tournaments may have left La Costa for the time being, but golfers never did. It won’t be long before this long-popular resort is hosting the world’s best players again. Count on it.

DANA POINT, Calif. – Robert Trent Jones II has long been one of my favorite golf architects and our far-reaching tour of the Pacific Northwest already included rounds at two of his courses – Chambers Bay and Poppy Hills — that have been especially newsworthy lately.

For that reason I suspected a round at Monarch Beach Golf Links might be a letdown. After all, it was one of Jones’ first courses and came shortly after the annual fall overseeding program had begun.

There was no letdown, though. Jones has designed over 270 courses in over 40 countries and this early one – located roughly midway between Los Angeles and San Diego – is a testament to how well his courses have stood up over time.

Jones’ headquarters are in California (Palo Alto) and his design portfolio lists 31 courses created in his home state. Some are more decorated than Monarch Beach, but that shouldn’t detract from the longstanding popularity the course has attained.

Monarch Beach Golf Links is now part of the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort. The first nine holes of the course were built in 1983, the second in 1985. The resort didn’t open until 2001. After undergoing a $30 million renovation recently it’s certainly a luxury destination with its 400 rooms and assorted other amenities that are spread over 172 acres.

The course, though, is more than a major part of the resort. It’s a major part of the community as well. We played with two 30-somethings, both avid local players. They reported that — factoring in the cost, conditioning and other amenities — Monarch Beach may be the best golf value in Orange County.

Assistant golf professional Jackie Kazarian said about 45,000 rounds are played at Monarch Beach annually, and they’re about one-third resort guests, one-third members and one-third community and tournaments. Only notable shortcoming is the absence of a practice range (there are some hitting bays with nets next to the putting green).

Jones’ task was to build an oceanfront course in the mid-1980s and he succeeded in creating what is now one of just 11 oceanfront courses on the West Coast. The dogleg left par-4 third hole provides the best view of the water, and that’s underscored by the fact that the course operators have posted a sign to encourage selfie picture-taking.

The par-70 layout is a bit on the quirky side, with back-to-back par-3s on the front nine and three par-3s coming after the third and last par-5 on the back side. The course is unofficially broken down into three segments. Holes 1-5 comprise the Ocean Loop, Nos. 6-9 are the Canyon area and Nos. 10-18 are the Home Stretch.

Golfers must contend with about strategically-placed 105 bunkers with lots of doglegs and elevation changes. Residential homes looming high above the course don’t come into play but do create a pleasant setting. Hiking trails intertwine with the cart paths in a few spots, but aren’t a distraction to the golfers.

Monarch Beach has had its moments in the spotlight. It hosted the Hyundai Team Matches in 2001 and 2002 and The Golf Channel’s Matt Ginella declared Monarch Beach “Best Ladies Golf Destination’’ in 2013. It was also listed among the Top 50 Women Friendly Courses, but don’t get the idea this is a layout that caters just to the ladies.

At 6,645 yards (with a rating of 72.5 and slope of 135) from the tips it’s not a long course, but it presents a fun challenge for players of all ability levels. There are four tee placements, the shortest being at 5,050 yards.

The third may be the prettiest (and no doubt the signature hole), but the seventh – a par-5 that stretches to 612 yards from the back tees – is a true No. 1 handicap hole. Not only is this dogleg left the longest hole on the course, it’s a strategic and mental challenge as well.

Best of the five quite good par-3s is the shortest one. No. 13, ranging from 90 to 155 yards, has water guarding the front, back and right side of the green.

CARMEL, Calif. – This was going to be just a short trip triggered by a relatively new development in a legendary golf area with, perhaps, a little nostalgia mixed in. Instead it turned out a lot more than that.

The Pebble Beach-Carmel area is well known in golf circles. Pebble Beach Golf Links may be the nation’s most famous course, thanks to its being the site of Bing Crosby’s longstanding pro-am – a fixture on the PGA Tour schedule. I was there twice to report on U.S. Opens, the last of which in 2010 was the last assignment in my most satisfying 41-year career covering sports for the Chicago Sun-Times.

But my visits in the past didn’t compare to this one, when the plan was largely to check out the renovation at Poppy Hills, one of the many golf options in the Pebble Beach area. The course – within a short distance of Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill, Cypress Point and Spanish Bay on the spectacular 17-Mile Drive along the coast of the Pacific Ocean – had been closed for over a year to accommodate an extensive renovation supervised by course designer Robert Trent Jones II.

Poppy Hills, though not as well known outside of California as its golfing neighbors, deserves its own recognition. It was the first course owned and operated by a golf association in the U.S. when it opened in 1986. The Northern California Golf Association is headquartered there and uses Poppy Hills as its home tournament course.

Jones designed the course and it’s been a staple of golf in that area ever since. In pre-renovation times it co-hosted the PGA Tour’s AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am from 1991-2009. Now it’s a site for the Nature Valley First Tee Open on the Champions Tour.

