South Carolina’s Palmetto Dunes Hilton Head

By Steve Turcotte, Inside Golf Editor

There are a myriad of places to enjoy a golf vacation. Everyone has their type of bucket list adventure, but here’s another to add to the list: Palmetto Dunes Oceanfront Resort on Hilton Head Island in the Lowcountry of South Carolina.

Hilton Head has always been in the golf spotlight as the PGA Tour makes it way there every year for an annual event at Harbour Town, you know the course, the one with the lighthouse tower in the background of the 18th hole.

But there is much more on Hilton Head. This is an island that is 12 miles long and five miles wide and offers some of the best golf the state of South Carolina has to offer.

Start with the Palmetto Dunes Oceanfront Resort. This is a place with three courses designed by some of the heavyweights in golf architecture like Robert Trent Jones Sr. , George Fazio, and Arthur Hills. These courses are just part of a 2,000-acre resort that has a little of something for everyone. Championship golf? Check. Miles of bicycling trails? Check. Tennis and pickleball courts? Check and check. Other activities like boating, fishing, hiking and cruises? Check and check some more.

The resort is what brings the families to Palmetto Dunes and the golf is what keeps the golfers there. The Jones Course plays right along the Atlantic Ocean and from the elevated 10th tee box you can see the ocean before you take your swing. The Hills Course has been named among the top 30 courses in South Carolina while the Fazio Course is a par-70 and is ranked among the list of the top 100 courses in America you can play.

You could spend days playing golf at Palmetto Dunes. But what also gets your attention when you are playing the Jones Course is the driving range. This not your father’s driving range. This is a range complete with Toptracer technology at every stall, telling you how good or how bad you are hitting it. In my case, I did not want to look at the computer monitor for fear of seeing how bad I was hitting it.

Off the course, Palmetto Dunes sits in the middle of Hilton Head Island with three miles of the Atlantic Ocean bordering the resort. There are plenty of places to stay and a variety of restaurants from which to choose.

Bucket list place? For sure.