South Carolina, the Palmetto State, is set in the Deep South and was first settled by the English and named Carolina (“Land of Charles” in Latin) after King Charles I gave eight loyal supporters the royal charter to settle here in the 17th century. The museums of the state capital, Columbia, are where South Carolina’s historical past can be researched, but Palmetto’s golf beginnings may be attributed to a group of Scottish merchants who founded the South Carolina Golf Club at Charleston in 1786.

Charleston is where you’ll find the best of South Carolina’s Golden Age golf course designs, headlined by Seth Rayor’s Yeamans Hall which Tom Doak restored in the late 1990s. But the Palmetto Golf Club in Aiken can reasonably claim to have the USA’s second oldest golf course. However, the vast majority of South Carolina’s most famous golf courses are thoroughly modern affairs, headlined by the 1991 Ryder Cup course, Kiawah Island (Ocean) and Long Cove and Harbour Town at Hilton Head.

Each year millions head to the golfing playground of Myrtle Beach where there are more than 120 courses to choose from. It is therefore no surprise that the state tourist board flaunts South Carolina as the No.1 golfing state in America.

Our South Carolina Best In State Rankings were last updated in November 2020. Click the link to read the story.