Berkeley Hall Golf Club: South Course

Berkeley Hall Golf Club features two Tom Fazio-designed courses, North and South, laid out in a core-golf format with no interior homes or roads disrupting the playing corridors. Inspired by classic 1920s designs such as Riviera, Winged Foot, and Seminole, both par-72 courses weave through towering pines, live oaks, and natural Lowcountry landscapes in Bluffton.

Berkeley Hall Club in Bluffton, South Carolina, represents among the architecturally ambitious private club developments in the Lowcountry's modern golf history. The community's 36-hole golf complex — two distinct championship courses designed by Tom Fazio with Beau Welling — was developed on land along the banks of the pristine Okatie River, transforming what had been an old pine grove into a layout of considerable visual and strategic distinction. The North Course opened in 2001 as the first of the two Berkeley Hall layouts to greet members. Fazio and Welling shaped the North's design with an explicit philosophical reference point: the classic American parkland designs of the 1920s. Riviera Country Club, Winged Foot Golf Club, and Seminole Golf Club — three of the twentieth century's most celebrated private courses — provided the tonal and strategic vocabulary that Fazio translated into the Berkeley Hall environment.

The result is a course that carries a sense of architectural heritage within a contemporary private club setting: natural-looking bunkering, contoured greens that reward careful approach management, elevation changes that add visual drama to otherwise flat Lowcountry terrain, and open vistas that reveal the Okatie River corridor. The North Course is characterized by tranquil lakes, rolling fairways, and bunkers that strategically frame heavily contoured greens. Elevation changes — unusual in a region where most courses are topographically constrained by the flat coastal plain — add strategic interest and visual variety that distinguish Berkeley Hall's North Course from many of its Lowcountry contemporaries. Native grasses appear in rough areas and naturalized zones, adding ecological authenticity and visual texture beyond what manicured Bermuda turf provides. The South Course followed a year later in 2002, offering a classic parkland experience alongside the more varied North.

The South features majestic live oaks, loblolly pines, azaleas, and crepe myrtles that accentuate hole routings against the backdrop of golden marshes along the Okatie River. The visual richness of the South's botanical environment — drawing on the mature native planting that a Lowcountry property of Berkeley Hall's acreage accumulates — creates a round of memorable aesthetic character as well as strategic quality. Berkeley Hall Club transitioned to member ownership in January 2005, approximately four years after the North Course opened and three years after the South Course welcomed its first members. The member-ownership structure aligns the club's governance directly with those who use it most, creating the kind of accountability for quality and investment that external management arrangements sometimes dilute. Both courses have received recognition among the Top 150 Private Residential courses in the United States, a standing that reflects sustained quality in both the Fazio and Welling design execution and the membership's ongoing investment in conditioning and infrastructure.

The club operates a full amenity program including tennis, fitness facilities, and dining that serves the residential community Berkeley Hall has built around its two championship courses. The community's setting on the Okatie River corridor places it within the broader Bluffton peninsula private club landscape that includes Belfair, Colleton River Club, and Berkeley Hall itself — a concentration of championship-quality private golf within a relatively compact geographic area that has made Bluffton among the golf-rich private club destinations in the South. For members and guests who engage with Berkeley Hall's two courses, the Fazio and Welling design philosophy — rooted in the classics of 1920s American design while responsive to the specific qualities of the Lowcountry landscape — delivers a golf experience of genuine depth and lasting interest.