Fourteen men’s college golf teams from across the nation are preparing to begin their 2024-25 seasons at the inaugural MyrtleBeachGolfTrips.com Intercollegiate Sept. 8-10 at the Grande Dunes Resort Course.
The 54-hole event, hosted by Coastal Carolina University, will feature teams from as far away as California, each of them hoping to win an event that will provide an early resume boost as their journey to the 2025 NCAA Golf Championship begins in Myrtle Beach.
Joining Coastal in the field will be Campbell University, East Carolina University, Elon University, Appalachian State University, James Madison University, Old Dominion University, Florida Atlantic University, Western Carolina University, University of Maryland, University of Texas at El Paso, Jacksonville University, Santa Clara University and Texas State University.
Among the players headlining the event are Coastal Carolina freshman Drew Dykes, a top 200 junior in Europe, Texas State’s Sakka Siltala, who won the Finnish Amateur Championship over the summer, Daniel Cheng of JMU, the winner of the 2024 Zhengzhou Yellow-River Open, a professional event, and Elon’s Garrett Risner, who earned a spot in the 2024 U.S. Amateur.
At the heart of the event’s appeal is Grande Dunes, a layout that features five holes playing along the Intracoastal Waterway and has been ranked among the nation’s top 100 public golf courses. Coming off a 2022 renovation project that restored the greens to their original size and specifications and overhauled every bunker on the course, Grande Dunes is better than it has ever been.
“Grande Dunes is a course people in the business have heard of,” Coastal Carolina Head Coach Jacob Wilner said. “There are a lot of options for how to set it up … The greens are big, and we will grow the bermuda rough up. I think it’s a world class golf course.”
The expansion of the course’s greens netted an additional 40,000 square feet of putting surface, dramatically increased the number of pinnable areas and setup options available for the tournament.
www.GrandeDunesGolf.com.
Photo Courtesy of Grande Dunes