Legacy members reflect on time well spent on the coastal course
Go ahead and take a few extra practice putts on the 14th hole at The Reserve Golf Club. Odds are you’ll hear Frank and Linda Butts celebrating in their backyard. The retired couple joined the club in 2007 and built their Reunion Hall home, bordering the fairway, in 2009. After permanently settling here from Richmond, they’ve embraced golfing their way through retirement on Pawleys Island in South Carolina.
“We started coming down to the Lowcountry in the 1980s,” Frank says. “When it was time to start thinking about this next chapter, we decided to build down here. We couldn’t be happier.”
As the Greg Norman-designed course celebrates 25 years in the Grand Strand, the Butts are proud to have been here for most of that. “This is a beautiful club that has established a culture of hospitality,” the retired audiologist says. “It has exactly what you’re looking for in a club: the idea of a well-maintained course, a respect for the terrain and a respect for members. That’s what you’ve got here.”
Both of the Butts grew up playing golf in a country club environment; Frank in West Virginia and Linda in Pennsylvania. After taking time off to focus on careers and kids, they’re back in the game with each maintaining a 22 handicap.
“Oh, Linda beats me with great regularity,” Frank confesses with a chuckle. “She’s more athletically inclined. When I returned to golf, my game didn’t come back with me, but the pleasure of playing exceeded the frustration. Sometimes, golf is like a marriage to a bad woman. You don’t know why you do it, but you keep hoping it will get better.”
Linda looks on with a knowing smile. “We enjoy the sport together,” she says. “I played with ladies for a while, but now Frank and I will play two to three times a week. Sometimes it’s just the two of us, and sometimes we’ll pick up other members and play with them.”
Her life and golf partner scans the horizon of the 7,200-yard course that hugs the terrain, links fairways with charming bridges and showcases Grand Strand beauty.
“We hold a natural preservation designation because of what the club has done to preserve the wildlife that surrounds us,” he explains. “We’re right next door to the most famous botanical gardens in the region: Brookgreen Gardens.”
He marvels at the ingenuity Norman used to create the course that complements 160 acres of natural wetlands. “It doesn’t have tricked-up water hazards. It was designed with Augusta National in mind. The greens are all domed, without heavy rough. There are fairways and pine straw. It’s fair and doesn’t beat you up, but if you have a tight lie and not a lot of talent, it will give you a speech impediment.”
The Butts enjoy reciprocity with other McConnell Golf clubs, most recently having played Pete Dye River Course of Virginia Tech, The Cardinal by Pete Dye and Country Club of Asheville. Yet their favorite course is The Reserve, especially when all the kids and grandkids come to play. And their favorite hole? Frank sums it up best; “It would be No. 14. It epitomizes my relationship with golf. It’s beautiful. It’s home.”