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Seabrook Island Resort

After Kiawah, I spent several days at Seabrook Island, a mere 10 minutes drive from Kiawah. In important respects, Seabrook Island mirrors Kiawah. It is a gated resort and residential community. The roads and trails are clean and well-maintained. The small barrier island is rich in natural elements of thick forest, lagoons and marshes copiously populated with wading birds and other wildlife. And, the island has all the amenities of a first-class resort destination.

Seabrook, however, is entirely private. Use of the amenities, including the golf courses, is restricted to private club members or resort guests. Because of this, perhaps, I had a sense of community here that I don’t usually experience at resorts and I was struck by the friendliness of the staff, from managers down to the attendants.

The resort has everything a fine beachfront resort would have including camps and clubs for kids and conference and equestrian centers. Also, with four-bedroom villas just off the beach and adjacent to the golf clubhouse, the resort is nicely set up for golf outings.

Two adjacent golf courses are very scenic with both woodland and links features. The easier of the two is Ocean Winds, a 6761-yard par 72 William Byrd design. It features generous fairways and relatively flat, moderately bunkered greens. While the front nine works it sway around a woodland environment, the fine back side wanders out toward the ocean and features some excellent holes around lagoons and marshes. While fairly tame in calm weather, this course can be difficult when the frequent winds kick up.

Crooked Oaks is a 6750-yard par 72 woodland layout. It was one of Robert Trent Jones earliest creations and though it is quite narrow, it doesn’t have the deep, greenside bunkers or the roller coaster greens that were later to become his trademarks. Still, Crooked Oaks is a real tester. Several major amateur events have been held here and the winners have struggled to break even.

For more information and reservations, call 800-845-2475.

Wild Dunes Resort

The final leg of my Charleston visit took me to Wild Dunes Resort on the Isle of Palms, a barrier island located east of the Mount Pleasant section of Charleston. In 1989, the finger-shaped island took a direct hit from Hurricane Hugo, wiping out virtually all of the island’s vegetation. Ten years later, this semi-tropical island is still recovering from Hugo’s wrath which left gaping spaces where palms once presided.

Since Hugo, the island has been undergoing a crash development program that has added thousands of new villas, apartment complexes, and homes. Amidst this suburban atmosphere is a fine resort offering excellent beaches, beach club, tennis club, a fitness center, two golf clubhouses serving each of two good Fazio courses, and a variety of rental arrangements including The Boardwalk Inn, a small, gracious five-story inn near the ocean that has an excellent restaurant with some of the finest cuisine anywhere.

The two golf courses include the Harbor Course, a 6400 yard par 70 course that features six par three’s and a lot of water and marsh. In the frequent winds here, playing from the back is to invite disaster. Against the wind, good players have to use long irons or even woods to reach the medium length par three’s. The relocation of the clubhouse after the hurricane created a somewhat quirky course route with substantial distances between a few of the holes.

The resort’s premier course is the Links Course, a 6700 yard par 72 layout. Like the Harbor Course, it was built in the early 1980's, before Fazio evolved his trademark design features we know today. Still traces of the Fazio touches are definitely here, and holes 15- 18 along Morgan Creek and the Atlantic are a windy, scenic finish to an interesting track.

Like Kiawah and Seabrook, Wild Dunes offers the advantage of being within a half hour’s drive of historic Charleston. Here vacationers could exhaust at least several days touring preserved or restored Civil War era buildings, forts, homes with beautiful gardens, plantations and museums. Charleston is home to the internationally known Spoleto Festival U.S.A. each spring. 

For more information and reservations, call 800-845-8880.