Aloha Mini Golf Return
to South Carolina
page
900 Lake Arrowhead Road
Myrtle Beach, SC 29572
Price: $7
Par: 36
Island Course Cave
Course
Difficulty: 2 Difficulty: 3
Creativity: 8 Creativity: 7
Atmosphere: 9 Atmosphere: 9
There are two courses located at Aloha, with the outer course being the Island course and the inner course being the Cave course. The Island course is the second of two courses that has been played for the USPMGA Master’s tournament the past couple of years (at the time of this review). Both courses trend towards the easy side with shorter holes and decent putting lines. There is themed music throughout the course and it does have a tropical feel as there is very little shade, so be sure to put on your suntan lotion. On the plus side you can bring adult beverages purchased at the course out to play so they help you weather the heat.
It’s a newer course so everything is still in great condition. Consistent with other Myrtle Beach courses they have deep plastic cups that double as draining for the hole for they are in good condition after a storm. There are a few areas that we would consider design flaws where the ball can go out of bounds even if you have made a “good” shot but overall the play is consistent.
We felt the Island course was the easier of the two and a good player should finish a few strokes under par with ease. The world record for an adventure style course was set on this course in 2017 with a 22 so there are plenty of ace opportunities. All of the holes are aceable and a good 12-14 of them can be done on a fairly consistent basis. While the holes are shorter, allowing for the aces, they are all unique in terms of how you must approach them, which ups the creativity for what is a simple course.
While most of our focus was on the Island course for the tournament, we did sneak in a couple of rounds on the Cave course. It felt a bit more difficult than the Island course, but that could have been because we had gotten so many of the lines down on the other course and didn’t have the same amount of practice here. This course does start off with an interesting cave hole where you have the option to put into the side of the cave to attempt an ace but we found that it wasn’t much better than the long put through the cave and at times would be worse as the ball would get stuck up in the cave and be very hard to retrieve. Otherwise the holes are fairly short and a lot of it is just figuring out the optimal angle to run for the ace, otherwise they are pretty easy twos just like on the Island course. There was one hole that gave you the chance to putt through a small log as the only obstacle on the course, but it didn’t seem to give you much advantage and looked better just to go around for the lay-up. These holes also seemed a tad less creative over the span of the course versus the Island course, as there felt to be more repeating of approach.
The course is set a bit off the main road so you need to know it’s there or you might risk driving right past, as opposed to many of the other Myrtle Beach courses that you can’t miss from the main road. While it’s not as big and over the top as some of the other courses in Myrtle Beach, it does provide a great putting experience and should definitely be experienced together with its sister courses at Hawaiian Rumble and Hawaiian Village. An all-day play package for those three courses will give you a lot of great minigolf. There was no free game chances at this course but that seems to be consistent with a lot of the courses in Myrtle Beach and it made up for by the pricing to play multiple rounds.
Reviewed by Pat and Putt
Reviewed in 2017
Course Pictures (click to enlarge)
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See our complete
album of pictures from this course on Flickr.
Map