The Heritage Collection Packages from Heritage Golf Group

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.

Here’s another example. One of the toughest decisions a golf vacationer to Hilton Head Island has to make is where to play on an island with 23 courses on it, and a couple dozen more not far off it. Heritage Golf’s 27-hole Shipyard Golf Club on the south end of the island and six, count ‘em six, elegant 18-hole layouts on the north end (54 holes at Port Royal Golf Club, 36 more at Palmetto Hall Plantation and 18 at Oyster Reef Golf Club in Hilton Head Plantation), give residents and visitors a wide variety of choices in styles of play. Heritage is always dreaming up creative packages as well, offering savings on 3, 4 and 5-round options with various lodging partners on the island, giving players the opportunity to create an entire golf vacation with a single phone call to their reservation center at 1-800-2-FIND-18 or one online visit to www.hiltonheadgolf.net.

Heritage Golf has also delivered on its promises to upgrade the golf experience at all of its Hilton Head Island facilities, as the stunning new clubhouse at Port Royal Golf Club, and extensive on-course renovations at Oyster Reef and Shipyard since arriving on Hilton Head Island in 2004.

But always looking ahead, Heritage Golf is most excited about the new TOUR Academy, located at Palmetto Hall’s two challenging layouts designed by Arthur Hills and Robert Cupp. Head Instructor Ed Brill and his staff are career teaching pros who combine all the state-of-the-art technological bells-and-whistles with a proven and effective approach to help players develop more confi dence and to be able to recognize and correct their own flaws on the course. And they’ll work with players to create their own practice patterns and even pre-shot routines. The Academy offers schools ranging from two-day sessions to five-day schools with private lessons and comprehensive player development programs for beginners, intermediates and advanced golfers.

The state-of-the-art reservations center makes shopping for golf packages easier than ever. Unlike other golf resorts on Hilton Head Island, Heritage isn’t tied to one specific hotelier, giving it the flexibility to create many different packages at your choice of their seven courses.

Now, about the Magnificent Seven. One thing they all have in common is the “Heritage Touch.” From their “Bobby Jones” greeter that sets the comfortable mood for your golf odyssey to the knowledgeable golf shop staff, all of Heritage’s employees are “golf people” who love and  respect the game and its traditions.

A terrific trio of 9-hole layouts can be played in any combination at Shipyard Plantation, where the island’s wildlife is on full display. The parking pass to enter the plantation even comes with a warning not to feed or provoke the alligators, something you’ll understand as you weave your way through the 27 holes, 25 of them with water in-play. Miller Barber and Lee Elder were among the winners when Shipyard played host to the Hilton Head Seniors International in the mid-1980s.

They also realize that all the smiles in the world won’t make up for a course that’s not in great shape. Extensive renovations at both Palmetto Hall courses in 2005 restored their large greens to their original design with Champion Bermuda grass installed tee-to-green. Oyster Reef recently had its terrific greenside bunkers restored to their original Rees Jones specifications.

But the courses themselves, while all part of the Heritage Collection, are as unique as their designers. The two Palmetto Hall Plantation Club courses share a marvelous piece of island real estate, yet are as different as their designers and namesakes, Arthur Hills and Robert Cupp. Arthur Hills at Palmetto Hall has towering pines and moss-draped oaks framing its lush fairways. The signature 18th that wraps around a serene lake that tightens both the tee and approach shots, could be the best finishing hole anywhere on Hilton Head Island.

Former GolfWorld Architect of the Year Robert Cupp computer-engineered many angular edges on his greens, bunkers and berms.  With water in-play on 17 of the 18 holes, Robert Cupp at Palmetto Hall can be one of the Island’s toughest layouts from the tips, yet one of its most playable from the regular tees.

At Oyster Reef you’re asked to hit tee shots through narrow chutes of tall Carolina pines, with no parallel fairways to keep alive an errant tee shot. But from the 6000-yard white tees, Oyster Reef is a lot of fun, if you bring your short game. The treacherous par-3 sixth that plays out to Port Royal Sound and is protected by a huge, amoeba-shaped bunker, is the signa-ture hole, but the challenge of a finishing fivesome of holes, four great doglegs and a full-water-carry par-3, might be what brings you back again, and again.

Planter’s Row at Port Royal Golf Club has also hosted the Seniors International. The Willard Byrd design has narrower fairways and more undulating greens than its two sister courses at Port Royal. The Barony Course at Port Royal Golf Club, designed by George Cobb, might be the most player-friendly, but with water on 14 holes has more than its share of risk-reward opportunities. Pete Dye updated Cobb’s Robber’s Row at Port Royal Golf Club design in 1994 through stands of majestic magnolias and live oaks over the grounds of Fort Walker, a Union outpost during the “War of Northern Aggression,” as folks down here like to call it. Port Royal is also home for a new 15,000 square-foot clubhouse set under a canopy of oaks and magnolias, with a spectacular 68-hundred square-foot veranda wrapping around the Antebellum-style structure, with views of the busy croquet lawn and access to a nationallyrecognized tennis center.

Easy access to customized golf vacations and a new learning center committed to improving your game, what’s not to love about a golf trip through the Heritage Collection? Hilton Head’s Port Royal Golf Club, Shipyard Golf Club and Oyster Reef Golf Club.

Call 1-800-2-PLAY-18 or visit www.hiltonheadgolf.net to create your own memories. It might only take one swing.