Designed by Golf’s Greats
Written by Edward Thomas
The emergence of golf resorts and recreation communities has transformed Hilton Head Island and its mainland neighbors Bluffton and Okatie into one of the most desirable destinations in America to vacation or reside.
That emergence has been spearheaded by golf courses designed by many of the world’s most renowned architects. More than one million rounds of golf are played here annually.
Jim Chaffin, one of the visionaries with the original Sea Pines Resort on Hilton Head, and more recently co-founder of the Spring Island nature-focused golf community in Okatie, credits the early recruitment of premier golf course architects to this area as the impetus that set this Lowcountry region apart from other destinations across the nation.
Chaffin was a top lieutenant to Sea Pines founder Charles Fraser. And, it is Fraser, more than any other single individual, who made Hilton Head Island what it is today.
Although Fraser wasn’t a golfer himself, Chaffin emphasizes he had the foresight that the best way for his new resort community to maximize the value of its heavily wooded interior acreage to its full economic potential was to start building golf courses.
Three years ago National Recreation and Park Association published a treatise about golf courses and their value to real estate development in the United States over the past half century. In their report the NRPA specifically points to “the highly publicized Sea Pines Plantation development of the 1970s” as the catalyst for the symbiotic relationship between golf and real estate that sparked the boom in courses during the latter decades of the 20th century.
“Charles Fraser demonstrated that course construction could be designed to create extensive amounts of green space around which building lots could be wrapped; and they could be threaded through less attractive land to enhance its overall value,” it wrote.
Although Sea Pines had two George Cobb-designed courses underway between 1962 and 1967 it was the resort’s dramatic launch of the Harbour Town Golf Links designed together by Pete Dye and Jack Nicklaus in 1969 that was the tipping point that sparked the rush for securing top name architects.
The magnificence of the Harbour Town Golf Links has been universally recognized in the world of golf. It launched Dye’s brilliant career as one of the world’s top-five modern golf architects. Sports Illustrated called Harbour Town “nothing short of a work of art.” The World Atlas of Golf named it the ninth best course in America and its 13th hole “the greatest 13th hole in the world.”
Today Sea Pines has four 18-hole courses — three public courses and one for members, while Hilton Head Island as a whole has 24 on-island championship courses crafted by top shelf designers – and if we include the courses in Bluffton and Okatie, the total exceeds 40.
South Carolina’s Tourism publication has gone so far as to pronounce the entire area “Hilton Head Golf Island” — taking note of not only the number of courses, but the quality of design as well with the credibility that accompanies names like Nicklaus, Dye, Robert Trent Jones, Tom Fazio, Gary Player, Arnold Palmer and the like.
Nicklaus, who has dozens of highly acclaimed residential designs to his credit, including two courses at Indigo Run on Hilton Head Island and one at Colleton River in Bluffton, has said: “a major element of my thinking when building for a developer is what the homeowner will view from his windows. The more value you create for the owner, the better job you are doing for the project overall.
Among the Top 50 rated golf course architects with layouts here in the Lowcountry are:
NICKLAUS AND DYE: Nicklaus has four courses in this area since Harbour Town. Three are in private communities: Colleton River; and private (The Golf Club) and public courses (Golden Bear) at Indigo Run. The fourth is May River Club at the Montage Resort in Palmetto Bluff in Bluffton. Likewise, Pete Dye has additional courses here: the private Long Cove Club, built in 1980 and ranked No. 4 in South Carolina; Heron Point in Sea Pines Resort, ranked No. 9 in South Carolina; Port Royal’s Robbers Row (a re-design); the private Hampton Hall Club; and the private Colleton River course in Bluffton, which offers views of Port Royal Sound out to the Atlantic.
Robert Trent Jones and son, Rees Jones: Robert Trent Jones, the father, built his one course in this area in 1966 at Palmetto Dunes. Rees, his younger son, has four exceptional courses including the ingenious 20-hole course at Haig Point on Daufuskie Island plus three in Hilton Head Plantation: The Country Club of Hilton Head, Oyster Reef and Bear Creek.
Tom Fazio: Named “Best Modern Day Architect” by Golf Digest three times, Fazio has five courses that run along the water’s edge on the north side of Highway 278 in Bluffton. One is in Moss Creek (Devil’s Elbow) and two each are in Belfair and Berkeley Hall.
Gary Player: Hall of Fame golfer and golf architect designed the first golf course in Hilton Head Plantation at Dolphin Head (semi-private) and he also designed the original Hilton Head National public course, which is routinely ranked among the Top 10 public courses in South Carolina.
Arnold Palmer: The winner of the first Heritage Golf Classic tournament has designed more than 300 golf courses, and his best in the Carolinas is Old Tabby Links on Spring Island in Okatie. He has a public designed course at the Crescent Pointe residential community in Bluffton.
Davis Love III: A five-time winner of the RBC championship has already earned his spurs as an excellent golf course architect with his recent Atlantic Dunes Course in Sea Pines, a remake of the Sea Pines Ocean Course. It earned 2018’s “National Course of the Year Award” by the National Golf Course Owners Association.
