This North Strand golf course has reopened despite a lease agreement being delayed
Colonial Charters Golf Club reopened a few days earlier than expected this week — and with different management than expected.
Course owner Founders Group International reopened the course in Longs on Monday because an agreement to lease it to a newly formed company has been delayed.
Golf pros Bill Jones and J.J. McCabe are partners in a company that was planning to lease the course from FGI with an option and an intent to buy, and they had hoped to reopen the course by this Saturday.
“We are still working on it. It has not gone through or fallen through as of yet. I can say we are temporarily delayed,” Jones said Thursday. “They need the course to open for the members and community and we couldn’t do it as fast as expected.”
FGI, the largest course ownership and management company on the Grand Strand with 21 courses, shut Colonial Charters down in March along with seven other courses to save money and offset a decrease in demand caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Only Founders Club at Pawleys Island remains closed among them, and it is expected to reopen in mid- to late August, according to company spokesperson Chris King of Kingfish Communications.
FGI said in an email to its Prime Times Honors Club members that Jones and McCabe still hope to lease and eventually own the course.
Jones is the head pro at The Valley at Eastport Golf Club in Little River and McCabe is a former Eastport assistant who has been the general manager/head pro at Dubois Country Club in Pennsylvania since leaving Eastport in October 2018. Jones’ father, William Jones II, is also a partner in Jones and McCabe LLC.
McCabe was going to be the Colonial Charters executive manager and run daily operations while Eastport partner and superintendent Joey Vereen was going to serve as a maintenance consultant. But that plan is on hold.
Colonial Charters is a 6,427-yard par-71 layout that opened in 1988 but was redesigned in 2008 by North Carolina course architect Rick Robbins.
Making her mark
Adrian Anderson of Murrells Inlet, a rising junior at St. James High, has a pair of top-three finish this month in significant junior tournaments in the Carolinas.
Anderson tied for third last Thursday in the 64th Carolinas Junior Girls’ Championship at the Country Club of Asheville in Asheville, N.C., with Morgan Ketchum of Winston-Salem, N.C. at 7-over 220. Alexia Siehl of Fort Mill finished second at 2-over 215.
Hyo Joon Jang of Bluffton shattered records all tournament long en route to a 13-stroke victory, the largest in championship history. Jang shot rounds of 66 twice, setting and tying the course record for women, and finished with a record low 11-under 202.
Earlier this month, Anderson finished second to Siehl in the S.C. Girls Match Play Championship.
This story was originally published July 30, 2020 at 11:16 AM.
