Hilton Head Golf Scene

The four-man scramble is one of the most enjoyable formats for team competition in golf. After all, finding one decent shot out of four is a welcome proposition to many golfers. Beginning this spring, golf clubs across the country will be able to compete in The Great American Scramble and vie for the coveted title of National Champions in Las Vegas.

After the longstanding Buick/Oldsmobile Scramble shut down in 2005, golfers were left without a national scramble competition. PGA Professional Wayne Stone decided to change that. Stone created an event aimed at bringing excitement, camaraderie and team-building experiences back to golfers through the scramble format.

Stone, who is the director of Golf at Windermere Country Club in Windermere, Fla., decided there was enough interest to create a national scramble just by gauging the response of his members to the loss of the Buick event. Encouraged by the feedback, Stone set out to create the national tournament that was currently missing from the golf world.

Their names have become as synonymous with the game of golf as the legendary figures and champions that tread upon the hallowed grounds they’ve carefully created.

Alister MacKenzie, Donald Ross, Robert Trent Jones, Pete Dye and Tom Fazio are as recognized in the realm of golf as Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer.

Today, course design is hardly an afterthought. It has become an almost religious experience for those associated with the game and if ever there were a guaranteed way to attract visitors to a course, attaching a great name is it.

However, if your last name doesn’t reflect a certain pedigree for golf course architecture or you haven’t won a major championship, breaking into the field might be a tougher task than teeing it up on the PGA Tour.

No, it wasn’t a hole-in-one from out of the blue, or a round with a famous celebrity (though both are very possible at the home of 135 holes of golf on Hilton Head Island), but one swing did change my attitude about golf, and Heritage Golf Group had everything to do with it. While visiting their brand new (and the first one outside Florida) TOUR Academy complaining about my game, the instructor told me grab a 5-iron and take ONE swing.

He showed it to me on their fancy video system, drawing virtual lines to explain how badly I was taking the club inside on the backswing, sent me out to take another swing with the same 5-iron, this time straight-back and through, and bingo! No, he didn’t cure everything with that one swing, but it reminded me, in the straight-forward style the Academy is known for, that the game can be a lot more fun than it was one swing before. 

It’s not brain surgery, its just golf. But the way the instructor went about changing my outlook on the game gives credence to Heritage’s claim of Unrivaled Golf and Uncompromising Service.

Lowcountry’s Most Underrated Gem?

Old South has now been around long enough to actually be taken for granted. Now a teenager, this Golf Digest 4-Star masterpiece from renowned architect Clyde Johnston fits into the Lowcountry landscape so seamlessly that it is sometimes forgotten onhe list of great area layouts, even though its location just off the bridges to Hilton Head Island is among the area’s most convenient.

If your memory needs a little work, Old South Golf Links might be the most unique layout in the entire Lowcountry. Johnston called it “one of the most beautiful tracts of land that I’ve ever worked on.” With seven marshfront holes along the Intracoastal Waterway, three island greens and even an island fairway, there is probably no other course in golf-crazy Hilton Head with more water views than Old South.

Yet those target-style holes are balanced by a handful of fairways through the open Scottish-style pastureland that separates the wetlands from the hardwood forests that are home to another half-dozen holes.

Dynamic Duo of Dye Delights

It could be said that Pete Dye “made” Hilton Head Island golf when his spectacular Lowcountry views, dramatic angles, signature waste bunkers, narrow approaches and small greens were introduced to the world at The Harbour Town Golf Links forty years ago. He might not admit it, but his return to The Sea Pines Resort to transform the old Sea Marsh course into the spectacular Heron Point by Pete Dye might just signal the “remake” of golf excellence on the Golf Island.

Dye’s intriguing “new” vision of that signature style that made Harbour Town so distinctive has made Heron Point a great compliment to its more famous sister course because of its contrasts. You know, like Ginger and Mary Ann. One thing the courses share is a championship quality that gives Sea Pines TWO must-play venues, and frankly helps the award-winning resort pair them in even more affordable two-course packages.

What Heron Point and Harbour Town do together is not only continue Dye’s legacy of revolutionary designs, they keep Sea Pines ahead of the evolutionary curve of what we all know as “resort golf.”

At Hampton Hall Club, members and guests enjoy the thrill of Pete Dye golf, world-class amenities, and personalized service — all of which have become Hampton Hall̵'s trademark.

Pete Dye, one of the greatest golf course architects of all time, has created a breathtaking course at Hampton Hall Golf Club which challenges players of all skill levels. Opened for play in March 2004, the course plays from a comfortable 5,329 yards to 7,503 yards from the tips — demanding for even the most accomplished player. Wide fairways and landing areas open up unobstructed approaches to the large greens, insuring a safe route on every hole.

Pete Dye Returns to The Sea Pines Resort to Create His Newest Masterpiece

With every new golf course comes the dream of setting the course record. Pete Dye’s return to The Sea Pines Resort to create the “new” Heron Point by Pete Dye gives us all the chance to challenge a course record every time we experience it.

Probably not the scoring record, but a new category for “Wow’s” in a round, as you venture around what might be the cutting edge of golf course architecture. The transformation of an old George Cobb routing into a brand new, more challenging and visually stunning layout, is brought to you by the man who ushered in a new era of golf course design when he built the Harbour Town Golf Links in 1968.

Though it is the second largest barrier island on the U.S. Atlantic Coast, Hilton Head Island still covers only 42-square miles. Yet 23 golf courses cover the island, and with the growth off-islnd in Bluffton and the neighboring Lowcountry, there are a multitude of opportunities to play award-winning courses designed by the renowned architects of our time. They don’t call this entire area “Golf Island” for nothing!

While other destinations have built courses in record quantities, Hilton Head and the Lowcountry have preferred a program stressing record quality. The candy-canestriped lighthouse at the Sea Pines Plantation overlooks the landmark course in the area, the famed Harbour Town Golf Links. Home of the PGA TOUR’s Verizon Heritage Classic every spring, this Pete Dye classic (with consulting help from a still-playing Jack Nicklaus) is delightfully playable for the rest of us the other 51 weeks of the year.