brierwood articles

The Brunswick Beacon's golf supplement of September 3, 1987 reported that golf in Brunswick County was more than 25 years old, with nine courses in operation. The first, it said, was Oak Island Golf Club, which opened its first nine holes in 1961. The article then named the courses that followed, and Brierwood Golf Club in Shallotte comes third on the list, after Fox Squirrel Country Club at Boiling Spring Lakes, in what appears to be the order they opened.

Brierwood was followed by Bald Head Island, Carolina Shores, Ocean Isle Beach, Marsh Harbour, Oyster Bay and Sea Trail. The same supplement announced the newcomers of that fall: the Pearl Golf Links near Calabash, with a grand opening on September 1, 1987, and Brick Landing Plantation and Lockwood Folly Links at Holden Beach, both expected within a few months.

By the time of the Beacon's next big golf supplement, on September 2, 1993, the county had boomed. It reported 21 championship courses open that fall and several more planned, with more than half of them built in the previous ten years. Brierwood, it wrote, was “the oldest course in the South Brunswick Islands.”

The 1993 entry describes Brierwood as an 18-hole, par 72 championship course on N.C. 179 on the outskirts of Shallotte. It says the course was popular with area golf associations, tourists, locals and senior golfers, had reasonable rates and well-conditioned fairways and greens, and still demanded a variety of shots despite its age. An advertisement on the same page promoted a new full-service clubhouse and described Brierwood as a golf course community.

Farther south, the Grand Strand had a head start. Pine Lakes in Myrtle Beach dates to 1927. By the standards of Brunswick County, though, Brierwood was a pioneer, and 2014 trade coverage still ranked it among the ten oldest 18-hole courses on the Grand Strand.