Natural beauty and great golf come together at Cheraw State Park.

An 18-hole championship course winds its way through the long-leaf pinelands of the traditional state park, a course that’s earned notice from the Aubudon Society for the way it’s managed to preserve and protect the habitat it shares with uncommon critters such as red-cockaded woodpeckers and fox squirrels.

The park in South Carolina’s northeast corner also boasts Lake Juniper, a 300-acre impoundment built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression along with the park’s original cabins and picnic facilities.

A boardwalk along the lake helps visitors enjoy the scenic setting, and kayakers particularly enjoy silently scooting into the cypress wetlands at the lake’s edge.