While the Jones 13-month renovation project centered on water conservation and improving irrigation and drainage, the finished product was a completely different course than what it had been. The present version is more wide-open with no rough. The rating and slope have also gone down (from 74.4 to 73.5 and from 140 to 135 from the back tees). Such reductions are a rarity in a renovation. Usually the numbers go up.

In this one, though, Jones created a firm, fast, fun course with great greens. We found it a delightful playing experience.

The renovation was significant but didn’t turn out the overwhelming focus of this visit. We didn’t opt for a golf-focused lodging destination, and what a smart move that was!

Staying off-course on road trips isn’t unusual for any golf aficionado. There are usually other options around the popular golf destinations, but the Carmel area offers so much more than other places.

In Carmel we opted for a bed-and-breakfast, and the Carmel Country Inn was a charming place with a most helpful staff. We learned about the best restaurants (here it was the Flying Fish Grill and Grasing’s), the wine-tastings (there were many options in a package deal), the shopping options, the art galleries, the beach and the other attractions.

In addition to Poppy Hills and all the downtown shops we made visits to Clint Eastwood’s Mission Ranch and the nearby Carmel Mission that has artifacts dating to the 1700s.
In a three-day stay, that isn’t usually possible. It was here, though.

Carmel is unusual with its Cotswold style of architecture. This community has a lot to offer in a very condensed area . We walked almost everywhere. Mission Ranch was about a 10-minute drive and Poppy Hills about 15-20-minutes from the bed and breakfast.

The 17-Mile Drive is also an auto jaunt always worth taking. You get the beautiful views enjoyed by so many for so long with the golf connection still prevalent.

Make no mistake, though. Golf is important here. That became immediately evident as soon as we checked in at Poppy Hills. We couldn’t get an earlier tee time because a big outing had been previously scheduled. No problem. We teed off at 2:10 p.m. with the understanding that getting in all 18 holes might be a problem.

We got through 16 holes with plenty of daylight. No. 17 was a par-3, so that wasn’t much of a problem, either. No. 18 – a par-5 – was another matter but by this time there was no option. The course was good enough where we had to finish it all. We did, sort of. It was hard to find our balls on around the No. 18 green, but we did get in. And then the restaurant stayed open until 8 p.m. – another big plus – and the service was friendly and the food good – another plus.

Staying off course on a golf trip isn’t always a good idea – and we rarely do it – but at this location it was exactly the right thing to do. Very, very few destinations offer as much golf as the Pebble Beach-Carmel area, but you can get much more than golf there as well.

BANDON, Oregon – There’s definitely a lot to say about Bandon Dunes, the very unique multi-course facility on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. In short, though, it has most everything.

There’s four quality walking-only 18-holers, a 55-acre practice range, the 100,000-square foot Punchbowl putting course, a 13-hole par-3 layout called Bandon Preserve that was chosen as Best U.S. Short Course by Golf Digest magazine, one of the biggest caddie programs in the United States, dining at six restaurants and lounges, a variety of comfortable lodging and – one of the many factors that separates Bandon Dunes from other American resorts – everything is so close together.

You could easily drive your car from one place to another (as we did), but if you don’t want to do that there’s a shuttle system that works just fine.

Bandon Dunes was created by Chicago’s Mike Keiser, who took it on after his unique but much more modest Dunes Club in Michigan emerged a success. Now Keiser is planning another Bandon-type facility, Sand Valley in Wisconsin, but that’s a topic for another day.

For now we’ll delve into Bandon and its variety of offerings. This resort is well-conceived, well-run, well-presented and well-received. In fact, none may do it better. The resort’s logo — “Golf As It Was Meant To Be’’ – fits to a tee.

There’s one touchy subject for those who run the place, though. They shy away from citing one of its courses as better than another. Most such multi-course facilities have a designated championship course and then one (or a few) others.

Bandon considers its four courses as equals, and prices them that way. The equality contention was underscored when the U.S. Golf Association recently awarded the resort the 2020 U.S. Amateur. The resort got the prestigious tournament – its sixth USGA championship — but the two 18-holers necessary to its staging have yet to be designated. Any of the four could be chosen, since they’ve all hosted at least one previous USGA event.

Maybe favoritism should be avoided, but golfers aren’t that way. They don’t see all courses as equal, and one of the fun parts of the game is discussing the strong points and shortcomings of each one. I’d be remiss to not do that here, after a five-night four-course fall visit.

I don’t give much credibility to the various course rankings put out annually by the golf industry publications, but many do. So, for the record, here’s what happened in 2014:

Golf Magazine had all four Bandon courses ranked in its top 49 U.S. courses. Golf Digest had all four in the top 74 of its Top 100 in the U.S. and all in the top 14 of its Top 100 U.S. Public Courses. Golfweek had all four in the top 22 of its Best Modern Courses. Pacific Dunes was the top-ranked Bandon course in all those polls.

