Hilton Head Island is the rare golf destination where the most famous course in town is also one you can actually play. The island's courses are almost all resort or visitor-friendly layouts tucked under live oaks and along tidal marshes, and you can build a full trip from three Sea Pines rounds plus two island originals without ever driving more than twenty minutes. Every course below welcomes traveling golfers — most on ordinary resort tee sheets — and each one gives you a different version of Lowcountry golf.
1. Harbour Town Golf Links
Harbour Town Golf Links at The Sea Pines Resort is the course every visitor to Hilton Head should play once. Designed by Pete Dye with Jack Nicklaus as design consultant and opened in 1969, the par-71 layout has hosted the PGA Tour's RBC Heritage every year since its opening — South Carolina's only annual PGA Tour event — and is routinely ranked among the top courses in America by Golf Digest and Golfweek. The design rewards shot-making over power: narrow corridors through live oaks, pines and palmettos, small greens, dark lagoons, and the famous par-4 18th that finishes into the red-and-white striped Harbour Town Lighthouse with Calibogue Sound hugging the left side.
This is the splurge and the anchor round of the trip. The course is open to public play 48 weeks out of the year — it closes for overseeding in October and tournament preparations around the RBC Heritage in mid-April, the week after the Masters — so check the calendar before you lock in dates. Golf Digest's tour-player surveys have ranked it among the best courses on Tour, and visitors consistently find it kept near tournament condition year-round. Play it from tees that suit your driving accuracy rather than your ego, and plan to linger at Harbour Town afterward: the yacht basin, lighthouse and clubhouse make the best post-round hang on the island.
2. Heron Point by Pete Dye
Less than a mile from Harbour Town, Heron Point is Pete Dye's second act at Sea Pines Resort. The course began life as the Sea Marsh Course, designed by George Cobb in 1967, before Dye completely redesigned it and reopened it as Heron Point in 2007, returning in 2014 to soften green surrounds and enlarge several putting surfaces. The result is a 7,035-yard, par-72 layout that plays close to Harbour Town in difficulty — dramatic angled fairways, shifting elevations, risk-reward holes, Dye-signature mounding and water-guarded greens — built for average golfers to actually enjoy rather than merely survive.
Pair it with Harbour Town for a same-day or back-to-back Sea Pines double; the resort's shared practice facility serves both courses, and Heron Point's six tee sets (down to about 5,500 yards) make it the friendly half of the pair for mixed-ability groups. It is an Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary, so expect the natural landscape to feel wilder and more colorful than a typical resort track, with sand, mulch, limestone and native grasses woven through the routing. This is the round for Dye fans who want the architecture study without the Heritage-week spotlight.
3. Atlantic Dunes by Davis Love III
Atlantic Dunes completes the Sea Pines trio and has the best origin story of the three. It is a total reconstruction of the historic Ocean Course — the first course ever built on Hilton Head Island, originally laid out by George Cobb in the early 1960s — redesigned by Davis Love III with his brother Mark Love and lead designer Scot Sherman. It opened in November 2016, a month late after Hurricane Matthew, and was promptly named the National Golf Course Owners Association's National Course of the Year for 2017. Love, a five-time RBC Heritage champion and World Golf Hall of Fame inductee, restored the property's coastal character: rebuilt natural sand dunes, tens of thousands of native plants, coquina shell waste areas and seaside grasses, with the front nine running parallel to the ocean and the back nine reaching toward the beach.
Play Atlantic Dunes as your warm-up round at Sea Pines before taking on Harbour Town: its large greens and improved playability make it the most approachable of the resort's three, while the sea breeze keeps it honest for everyone. The par-3 15th is the signature — one of only two oceanside holes on all of Hilton Head — so have your camera ready early on the back nine. It also hosts a pre-Heritage pro-am each April, which means conditions in the spring are superb if you can time your trip around tournament season.
Atlantic Dunes: National Course of the Year — Discover South Carolina ↗
Atlantic Dunes, Sea Pines Resort — Golf Today architecture review ↗
4. Robert Trent Jones Oceanfront (Palmetto Dunes)
If Harbour Town is the island's crown jewel, the Robert Trent Jones course at Palmetto Dunes Oceanfront Resort is widely considered its number-two round — and locals have been saying so since 1967, when it opened just two years before Harbour Town. Designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr. and renovated in 2002 by his longtime protégé Roger Rulewich, who reshaped the bunkers, elevated several fairways and rebuilt every tee box and green, the course was named South Carolina's Golf Course of the Year in 2003. Jones signatures are everywhere: wide fairways, expansive gently-sloped greens, splashed bunkers and raised green complexes, with most of the routing winding through lagoons and palmetto trees inland.
The reason to come is the par-5 10th, which plays straight toward the Atlantic — one of only two oceanfront holes on the entire island, the other being at Atlantic Dunes. Rulewich elevated the 10th fairway specifically for the ocean view, so book a morning tee time and take your time on the elevated tee box; it is one of the most photographed spots in Lowcountry golf. Golf Digest rates it the most forgiving of Palmetto Dunes' three courses from tee to green, making it the perfect afternoon follow-up to a demanding morning round, and the Jones clubhouse is home to Big Jim's BBQ, Burgers & Pizza for an easy post-round meal.
Robert Trent Jones Course — Hilton Head Island tourism ↗
Palmetto Dunes Resort: Robert Trent Jones Course — Golf Digest ↗
5. Oyster Reef Golf Club
On the north end of the island, away from the Sea Pines gates, Oyster Reef is the local-favorite alternative. Designed by Rees Jones and opened in 1982 on 190 acres of Lowcountry terrain, it weaves through lagoons, tidal wetlands, live oaks draped in Spanish moss and Carolina pines. The semi-private, member-owned club keeps a limited number of tee times for guest play, and visitors are genuinely welcomed. The architecture is classic Rees Jones: doglegs protected by strategically placed bunkers, elevated tees, tiered well-defended greens that demand precise iron play, and sprawling bunkers with jagged tongues that are as strategic as they are photogenic.
The showpiece is the par-3 sixth, which plays about 192 yards from the back tees to a green set against Port Royal Sound — one of the most photographed holes in the Lowcountry. Because it is the island's locals' course rather than a resort headliner, Oyster Reef is typically the easiest tee time of the five to book, making it an ideal flex round: schedule it for your arrival day or as the final round of the trip. Players who prefer strategic, accuracy-driven golf over resort spectacle will find it the purest test on the island.
This guide was created with AI assistance using the linked sources. Course access, rates, and conditions can change; confirm details directly before booking.
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