Heron Point by Pete Dye

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.

“There is no resemblance to the former (Sea Marsh) course. It is a total reconstruction, no different than taking a virgin piece of land and sculpting a new golf course,” says Cary Corbitt, Sea Pines’ director of sports and golf operations. “The only difference is that the corridors were already there, between the footprint of the houses. But we have changed as much of that footprint as we could within the corridors.”

For Dye, Heron Point represents a return to Hilton Head Island, where his signature waste bunkers, narrow approaches, small greens, dramatic angles and spectacular views at Harbour Town, Long Cove and Colleton River spawned a new design style that has never gone out of style. Forty years later, he’s brought an intriguing new vision of that signature style to give Sea Pines a stunning Dye duet of great golf experiences.

“Sea Pines has such a great golf image,” says Dye. “So you’ve got to keep all of your golf courses up to date- that’s what you’ve got to do to keep competitive with the world. Sea Pines has really been great to do this reconstruction. It helps the value for the homeowners, residents of the surrounding area who’ll play here, and everyone who visits The Sea Pines Resort on Hilton Head, to keep the golf courses ahead of the game.”

And Heron Point by Pete Dye stays ahead of the game, not just in the revolution of its design, but in the evolution of “resort golf.” In Corbitt’s words, “The days of ‘resort friendly’ are out the window. People want a challenge. Look around the country; PGA West, Whistling Straits and The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island (all celebrated Pete Dye designs) are all getting a huge amount of play and are among the hardest golf courses in the nation. The customers want those types of challenges.”

They’ll find it at Heron Point, which, while designed by Dye and only a couple of well-placed drives from his famed Harbour Town, is complementary by its contrast to its famous sister course.

One of the most surprising WOW’s of Heron Point is its elevation changes, on an island that’s barely above sea level at its highest point. Dye has created many uphill shots, not just from mounding and elevating his tees and greens, but by digging down in his fairways and using berms and moguls to create far more differences in terrain than any other course on Hilton Head Island. There are even a couple of “opportunities” to hit blind uphill shots for fairway approaches at the third and 10th holes. WOW!
Dye has softened many of the sharper doglegs that existed on the old routing, and moved many of the lagoons to change the contours of the holes and actually make many of them far more playable. “We think a lot of the holes will have more shot-value than they did before, all the way around,” he says. While many of the lagoons are more “in-play” than before, fewer of them actually intrude on the fl ight of a well-struck shot, penalizing the bad shots, not the good ones.

Part of the transformation comes from necessity. The growth of the centuries-old oaks in Sea Pines Plantation created shade and breeze issues on a number of tees and greens. To continue its commitment as one of America’s fi rst eco-planned communities, ownership (the Riverstone Group that fi rst worked with Dye at Kiawah Island) and Dye moved many greens instead, to sunnier, more open areas to improve conditioning, working in concert with longtime superintendent Jim Cregan. With those design changes, the installation of the same state-of-the-art sub-air moisture removal systems under the greens that Harbour Town has, the sodding of the new Celebration Bermuda strain on the fairways and tees and Mini Verde bermuda on the greens (the same grass that covers the putting surfaces at the TPC Sawgrass) and the doubling of sprinklers and drains, Heron Point will be more playable, more often, than its predecessor. Speaking of those greens, they’re still smaller than most (a longtime Dye signature), but larger than Harbour Town’s, and signifi cantly more undulating, with the penalty for missing the greens a ball that might roll into one of the course’s many run-off areas.

Pete has always been into visuals, and Heron Point is as colorful as any course you’ll visit, anywhere. Instead of his signature railroad tie bulkheads, Dye has 12 inch wooden planks separated by grass on some of the lake borders, the Champion Bermuda is a deeper shade of green than other turfgrasses, many of the bunkers have grass walls, the sand is soft and white, even in the areas you’ll actually drive your cart through (no grounding your club in the sand, there are no “waste areas” at Heron Point), and with the mulch and pine straw borders bringing in shades of brown and red, the kaleidoscope of color changes will likely evoke another series of “wow’s”. The transformation also allowed Dye to open up some of the holes, especially the ninth, where lowering the once-elevated green down to fairway level reveals a gorgeous marsh vista behind the green.

One of Dye’s strategic secrets at Heron Point is that the closer your tee ball is to trouble, the better angle you’ll have on your approaches to the many diagonal greens. There’s always a safer way to play off the tee, but it comes with tougher angles to the pins. Wow!

Adding to the Wow Factor, Heron Point even has what Head Professional John Richardson calls “special tees” on three holes that you might never play, but should at least stop to appreciate. At the 14th, there’s a tee that actually plays across the approach to the par-3 13th, giving players an option of playing #14 from 414 yards rather than the regular 357 while at #18, the special tee Dye insisted on that stretches the hole out to 436 yards necessitated to moving of the rest rooms from their old site about 15 yards to the right. From those “special” tees, Heron Point can play as long as 7,100 yards, though with six tee areas, including one specifi cally designed for juniors and families, you can play the Point from 3,750 up to 7,000 yards.

Every hole at Heron Point has its risk/reward features, and every hole is remarkably different. A signature hole? That’s up to you. Maybe if you keep count of “wow’s”, you’ll decide which is your signature at this course that came with a familiar footprint, but could be one of the best “new” courses in America in 2008.

Instruction from The Sea Pines Golf Academy or top 100 teaching pro Rick Barry, and package deals that can get you on both of Pete’s masterpieces, Heron Point and Harbour Town, with accommodations in villas, homes, or at their world-class Inn at Harbour Town are available through www.seapines.com or by calling toll free 866-561-8802. Sea Pines has brought the “WOW” back into resort golf.