Myrtle Beach Golf Trips Insider Chris King speaks with lead architect Brandon Johnson who is overseeing the front nine renovations at King’s North at Myrtle Beach National.

Chris King:
Hi, I’m Chris King, your MyrtleBeachGolfTrips.com Insider, and today we’re at Kings North at Myrtle Beach National. And fortunate enough to be joined by Brandon Johnson, the architect, overseeing this two-part renovation of one of Myrtle Beach’s iconic layouts. And Brandon, hey, we’re about six weeks from reopening of the front nine here. And how would you assess where we stand right now?

Brandon Johnson:

Yeah, we are in the second push to get this project completed, and so we can have golfers back on the golf course sometime in October.

Chris King:
Over this next six weeks, what will be the focus of you and your team?

Brandon Johnson:
We’re working on the remaining bunkers and waste bunker areas and some tee work. We’ve got the greens completed and sprigged, so they’re growing in now, coming in nicely. The bit of rain that we’ve had has actually helped, and we’re really focusing on the remaining fairway bunkers and waste areas.

Chris King:
Speaking of the greens out here, how will they change? What will people notice most about the complexes when they return out?

Brandon Johnson:
Yeah, I think first they’re going to be a lot bigger. It was fun discovering a lot of the old original green boundaries. You kind of see where things might’ve been, and sometimes you start peeling back the layers and go, “Oh wow, there was a green over here. There’s green over here.” I think the size of the greens and then I think some of the smooth contours that we were able to either rediscover or impart in fixing some of the drainage issues that the greens did have. So there’s a nice roll and flow to these greens.

Chris King:

For us novices, how do you discover the edges of greens and what leads you to make those discoveries?

Brandon Johnson:
Yeah, I mean, the first was kind of a visual assessment. You start to look at the grade, the relationship of the green to the irrigation or the surrounding bunkers and go, “I think there was green over here.” And obviously we’re peeling back the sod and we start probing and finding the old gravel layers and looking at the soils that are underneath to determine what are the original green confines. And a lot of times they had this fabric or this vapor barrier around the greens, so once we found that, that was key in determining what was and was not green.

Interview Date: 8/25/24. Photos and videos from our Instagram Account @MyrtleBeachGolfTrips