Hilton Head Golf Scene

You’ve heard the analogy that being fitted for custom clubs is like buying a suit from a tailor instead of right off the rack. Connie Rockhill, “The Club Maker”, takes it at least one step farther, blending club fitting with teaching.

“If you learned to run in oversized clown shoes, I’m sure you’d to run a little better in shoes that truly fit. But imagine how much better you’d run if you also learned the proper running motions and had shoes that fit, instead of having to adjust your motions to the clown shoes. That’s what I try to do, get you doing the basics of the stance, setup, alignment and grip, what I call the “ABC’s of golf” and THEN fit a set of clubs, one club at a time, that will maximize the swing you already have.” 

How to Cure Your Short Shot Blues

By Roben Sutton, PGA Life Member Golf Instructor, Hilton Head National Golf Club

All that work on the range with your big stick is paying off. You're finally driving the ball in the fairway consistently, giving yourself chances to hit greens, or maybe leaving yourself short shots to get up-and-down for par.

But all-too-often you walk off with a double-bogey, or worse, and you're kicking yourself. You've chunked a 25-yard shot 10 yards, or skulled a wedge over the green. How can one shot that should be so easy cause so much pain? 

While it is hard to imagine that 2006 marks 50 years since visionary developer Charles Fraser and his brother Joe began creating America’s first eco-planned community stressing preservation of natural beauty–and golf, over high-rises and neon lights.

Then again, it is just as impossible to imagine Hilton Head’s claim as “The Golf Island” without the 5,200-acre resort/residential/golf community that started it all.

Yet the foresight that has driven Sea Pines from the very beginning allowed for only a moment’s pause to reflect on the past, culminating with a Labor Day weekend reunion and park dedication, before the award-winning resort went back to work to ensure that the next 50 years enhance its reputation of one of the world’s top golf destinations.

Just like the incongruity of long-hitting Davis Love III’s five Heritage victories at one of the tightest courses on the PGA TOUR, his signature design at Eagle's Pointe Golf Club might surprise the first-time player. For a guy known for his Lowcountry roots ad booming drives, Love’s layout at Eagle’s Pointe is a more traditional-style course that favors placement over length.

Oh, you can still hit driver on most holes to generous fairways. But putting your drives in the right position to hit your approach shot close enough to make some putts on the massive greens is the key to scoring on a course where you can have the round of your life.

“It’s easy to make a difficult golf course,” said Love III shortly after opening Eagle’s Pointe in 1999. “The trick is to make a golf course that everybody can play, and will want to come back and play again. You have to find a balance. You have to use every club in the bag here, and every time you play, you need to see something a little bit different.”

Pilates? It might have take a couple years for you to figure out how to say it (you don’t need to ask your significant other, its pill-lat’-tays, like what you’d take with your fancy coffee, and you learned how to say that, right?).

But if you found out it only took 15 minutes a day, required very little equipment, helps prevent the back and joint injuries that can wreck a golf season, and renowned golf instructor Butch Harmon credits with helping him hit the ball 20-25 yards farther, would you be a little more interested?

Here’s the clincher. All of it makes incredible sense. As something to do for your general well-being, as well as your golf game.

Jenni Whitmer of Body Pilates in Hilton Head has been involved in Pilates for six years. But it was only after moving to the island last year that she realized the benefits of golf-specific Pilates techniques, and the demand for something that would link a low-stress exercise program to golf improvement.

Ask Arthur Hills about the two Hilton Head Island courses that bare his name, and watch as a wry smile comes across his face and his eyeslight up.

Not only because they are among two of the finest public courses found in one  of the fine t golf destinations in the world, but because of their importance to a distinguished golf architectural career that started more than 30 years ago with an ad in the Yellow Pages in Toledo, Ohio.

His first course on Hilton Head – Arthur Hills at Palmetto Dunes – put Hills on the national scene in the mid-1980s. Several years later, his second effort – The Hills Course at Palmetto Hall– cemented his reputation as one of the world’s finest and most innovative golf course architects. In essence, with a pair of courses located not more than five miles apart, Hills hit a career slam dunk that even nearly two decades later he revels in. 

Legendary Hall of Famer Gary Player might be just as accomplished as a story teller. Asked once about his incredible energy and lust for life, he said, “because once you sit on your backside, you die. I’ve got to keep active, it’s what keeps me young ” With an attitude like that, it’s easy to believe him when he first saw the site for Hilton Head National Golf Club. 

“Imagine the thrill of being handed 300 acres of beautifully treed, rich Carolina bottom land and being told to ‘Give it your best shot!’ As you'll see, we did just that. Now it's your turn.”

2 x 4 Drill for Putting
Take a 2 x 4, about 6 inches in length; place it on its side along the left edge of the hole. With the heel of the putter against the board, place the ball even with the sweet spot on the putter, about 4 inches from the ole. Stroke the putt without the heel leaving the board. This will help your stroke to go straight back and straight through.

Lengthen Your Backstroke for Better Lag Putting
Most average golfers have difficulty judging the speed of long putts. To improve your distance control, concentrate on making your backstroke longer and don’t worry so much about accelerating through the ball. The pace of your stroke should be the same speed back and through. Your follow through may be shorter than your backstroke due to the resistance of the ball at impact. The momentum that’s created on the backstroke combined with gravity, the putter and the weight of your arms will move the putter through resulting in better contact and distance control.

The renowned Arthur Hills and Robert Cupp at Palmetto Hall are coming out of hiding. Still tucked away at the north end of Hilton Head Island, these two gems have long been considered the Island’s best-kept golf secrets, the kind o experience you had to go looking for to find.

But with the recent acquisition of the Palmetto Hall Plantation Club by the Heritage Golf Group, the pair now have seats on the front row. Obviously bullish on Hilton Head Golf, Heritage purchased Oyster Reef Golf Club, the three courses at Port Royal Golf Club and the 27-hole Shipyard Golf Club just 18 months ago. Adding Palmetto Hall, Heritage can now offer 135 holes of golf, and at least that many options for residents and visitors to the Golf Island.

The folks at the Heritage Golf Group promised to build on the rich tradition of each of their unique properties when they first came to Hilton Head Island late in 2004. Not satisfied with 99 holes of golf when they arrived on the island, they added te two 4-Star Palmetto Hall Plantation Club courses in ’05 and also did extensive renovations on their original acquisitions.

Now they’ve brought in one of the most renowned golf schools in the world with the opening of the Carolinas’ first John Jacobs Golf School at the Port Royal Golf and Racquet Club. The new golf school, a new clubhouse for Port Royal, continued improvements to all 135 holes of golf on the Golf Island and even to its centralized reservation system makes it hard to argue when the Heritage Collection calls itself the ideal solution for the perfect Hilton Head experience.