If you're staying at the Islander Inn on Ocean Isle in Brunswick County, North Carolina, you can sit on your beachfront balcony and watch the morning sunrise out of and the evening sunset into the Atlantic.
This phenomenon occurs because Ocean Isle, one of Brunswick County's barrier islands, faces south; and, even though it's in North Carolina, the island is just north of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Perhaps even more impressive is the fact that when you get in your car and cross the Odell Williamson Bridge, you are within ten minutes of 25 of the best golf courses in the United States, within twenty minutes of 40 golf courses in Brunswick County, and
within one hour of 106 golf courses along the Grand Strand. When the Intracoastal Waterway was cut in the 1930s, it formed Ocean Isle Beach along with Holden Beach and Sunset Beach. These three barrier islands now offer quiet, peaceful oceanfront living (and renting) in the midst of one of the best-kept secrets in all the golfing world. The convergence of ocean and rivers has formed an area of great natural beauty and perfect golfing land and weather.
In (still) quaint communities with names like Shallotte and Calabash, along rivers named Waccamaw and Lockwood Folly, men with names like Odell (of the bridge) and DeCarol have been busy creating a string of golfing gems with names like Angel's Trace, Seatrails, The Pearl, Marsh Harbor and Lion's Paw. Everybody's heard of Myrtle Beach, the golf capitol of the world. But what you haven't heard is that more than a third of the courses advertised as Myrtle Beach, SC, are really across the North Carolina border in Brunswick County. Everybody who's been to Myrtle Beach knows it is full of theme parks, theme restaurants, strip malls, fast food, poker joints, traffic, people, nightclubs and (ahem) "gentlemen's clubs." Brunswick County is fifteen minutes and a hundred years from all of that. The many wonderful restaurants
are almost entirely locally and family owned - why you can even meet my new best friend, Terry, the chef at Victoria's in Ocean Isle, just by asking to meet the chef. In Calabash, there are some thirty seafood restaurants famous for the "Calabash style". In Brunswick County,there's no gambling, no traffic, no crowds - well, in the middle of the summer, the beaches are crowded with families from all over the region - but when that happens, the golf courses are empty
and a fabulous bargain.So, by staying in Brunswick County, you can stay at the beach in peace (or in a golf course condo) in new Inns along the barrier islands, and have your cake (great golf, terrific rooms) and eat it (a night in Myrtle Beach), too. Shallotte just celebrated its 100th anniversary. It began as a retail hub as ships sailed from Wilmington and Charleston up the Shallotte River. The area developed as a major agricultural center warmed by breezes carried by the Gulf Stream, which gives the area a subtropical climate that never (almost) gets really cold, but which has four distinct seasons. For the non-golfer, in addition to millions of seashells by the seashore, there are thousands of antique stores, museums, back road vendors, lighthouses, and villages to visit. There are boats to charter, evening dinner cruises, all manner of water sports. And, just north in historic Wilmington there are antebellum homes and anchored Navy vessels and a downtown filled with music and elegant restaurants.

As golf began to get popular in the 1970s in Myrtle Beach, a couple of courses were built in Brunswick County. One of the first was built by the afore-mentioned Odell Williamson. This was Ocean Isle Beach Golf Course, a lovely parkland course that is still one of the finest layouts in the region. In the 80s and 90s, golf became the leading growth factor in the county. Now there are fairways where once there were bogs and swamps, islands and forests. Forty places to tee it up and still more being built. Almost every course has breathtaking views of the Intracoastal, the ocean, untamed marshlands, or beautiful rivers. The thick pine forests provide very special places for home sites on the courses. Some of the best are the two at The Pearl.