Pawleys Island / Georgetown County Golf Living Guide

The market's golf identity splits cleanly into two tiers. On top sits a nationally celebrated public/resort layer -- Mike Strantz's Caledonia Golf & Fish Club and True Blue Golf Club, both consistently ranked among the country's top public/resort courses (Golfweek's 2026 Top 100 Resort Courses again included both), plus Jack Nicklaus's Pawleys Plantation, Dan Maples designs at Heritage Club and Willbrook, and the historic (1966) Litchfield Country Club, the oldest course on the Hammock Coast. All of this is genuinely excellent golf, but none of it carries a private-membership barrier or a bundled residential relationship -- it is trail and package golf, just of unusually high design pedigree. Underneath that layer sits the market's real 'golf-living' story: DeBordieu Club's Pete & P.B. Dye course, restricted exclusively to DeBordieu Colony property owners; Wachesaw Plantation Club's early Tom Fazio design (with a young Mike Strantz assisting, before his own acclaimed later career at Caledonia and True Blue); and The Reserve Golf Club's Greg Norman design, part of McConnell Golf's 17-club reciprocal network across the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Virginia.

Golf-oriented buyers evaluating this market are choosing between a few distinct pockets:

- **DeBordieu Colony (Georgetown).** The market's most exclusive and most expensive pocket -- a roughly 2,700-acre, 24-hour-guarded, oceanfront gated community where DeBordieu Club membership is available only to Colony property owners. Home prices here (roughly $1.6M-$4.3M+) are the highest found in this market by a wide margin. - **Pawleys Island proper / Litchfield.** Home to the dense concentration of acclaimed public and semi-private courses (Caledonia, True Blue, Heritage Club, Willbrook, Founders Club, Litchfield Country Club, Pawleys Plantation) as well as the market's second private anchor, The Reserve Golf Club, whose surrounding 700-acre Reserve at Litchfield community is itself one of the named neighborhoods within the larger Litchfield by the Sea development. - **Murrells Inlet (northern seam with the Myrtle Beach market).** Home to Wachesaw Plantation Club and its surrounding gated community, at a notably more accessible price point (roughly $300K-$700K) than DeBordieu Colony. Murrells Inlet also hosts TPC Myrtle Beach/Prince Creek, which is assigned to the separate Myrtle Beach/Grand Strand market per that market's own branding. - **Georgetown proper.** Home to the excluded, explicitly public Wedgefield Country Club, inside the Wedgefield Plantation subdivision.

No single access model describes this market's qualifying anchors, but a clear pattern separates them from the surrounding public-golf landscape. DeBordieu Club is the hardest gate found in the region: membership eligibility is restricted exclusively to DeBordieu Colony property owners, though the club does not appear to require ownership-holders to actually join. Wachesaw Plantation Club is a genuine member-owned equity club (since 1985) open to both residents and non-residents, with real initiation and dues costs, but membership is confirmed optional for community homeowners. The Reserve Golf Club is a private, application-based McConnell Golf club with reciprocal privileges across 17 total network clubs in four states, built as its own gated community's centerpiece amenity, though again not confirmed mandatory for homeowners there. By contrast, none of the market's eight excluded courses (Caledonia, True Blue, Heritage Club, Willbrook, Founders Club, Litchfield Country Club, Pawleys Plantation, Wedgefield) carry any real membership barrier -- their 'membership' programs are golf-discount products (several routed through Founders Group International) open to any paying golfer, not exclusionary private access.

Home prices vary enormously across this market's three qualifying anchor communities. DeBordieu Colony is by far the most expensive, with reported prices roughly $1.6M-$4.3M+ (median reported around $1.8M-$1.9M as of 2025). Wachesaw Plantation is considerably more accessible, roughly $300K-$700K for single-family homes (townhouses lower, $120K-$285K). The Reserve at Litchfield spans a wide range, from roughly $500K golf villas/cottages up to multi-million-dollar waterfront custom homes, though a precise ceiling was not confirmed this session. HOA/POA fee figures were inconsistently reported or unconfirmed across all three communities and should be verified directly before relying on them.

This is a Lowcountry coastal market rather than a beach-resort-strip identity: marshland, the Waccamaw River/Intracoastal Waterway, oceanfront beach clubs (DeBordieu), and a historic small-town Georgetown/Pawleys Island character distinct from Myrtle Beach's high-rise tourist-strip identity to the north. DeBordieu Club and The Reserve Golf Club both include private beach access as part of their broader amenity sets, and DeBordieu specifically markets an oceanfront Beach Club as co-equal with its golf.

Georgetown, DeBordieu Colony, Pawleys Island, and Litchfield sit along a roughly 15-20 mile coastal stretch in Georgetown County, immediately south of the Horry County/Myrtle Beach line. Murrells Inlet sits at the market's northern edge, on the boundary seam with the Myrtle Beach/Grand Strand core market.