The Genesis Invitational

Torrey Pines Golf Course (South Course)



    Wellman Club

    Johnsonville, SC Public

    Overview

    Everyone loves an underdog, especially when it’s mixed with a revival story. Golfers once teemed over the holes of Wellman Golf Course, a simple but lovely Ellis Maples and Ed Seay hidden gem from the late 1960s located in the rural South Carolina town of Johnsonville, an hour west of Myrtle Beach. But with a population of just over 1,000, there weren’t enough local players to keep the business running following the 2009 recession, and the owners filed for bankruptcy in 2010. Eventually the city purchased the closed course and hired Rees Jones and longtime associate Bryce Swanson to remodel the layout, which reopened in 2024 as the rebranded Wellman Club. Jones described the land as closer to Pinehurst than to Myrtle Beach, and the holes flow through corridors of pines into enlarged greens and more consequential bunkering. Two par 3s play across ponds, and the par-5 11th boomeranging around a lake is a doppelganger of the par-5 13th at The Dunes 50 miles east, one of mid-century golf’s most famous holes designed by Jones’ father, Robert Trent Jones. Wellman symbolizes the resilience of golf in small towns and has become a sort of community gathering space, as well as a worthwhile stopover for anyone passing nearby.

    About

    Holes 18
    Price $30
    Facility Type Public
    Year Opened 2023
    Designer Ellis Maples, ASGCA/(R) Rees Jones ASGCA

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    3.4

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