Atlantic Dunes by Davis Love III

Atlantic Dunes by Davis Love III is the thoroughly reimagined version of Sea Pines Resort's original 1962 George Cobb layout, rebuilt to restore a pronounced coastal character with coquina shell accents, seaside grasses, and corridors framed by native pines and live oaks. The course stretches over 7,000 yards and plays to a par of 72 across six sets of tees.

The Ocean Course at Sea Pines Resort was the first 18-hole layout to open on Hilton Head Island, designed by George W. Cobb and completed in 1962 shortly after developer Charles Fraser began transforming the island from a timber property into a planned resort community. Fraser's vision for Sea Pines as a model of thoughtful coastal development required a golf course as a central amenity, and Cobb's work — which wove through the maritime terrain between Sea Pines Plantation and the Atlantic Ocean — established the foundational golf experience that would attract hundreds of thousands of players over the following six decades. The Ocean Course was the island's introduction to golf, and the identity it established for Hilton Head as a golf destination traces directly to those first rounds played on Cobb's layout. The course underwent its first significant renovation in 1995 under architect Mark McCumber, who refreshed the strategic elements and updated the conditioning infrastructure while preserving Cobb's essential routing.

That work extended the course's viability into the late 1990s and early 2000s, but by the middle of the following decade Sea Pines Resort had begun to envision something more ambitious — a complete reimagining of the layout that would lean fully into the coastal identity that had always been the property's greatest natural asset. In October 2015, Davis Love III and his brother Mark Love, working with lead architect Scot Sherman of Love Golf Design, began construction on a comprehensive rebuild of the Cobb original. The project demolished and replaced every element of the course, restoring natural coastal dunes, establishing sand hills framing the fairways, and installing thousands of indigenous plantings that amplified the course's seaside character. The redesigned course eliminated the intrusive water hazards that had dominated the previous layout and replaced them with the naturalistic sand features and coastal grasses that define a genuine links-style experience. The team created 81 bunkers throughout the routing, and the fairway corridors were reshaped to provide dramatic risk-reward decisions from the tees while respecting the natural movement of the coastal terrain.

Hurricane Matthew struck the Hilton Head coast in October 2016, delaying the scheduled opening by approximately one month. The course reopened in November 2016 as Atlantic Dunes by Davis Love III, named to honor both the coastal landscape and the architect whose redesign had unlocked it. The layout stretches from 3,924 yards to 7,010 yards across six tee options, ensuring that players of every skill level can find an appropriate challenge within the same spectacular setting. Atlantic Dunes by Davis Love III was named South Carolina Golf Course of the Year following its opening, an honor that validated the resort's decision to pursue a full rebuild rather than another incremental renovation. The award reflected not just the quality of the course design but the transformation of a course that had served Sea Pines for 54 years as its most accessible golf offering into something that could be spoken of in the same conversation as Harbour Town Golf Links — the Pete Dye design on the other side of Sea Pines that had been the resort's signature layout since 1969.

The course represents a genuine transformation — not just of the playing surfaces but of the fundamental identity of a venue that now delivers on the coastal promise its site had always offered but never fully expressed. Love's design celebrates the barrier island environment with a clarity and commitment that Cobb's original, which was shaped by the design conventions of the early 1960s, never quite achieved, and the resulting course is an engaging public-access round on Hilton Head Island.