I’m entitled to my opinion as well, and I’ll give it to you – but you’ll have to wait. Here’s my thoughts on the courses – given in the order in which they were played.

PACIFIC DUNES: Our first tee time was on what we were told was the best, most beautiful and toughest of the layouts. We caught it on an extremely windy day, but it was certainly playable and lots of fun. The views of the Pacific were plentiful and stunning.

One thing that set this round apart from all others that we’ve played was that we were told it was permissible to use your push/pull carts on the greens – something that can be done on all the Bandon courses. We didn’t really feel comfortable doing that at first, but the greens were hard and we couldn’t discern any damage being done to the putting surfaces. It was also certainly a convenience in getting around the courses.

The layout, designed by Tom Doak and opened in 2001 as the resort’s second course, was unusual in that there were four par-3s on the back nine. (The layout is still a par-71). Interestingly, the most memorable of the short holes on the course didn’t offer an ocean view. On No. 17 you hit towards a stunning background of gold wildflowers.

BANDON TRAILS: The creation by the design team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw opened in 2005 – a par-71 that measures only 6,765 yards from the back tees. It’s much different than Pacific Dunes in that there are no striking ocean views. The most notable features are the liberal use of manzanita, particularly at the par-3 fifth hole, and the abundance of elevated tees. They gave lots of holes a special look from the outset.

Bandon Preserve, the par-3 course, adjoins this layout and offers the best opportunity to play extra holes on the same day.

Most notable spot on the course, though, is the long passageway to the No. 14 tee. Behind the back tee on that hole is a bench where Keiser got his first dramatic view of the property that would become the Bandon Dunes Resort. It was also the spot where Keiser had his epiphany: this would be where he’d build his next golf facility. Given developments of subsequent years, this spot should be looked on as hallowed ground in the golf world.

BANDON DUNES: This was the first course built on the property, in 1999. Scotland’s David McLay Kidd, still shy of his 30th birthday, was the architect, and our first thought was that it didn’t quite measure up to the first two layouts we played. Then again, we really didn’t see it all because fog had set in just before teeoff and we had trouble seeing the holes we were playing for quite awhile.

Anyway, this one had its charms. There was more animal interaction on this layout than the others. Three deer greeted us at No. 3, getting close enough to startle us. They weren’t afraid of golfers, that’s for sure. Later a squirrel seemed on the brink of jumping on my shoe.

A couple footnotes: No. 12 – a par-3 – was the first hole built on the property and No. 13 is the only hole on any of the courses without a bunker. And No. 16, a short par-4 requiring a tee shot over a ravine and an uphill approach with one of the best ocean views, wound up my most memorable hole of the 72 we played.

And then there was “the Whammer.’’ The caddie in our group alerted me that a “secret’’ hole had been dug long ago near a tree to the right of the No. 10 fairway. Though it was covered, it stirred my curiosity. So, over I went, lifted the cover and found an assortment of odds and ends including a bottle of scotch. Some Bandon devotees apparently created the hole during an early outing and it has grown into the stuff of legends.

OLD MACDONALD: The resort’s newest course – Old MacDonald opened in 2010 – is much different than the others. It came off a joint design effort by Doak and Jim Urbina and the name came from Charles Blair MacDonald, creator of America’s first 18-hole course at the Chicago Golf Club in 1892. MacDonald was the first man to describe himself as a golf course architect, and he did plenty of other courses.

Old MacDonald is no replica of any of his other courses but more a tribute to his design work overall. The fairways are huge and so are the greens. In fact, at 250,000 square feet, Old MacDonald has the largest greens complex in the world.

Funny thing about Old MacDonald – or maybe it’s just me. I had easily my best shot-making round on this layout, but also had my highest score on the four Bandon layouts.

The greens are the thing here. Sometimes it feels like you’re too much at the mercy of the fickle slopes that are all over the course. That’s when things aren’t going your way. When the ball is bouncing right you get the most exhilarating feeling possible on any of the four layouts.

Experienced caddies are a nice amenity most anywhere but they are a borderline necessity here for first-time players. We didn’t use them, and they would have definitely come in handy in determining the proper target lines – especially on some of the blind shots that were more prevalent on this course than on any of the others.

FINALLY, OUR RANKINGS: No. 1 – Pacific Dunes, because you can’t beat the views; No. 2 – Old MacDonald, because it was so different (though I’m no fan of the blind shots presented there); No. 3 – Bandon Trails, at least in part because there were more holes to play at this stop with the adjoining par-3 also available; and No. 4 – Bandon Dunes, because it’s hard to judge something you can’t see. Fog ruled the day when we played there.

Does it really matter if one course is “better’’ than another? Certainly not if you’re at Bandon Dunes. This resort has an abundance of riches.