Impeccable by Design

With more than 350 golf courses, South Carolina boasts plenty of options designed by some of the world’s best architects, ensuring memorable, challenging and fun play for your next golf getaway.

Jack Nicklaus

A world-class golfer, Nicklaus’ course designs are legendary. South Carolina has several Nicklaus designs, both private and public, and they are difficult.

Pawleys Plantation Golf & Country Club in Pawleys Island was built in 1988 and offers a stern test with six back nine holes that run along the tidal marsh. The course’s most memorable hole is the short (90 yards) Par 3 13th hole with its tiny peninsula green. The course underwent a complete renovation in 2023, contracting with Nicklaus Design Group to restore playability to Jack’s original ideas.

May River Golf Course at Palmetto Bluff, just outside of Bluffton, is considered Jack’s premier design effort in South Carolina. Opened in 2005, the course winds through moss-draped live oak trees, through marsh and along the May River. At 7,171 yards, the course offers golfers a difficult test, requiring accurate drives and a great eye around the green complexes.

Pete Dye and PB Dye

Pete Dye left a remarkable legacy in South Carolina’s golf landscape, with numerous notable courses including The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Golf Resort, which is on every golfer’s wish list. And it should be. Host to the 1991 Ryder Cup, as well as the PGA Championships in 2012 and 2021, Dye massaged this two-mile stretch of island coastline into a supreme test of golf. Despite generous fairways and landing areas, no other course in the country offers such a demanding second shot — especially with those coastal breezes. (And whatever you do, listen to your caddie’s advice around the greens.)

Harbour Town Golf Links at The Sea Pines Resort on Hilton Head Island is considered one of the most difficult tests of shot making on the PGA Tour.  Live oaks and towering pine trees are seemingly a factor on every shot, and its collection of Par 3s may be the most challenging on the PGA Tour.

Pete’s son, PB Dye, also a notable architect, created the Moorland Course at Legends Golf & Resort in Myrtle Beach, a difficult, somewhat controversial design, using large areas of natural vegetation, sand, water and waste areas and a “target golf” approach tee to green.

Tom Jackson

A South Carolina resident, Tom Jackson has designed some 45 private and public courses in the Palmetto State. For public play, venture to the courses at Cheraw State Park in Cheraw and Hickory Knob State Resort Park, both touting little to no development along the fairways, so you will enjoy quiet, forested layouts.

Hickory Knob is nestled along the shores of Lake Thurmond, so each hole offers views of the large reservoir. Your game will certainly be challenged by sloped greens, changing fairway contours and widths, not to mention elevation changes.

Cheraw offers picturesque, wooded views with lakes and wildlife, along a track that has no adjacent fairways and no homes or structures. This is golf in a parkland setting, as golf is meant to be played: challenging, yet fun.

Tom Fazio

Tom Fazio has built outstanding designs up and down the South Carolina coast (24 total in the state), including TPC Myrtle Beach in Murrells Inlet, which offers a stern test of golf. Long off the tee, with penal bunkers and water hazards, choose your tee wisely and hope for ideal weather conditions.

The Links Course at Wild Dunes Resort opened in 1985 and starts inland winding along the saltwater marsh until the turn where the holes finish along the ocean. This is the first course for which Fazio got a solo design credit, and it is one of the best public course options in the Charleston area.

Osprey Point Golf Course at Kiawah Island Golf Resort is beautifully situated along natural lagoons and saltwater marshes and offers world-class golf. Fazio completely renovated the course in 2014, resulting in a course that is very playable with difficult greens and numerous water hazards.

Mike Strantz

Mike Strantz studied course design under Tom Fazio, ultimately branching out to create his own design company in 1994. His first effort resulted with the widely acclaimed Caledonia Golf & Fish Club on Pawleys Island. Located on the south end between Myrtle Beach and Georgetown, Caledonia meanders through an old rice plantation and is considered one of the top-ranked public courses in the country.

A few years later, Strantz returned to Caledonia to create a second course: True Blue. Very different from Caledonia’s tight, well-manicured fairways and compact design, True Blue has wide fairways and huge greens with no rough. But beware the numerous waste areas that make the course play very long — a test of endurance for even the most seasoned players.

Featuring a variety of great stories and exciting trip ideas, the 2025 South Carolina Vacation Guide makes planning your next getaway to the Palmetto State easy. Request your free copy or download the guide today.