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From our Directory of the most recommended golf courses
Harbour Town Golf Links
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Sea Pines is a full blown resort on Hilton Head, and has three championship golf courses, the most notable of which is the Harbour Town Golf Links, as the home of the PGA Tour's Heritage Classic. The Jack Nicklaus- and Pete Dye-designed Harbour Town Golf Links course was completed in 1969, and is a must play for the purists, but the others courses here are well done and worth playing. What a tremendous golfing experience from the course to the facilities to the forecaddie. There is one word to describe this course, tight. The course places a premium on imagination, and shot-making rather than hitting the long ball. Measurement of 6,973 yards from the Heritage tees, with a slope of 146 and a par of 71, it's almost worth the cost to play here just to come up 18 with the lighthouse in the background. Great experience, but very difficult.
Posted by: JayM
Apr 24th, 2011
From John Garrity: http://jgarrity2.wordpress.com/ I rarely stoop to reportage when I’m rating courses for the Top 50, but Jim Furyk practically bumped my shoulder this afternoon outside the interview room at The Heritage. The former U.S. Open champ had just vaulted up the leader board with a second-round 66, so he was relaxed, affable, and eager to share what, besides the red-and-white-striped lighthouse, he liked about the 51st-ranked Harbour Town Golf Links. Hilton Head resident Dave Henson on No. 16 at Askernish Old. (John Garrity) Mostly he liked the fact that Pete Dye and Jack Nicklaus wore their high-button shoes when designing Harbour Town. That is, they built skinny, tree-lined fairways, installed waste-bunkers where once there was only waste, let tree limbs encroach on commercial air lanes, pinched the greens until they popped, stocked the ponds with alligators, and bundled everything into a short-by-modern-standards 6,973 yards. Harbour Town “neutralizes power,” said Furyk, a perennial also-ran in the PGA Tour’s driving-distance category. He added, “I’m not long by any means.” Still adding, he mumbled, “You could argue I’m short.” We could argue that, but this is a golf-course blog. So I’ll just call your attention to the Furyk statement that really caught my ear. “I’ve always said that if the golf course was built before 1960, there’s a really good chance I’m going to like it. If it was built after 1990, there’s probably a good chance I’m not going to like it.” Not one reporter in the room asked the obvious follow-up question: How do you prejudge courses built from 1960 to 1990? Never mind. It just struck me that Furyk has hit upon a fresh way of judging golfing grounds, a method that burns off the morning fog of traditional design variables (turf quality, green speeds, length of rough, etc.), leaving us a single overriding criterion: Birthdate. Furyk’s method, applied to my own Top 50, doesn’t yield groupings as distinct as his tripartite scheme. It’s clear, however, that the best golf courses are those built in the ‘90s. (No. 1 Askernish Old opened for play in 1891. Second-ranked Carne Golf Links threw open its original portacabin door in the 1990s.) The worst golf courses, meanwhile, were mostly built in 1987. When I get back to Kansas City, I’ll put the Bomar Brain to the task and come up with a more encyclopedic Furyk Scale ranking. Meanwhile, I’m going find out where Furyk is having dinner and point out to him that Harbour Town actually opened in 1967.
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Posted by: PatMaloney
Jan 30th, 2011
I live in HH in the winters, and Harbor Town is never in very good shape until about 3 weeks before the tournament and 3 weeks after. For the near $300 a round HT costs, I really think that you’re paying for the approach shot to #16, the tee shot on #17 and the views and shots on #18. The rest of the course was ahead of its time when it was built, but really has just set on its rankings and its marketing. I think that the par 3s are world class. I was just never all that impressed by it's trophy holes on the close, and don't think it justifies its ranking or its green fees.
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Posted by: Colin
Jun 8th, 2010
Played the Ocean course, quite a misnomer, we only saw the Atlantic once at the 15th. The course is routed through wetlands and lagoons, and was the easiest of the three courses at Sea Pines, even though there was water on 14 holes. Good strong golf course, bring your A game, and be prepared to loose a few balls if you haven't played here before. Well conditioned, excellent service, and pricey greens fees were the order of the day!
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Posted by: Gilbert
Jun 2nd, 2010
Played Harbour Town a couple of weeks after the PGA Tournament. Found the layout to be very flat, save for the last two holes. The routing requires thinking all the way around, there's no let up, if you play to a 15+ handicap, you will loose a lot of balls, and shoot about 10 over your normal game. The par threes are especially difficult, trouble on all sides, and small greens. It was a very walkable course, we hire a caddie, and even though I blew through my handicap, had a very enjoyable time.
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Posted by: Jim Mullins
Mar 27th, 2010
By the time you get to Harbour Town's 13th hole, you're really starting to hate trees. The 10th and 11th holes are bowling lanes, the greens are tiny, we get it. Stupid bunkers, damned trees. Then there is No. 13, the most remarkable hole I've played. Alice Dye designed it - in a really bad mood, one must assume. A bunker juts from the left side of a slight dogleg left. Try to clear it and tree branches above will knock tee shots to the ground. Say you place your drive perfectly at right-center past the corner. Big deal. Now you have to get on the green.The comma-shaped green is elevated with railroad ties as sides and fronted by an enormous, Mickey Mouse-ear-shaped bunker. I think I'm safe in saying that straight-up sand shots are not most people's preference. Was extremely please to card a double bogey!
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