"I've actually heard more today about golf carts than anything else," Jessica Johns told the Coastal Observer in May. Johns is the Mead & Hunt project manager who stood in front of the maps in the Waccamaw Intermediate School cafeteria on May 19. About 400 people came to that drop-in, which covered the state's plan to remove left turns from the stretch of Highway 17 between Litchfield Beach and Litchfield Country Club.
Five months later, the plan looks different. SCDOT shared a revised version with a group of residents and officials in late October. For anyone living in Litchfield Country Club, two things now matter most. Your left turn onto the highway moves to Crooked Oak Drive. And the golf cart ride to the beach depends on the Litchfield Drive light, which the beach side of the highway fought to keep and has now won back.
Crooked Oak becomes the club's left turn
The South Carolina Department of Transportation calls the project US 17 Corridor Improvements between Crooked Oak Drive and Litchfield Drive. According to the SCDOT project portal, its stated goal is to "improve safety and level of service" along that section. The Post and Courier reported that DOT officials described the stretch as having "numerous crashes along with excessive vehicular delay." The work is budgeted at $10 million.
The version people saw in May would have made Country Club Drive, Crooked Oak Drive, Litchfield Drive and Channel Bluff Avenue all right-turn-only. Under that plan, a Country Club resident heading north would have turned right, driven south to the YMCA, made a U-turn at a new signal and come back.
The Coastal Observer's Oct. 23 report describes a different arrangement:
| Movement | Plan shown in May 2026 | Revised plan, October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Litchfield Drive | Right turn out only; southbound traffic sent north to Crooked Oak for a U-turn | Full-service, four-way signal restored |
| Median cuts between Litchfield Drive and Crooked Oak | Closed | Still closed |
| Crooked Oak Drive | New signal with U-turns | Signal allowing U-turns and left turns into and out of Litchfield Country Club |
| Southern U-turn point | New signal at the YMCA | Signal at the Salt Marsh Cove entrance, replacing the YMCA signal |
| Walking and biking | Sidewalk | Bike the Neck path extended about three-quarters of a mile |
Crooked Oak is no small side street. A May 1 Coastal Observer report called it "the Crooked Oak Drive entrance to Litchfield Country Club." In the revised design, that entrance gets a signal where club traffic can turn left onto the highway and left back in. The Coastal Observer also reported in June that many residents already avoid the left turn at Country Club Drive. The neighborhood's property owners association "has tried for years to find a way to improve access to Country Club Drive," according to the paper's May 21 coverage.
The beach's win is also the cart's lifeline
The headline change in October was meant for the other side of the highway. Litchfield Drive is the only road to the beachfront neighborhoods, and the Litchfield Beaches Property Owners Association had opposed losing its left turn there.
"We are thrilled that a full-service, four-way light is being restored and the original right-turn only was scratched," association president Kevin Corrigan told the Coastal Observer.
That same light is how a golf cart from Litchfield Country Club gets to the sand. On May 1, the Coastal Observer reported that the original median design would have kept club residents from reaching the beach by cart. Planners said at the time that they would be "assessing alternatives." In the May version, the Litchfield Drive signal would have stopped only northbound traffic, and southbound drivers would have seen a flashing yellow light at the crosswalk. A full four-way signal changes that. Every direction of traffic stops in turn.
State law is the reason an intersection matters so much here. Under South Carolina Code Section 56-2-90, a golf cart on a public road needs a DMV permit decal and registration, which requires proof of ownership, proof of liability insurance and a five-dollar fee. Unless a local ordinance says otherwise, a permitted cart may run only in daylight and only on secondary highways posted at 35 mph or less. It must also stay within four miles of the address on its registration, or within four miles of a gated community's entrance if the address is inside one. It may "cross a highway at an intersection where the speed limit is more than thirty-five miles an hour." The SCDMV's current golf cart application repeats the daylight and crossing rules. This is general information, not legal advice. If you have questions about your own cart, check with the DMV or an attorney.
The stretch before the crosswalk
Earlier in the design process, after small-group meetings, planners widened the pedestrian crosswalk from Litchfield Drive to the Litchfield Village complex so it could fit golf carts. Litchfield Country Club resident Marty Farrell, who takes his cart to the beach along Litchfield Drive, raised the next problem at the May meeting. Getting to that intersection means driving through a gate at Litchfield Village. If the gate is locked, the only other way is the Highway 17 shoulder from the club entrance, and Farrell noted that driving on the shoulder is illegal. Others at the meeting asked whether the crosswalk through the raised median would be wide enough for more than one cart.
Restoring the four-way light at Litchfield Drive addresses what happens at the crossing itself. The questions about how carts get there, and how many fit in the median, are the kind of thing Corrigan meant after the October briefing: "It appears to be a really good outcome. There still need to be some details worked out, but we are encouraged."
Jerry Oakley, president of the Litchfield Country Club POA, has watched this stretch longer than most. He was on County Council when the 2003 corridor study first identified this part of Litchfield as a problem. In May he told the Coastal Observer, "I think we're going to need all the talent that the S.C. DOT engineers have to get us out of this." POA board member Bill Ringer said he and other officers would draft the association's formal response.
Bike the Neck gains three-quarters of a mile
The October revision also adds something nobody had in the plan last spring. The Bike the Neck path would be extended nearly three-quarters of a mile, from Providence Drive to the YMCA.
That request came from the cafeteria. In May, Bike the Neck founder Linda Ketron told planners their proposed sidewalk needed to be a multipurpose path, and County Council Member Stella Mercado said she wanted the project to include a Bike the Neck expansion too. After the October briefing, Ketron called the extension "huge." She added, "There's such a huge population coming in and out of South Litchfield. That really will help tremendously."
The Waccamaw Neck Bikeway, as South Carolina Trails describes it, is a paved multipurpose path that runs alongside U.S. 17. The new piece would run along the same section of highway this project rebuilds.
Where the project goes from here
SCDOT's comment period closed May 29. In June, the agency moved the start from the 2027 fiscal year to FY28 so it could count summer traffic, which area project manager Brett McCutchan said is "going to dictate some of the decisions moving forward." DOT spokeswoman Jennifer Timmons told the Post and Courier that the extra time would let the agency "develop potential design alternatives." She said construction timing would come once the design phase is finished.
Here is the sequence SCDOT laid out in October:
- Another community meeting early in 2027.
- Right-of-way acquisition that fall.
- Construction starting about a year after that.
"SCDOT heard the comments," Chris Clark, director of the Grand Strand Area Transportation Study, told the Coastal Observer. "They modified the design substantially." GSATS approved the funding for the project. In June, state Rep. Lee Hewitt, chair of the GSATS policy committee, told the Coastal Observer he wanted resident concerns addressed and also wanted the $10 million to stay with Georgetown County projects. He said most of the comments he received were about the U-turns and about golf cart traffic from the country club to the beach. He also told people to send their comments to DOT through its portal.
For the 2027 meeting, that is still the place to go. The SCDOT project page is where the project lives, and you can follow it there. The two questions club residents raised in May, how carts reach the Litchfield Drive crosswalk and how many fit in the median, are the ones to bring to that meeting.
If you're weighing how Crooked Oak, the restored Litchfield Drive light, or the golf cart crossing might shape day-to-day life on either side of Highway 17, the Taylor Keenan Team follows these local changes closely and is always glad to talk them through. Start your Lowcountry search. Contact our team today.
