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Hilton Head Golf Articles Pete Dye returns to The Sea Pines Resort
Hilton Head Golf Articles Pete Dye returns to The Sea Pines Resort | Pete Dye returns to The Sea Pines Resort |
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The Sea Pines Resort , one of South Carolina’s premier addresses and home of the famed Harbour Town Golf Links , has added another Pete Dye golf course to its stable. "" (formerly called "Sea Marsh") opens on September 17, 2007 and along with its sister layout, the Ocean Course, and nearby Harbour Town Golf Links, comprises the 54-holes of resort golf within The Sea Pines Resort. Dye ushered in a new era of golf course architecture in 1968 when he built Harbour Town Golf Links, with its signature waste bunkers, narrow approaches, small greens, dramatic angles and spectacular views. Forty years later, he comes full circle by building a new masterpiece on the site once occupied by the aging and often forgotten Sea Marsh course."Sea Pines has such a great golf image, so you've got to keep all of your golf courses up to date - that's what you've got to do to keep competitive with the world," Dye said. "Sea Pines has really been great to do this renovation. It helps the value of the homeowners and everybody else to keep the golf course up to date. You've got to stay ahead of the game." 
This is no redesign by Dye and his team. Heron Point by Pete Dye has been completely transformed. As Sea Pines director of sports and golf operations, Cary Corbitt, said: "There is no resemblance to the former course. It is a total reconstruction, no different than taking a virgin piece of land and sculpting a new golf course. The only difference is that the corridors were there already, between the footprint of the houses, but we have changed as much of that footprint as we could within the corridors." The new, multi-million dollar course is 7,000 yards from the back tees with a wonderful mixture of short and long holes. It can play considerably shorter if needed as there are six sets of tees on each hole, but length has little to do with the difficulty of Heron Point. "The general customer who is coming to resorts and playing resort golf today doesn't want to see ‘resort friendly,'" Corbitt said. "The days of ‘resort friendly' are out the window. People want a challenge. Look around the country; PGA West and The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island are both getting a huge amount of play and are a couple of the hardest golf courses in the nation. The customers want those types of challenges." They will find it at Heron Point. There are specific landing areas, plenty of mounding and movement in the fairways, and serious penalties for those who miss a fairway or a green. "Pete doesn't like it when you miss the green and a mound shoots your ball back toward the green," Corbitt said. "He believes that if you miss the green you should not be rewarded; some type of challenge should be presented." Work on Heron Point began in September 2006. Construction workers from the Jacksonville-based MacCurrach Golf Construction diligently followed Dye's instructions in order to have the course ready for play in one year, a short turnaround for such a major project. Said Corbitt: "Pete likes to scallop it out to give the impression that you have changed elevations, when actually you aren't higher or lower, you've just transformed the surface to give that perception." Dye added lagoons and changed the contours of many existing bodies of water on the course. He also designed unique aesthetic features such as board and grass walls along some of the greens that border water, along with a mixture of sand, mulch and limestone surfaces with differing types of grasses that offer a kaleidoscope of appealing color changes. "It's a great combination of holes out here," said Dye. "We didn't change the routing, but we've filled in some of the areas and made it more playable. We think a lot of the holes will have more shot-value than they did before, all the way around. There will be some talk about this golf course." Grassing began in May 2007, with the primary playing surfaces consisting of Celebration Bermuda grass along with Zoysia on some of the tees. The greens are MiniVerde: a new, sturdy hybrid that is also being used on the redesigned greens at the TPC at Sawgrass. "We are very pleased," said Corbitt. "I am sure our Sea Pines Resort membership and our resort guests will be excited when they play Heron Point by Pete Dye." For more information on Heron Point and the Sea Pines Resort on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, please visit their website at www.seapines.com
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Golf course architect completely remodels venerable Sea Pines resort’s former Sea Marsh
golf course. “Heron Point by Pete Dye” opens in September 2007, less than one mile from his
legendary Harbour Town Golf Links.
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