[Editor's Note: Alan Nichols originally visited The Cloister in late 1997 and wrote the following article. He revisited in March 1999 and found a number of changes involving the courses. These are described in an update following this article. A late 1999 visit to the Cloister (and Hilton Head) is covered in "Golf Is Better the Second Time Around - Cloister".]

When you drive over the Frederica River causeway from Brunswick to St. Simon's Island and Sea Island just beyond, you leave behind the neon world of the southern Georgia mainland and enter the old South where cotton was once king. You pass stately homes and soon you reach another causeway over the Black Banks River. Like guests at a church wedding, live oaks stand at attention as you drive on. Over the river, you make your first left and the old hotel with its orange roof and Spanish Mediterranean architecture comes into view beneath the magnolia trees.

You've arrived at The Cloister, one of the country's leading resorts and since 1927 a golf and vacation destination of thousands of American and international vacationers.  Here, on the tiny 5-mile sliver of land that is Sea Island, one of the barrier islands off the Southern Georgia coast that make up the Golden Isles, the rhythm slows down amidst abundant natural beauty. Here, too, you find a gracious atmosphere you would expect of a Mobil 5-star resort frequented by prominent families like the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts…and the George Bushes who honeymooned at the Cloister and returned in 1995 for their 50th anniversary.

For many, The Cloister is synonymous with the best of the Old South -- gentile, languorous, and refreshing. The spacious hotel, with its over 240 rooms, elegant dining room (where diners enjoy orchestra music), dance hall, and magnificent courtyard in the back, is complemented by guest houses with oversized villas. The guests houses lie directly east of the hotel, a short walk or drive away. Fronting The Cloister's private beach is the beach club with two large swimming pools (decks, outdoor bars and jacuzzis) and a restaurant offering outstanding cuisine in a casual atmosphere. Adjacent to the beach club is the resort's salon and state-of-the-art health spa.

Guests at The Cloister play either at the Sea Island Golf Club or the nearby St. Simon's Club with its tight tree-lined 18 hole layout. The Sea Island Golf Club is about a 12-minute drive from the resort on St. Simon's Island.

It is located on what was one of the leading cotton producing plantations in the South, Retreat Plantation. The very modern, modest-sized clubhouse is at the end of Avenue of the Oaks, a breathtaking drive along majestic stands of live oaks. The club's grounds includes the tabby ruins of a former slave hospital and a cemetery still used by descendants of plantation slaves.

The golf club offers 36 holes, four distinct nines played in various combinations -- Retreat, Seaside, Plantation, and Marshside.

Bobby Jones called Seaside "One of the very best nines I have ever seen." Part of the original Sea Island 18 which opened in 1927, it features a few carries over marsh inlets, deep bunkers and fickle ocean breezes.

Retreat was designed by Dick Wilson. Marshside, the newest nine, was designed by Joseph Lee and has the most water, and Plantation was recently redesigned by Rees Jones.

Sam Snead still holds the 18-hole Plantation course record of 63. These three nines lie inland of Seaside but are equally as captivating for their natural setting. All four nines are set up for resort play, with their wide fairways and low rough. The courses feature Tifdwarf greens overseeded with bent and Bermuda 419 fairways. The yardages range from Plantation (3516 from the tips) to Marshside (3190 yards).

For those needing their swings adjusted, the Golf Learning Center at the Sea Island Golf Club is the most modern, fully equipped teaching facility in the country. It is operated by Golf Digest Magazine in association with the resort. The center is directed by Jack Lumkin, a former one-time touring pro who is mentor to PGA star Davis Love, the resort's touring professional and a local resident. Former LPGA Great Louise Suggs is on the part-time staff, which includes several current and former players Nike tour players. The school offers five-day, three-day and mini programs.

In addition to golf, The Cloister offers such other activities as fishing, biking, boating, horseback riding, skeet shooting, swimming, tennis and going on nature tours led by a full-time naturalist. The resort, with its extensive programs for children, has become a hit with many families who return year after year in the summer. Cloister guests under 19 play without greens fees.

The Cloister was founded by Ohio auto magnate Howard E. Coffin and officially opened in 1928 by President Calvin Coolidge. Since its inception, the resort and realty subsidiary has been under one management company owned by the Alfred W. Jones family.

The family has a long-standing policy of controlling development to protect the natural heritage of the island which is lush with flowering shrubs and trees and which is home to hundreds of wading and migratory birds, as well as year-round species.

Golf packages include accommodations, three meals daily, greens fees and shared cart or caddy, and complementary range balls.  Island day-time average temperatures range from the high '80s in June to 70 in November.

The Cloister Update (March 1999)

At Sea Island Golf Club, a facility of The Cloister, they're moving heaven and earth to make this one of the top resort clubs in the world. Well, not heaven really, but definitely a lot of earth.

For years, the club boasted four distinct nines -- Marshside, Seaside, Plantation and Retreat -- which were played in different combinations, giving the club scheduling flexibility. Shortly, Sea island will have two 18's, created by combining Retreat and Plantation into the Plantation Course and linking Seaside and Marshside into the Seaside 18.

Late last year, the club opened Plantation, the work of Rees Jones, whose reputation as a restorer of golf courses is well known. He has prepared such courses for the U.S. Open as Congressional, Pinehurst #2, Baltusrol, The Country Club and Bethpage Black.

Retreat and Plantation had grown a few whiskers over time. Working his creative magic, Jones has made dramatic improvements in the greens, bunkers, and the routing while preserving the parkland and coastal features of the two nines. He has added lakes, enlarged and deepened bunkers, and created several new holes to improve both the flow and the challenge of the course. Jones completely redid Retreat #1, which used to be a short, undistinguished par 5. He moved the tee box 100 yards south next to the sound and created a 429-yard dogleg right par 4 to an elevated green. (It is now the 10th hole of the new 18)

Retreat #9, which used to be a brutally long par 4, is now a dramatic risk-reward 500-yard par 5 which doglegs around a lake. The new green complex sits adjacent to the lake and a long drive down the lefthand side of the fairway leaves anywhere from a medium iron to a fairway wood over the water to the heavily bunkered green. The safe play is around the lake and par should not be a problem with this strategy.

The Plantation 9, which is Plantation's front side, has also been vastly improved with new lakes and a few new green locations, enlarged bunkers, mounds giving the holes better definition, and a new short par 5 (#8) whose green sits astride a lake that starts 180 yards from the green.

The greens have been replanted with Tifeagle, the latest hybrid Bermuda offering a better putting surface and greater durability. Also, the outstanding turf conditions are maintained by a new computerized irrigation system. The natural areas have been vastly improved, too, with new floral plantings, and the course sports a curbed, wide concrete cart path.

The course is both a better test of golf now for the good players and a more enjoyable, playable course for the weekend golfer.

Meanwhile, Tom Fazio, whom some regard as the best course architect today, is renovating the Seaside 9 and virtually redoing the entire Marshside course for the new 18, which is scheduled to open late this year. At the moment, the site of the two nines has been fenced off and scrapers, huge dump trucks, and front-end loaders are moving about the site like so many ants on a foraging mission. The site looks like a desert now, as Fazio has cleared many of the oak stands that graced Marshside. His intent is to create a links style course with open, windswept features.

Elsewhere on site, the Golf Digest School adjacent to the clubhouse, is being moved closer to the water and the practice facility, including bunkered greens and a large driving range, are being renovated and enlarged. Also, when these various projects are completed, a new clubhouse will be built close to the sound, while the existing clubhouse will continue to operate as a dining facility and site for small meetings and gatherings.

In another major change, the Sea Island Golf Club is now entirely private, with access restricted to club members and guests of The Cloister.