The Wizard golf course in Myrtle Beach would close if a redevelopment plan is approved
For at least the third time in 15 years, it appears a serious attempt to redevelop The Wizard Golf Links in Carolina Forest is taking place.
Though no formal redevelopment plan has been submitted, Horry County officials have already scheduled a meeting for community members to discuss an expected proposal to redevelop the 168-acre golf course.
The meeting is scheduled for 4-6 p.m. Oct. 20 at the Carolina Forest Recreation Center, where community members will be able to ask questions of county staff members in planning, engineering and stormwater, and several representatives of G3 Engineering, which is submitting the proposal on behalf of a potential property owner. A preliminary proposal is expected to be made public at the meeting.
There is expected to be a lot of community opposition, as there has been to the two previous attempts to redevelop the course.
“There has been a lot of community pushback in the past and I would expect community involvement this time as well, which is why the developer is having the community meeting that we’re facilitating,” said David Jordan, the county’s director of planning and zoning.
Jordan said the sketch plan of the project includes about 650 housing units with around 400 single-family and 250 multifamily homes.
A change in the zoning of The Wizard would have to be approved by Horry County Council to allow redevelopment, and that has been a major hurdle in the two previous efforts to redevelop the course.
The Wizard and the adjacent sister course Man O’ War comprise about 376 acres of an 812-acre Planned Unit Development, according to Horry County records, and both courses are zoned to remain golf courses within the PUD, so it would have to be amended.
Much of the surrounding property in the PUD is zoned for both single-family and multifamily housing, however, and remains undeveloped.
The Wizard has no housing alongside holes, though the Windsor Green and Waterford Plantation developments are nearby, with Waterford close to the back nine of Man O’ War.
Jordan said as a concession to the county and area residents, the developer is including restrictions to permanently protect Man O’War from development.
The Wizard, Man O’War and The Witch — collectively known as Mystical Golf — comprise the golf course portfolio of DG Golf Management. The Witch is scheduled to close on Nov. 21, and a residential and commercial project on the back nine along S.C. 544 is planned.
The Wizard is a 6,721-yard Dan Maples design that opened in 1996, along with Man O’ War. A possible sale to a developer of both The Wizard and Man O’War would appear to end DG Golf Management’s involvement in Grand Strand golf that dates 32 years with the opening of The Witch in 1989.
DG president Claude Pardue had no comment on Wednesday.
The previous redevelopment attempts
Both prior attempts to redevelop The Wizard involved DG Golf Management sales agreements with developers that were contingent upon the property being rezoned to allow housing, according to Pardue. The company owns the courses but not the surrounding property, Pardue has previously said.
In 2019, a proposal to build 700 single-family and multifamily homes was met with strong opposition from area residents, and some council members including Danny Hardee, who represents the district that contains the course, said they wouldn’t consider any residential rezoning until a Carolina Forest Boulevard widening project was complete. That project was finished this summer.
In 2006, a requested rezoning to a Planned Development District (PDD) with a proposed 650 housing units was denied by Horry County Council.
That rezoning request was accompanied by a proposed mixed-use community adjacent to Man O’ War – which would have had a deed restriction requiring it to remain open space – including 435 single-family homes with 2.9 homes per acre and 216 multi-family dwellings with 11.5 units per acre. The PDD would have also featured lakes, parks and amenity centers.
The already heavily-developed Carolina Forest area is expected to soon receive more housing. A residential community close to The Wizard was already approved by county council this summer. Developers with Nest Communities won approval in June to build 154 townhouses on two tracts of land between Postal Way and The Wizard and said they plan to build a connecting road from Postal Way out to Highway 501.
In addition, in early May county council approved 330 more townhouses — from developer DDC Engineers — along Postal Way behind a section of the Tanger Outlets.
The Sun News reporter J. Dale Shoemaker contributed to this report.
This story was originally published October 6, 2021 at 1:20 PM.
