Harbour Town Golf Links

Harbour Town Golf Links opened in 1969 with the combined design credit of Pete Dye and Jack Nicklaus — the only American course where the two architects worked formally as collaborators. The course sits at the southern tip of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, on a piece of low-country marsh-and-forest land that Sea Pines developer Charles Fraser routed Dye and Nicklaus through. The eighteenth hole — a 472-yard par-4 along the Calibogue Sound with the iconic red-and-white lighthouse behind the green — is one of the most-photographed in American golf and the signature image of every RBC Heritage tournament telecast.

The course plays around 7,213 yards par 71 from the championship markers, with a slope in the upper 130s. Harbour Town is unusual among modern American championship courses in being short by tournament standards — the routing's defense is the small green complexes, the tight fairway corridors, and the wind off the sound. Davis Love III holds the record for RBC Heritage wins with five titles across the 1990s and 2000s. The tournament runs the week after the Masters every year, and the contrast between Augusta's wide corridors and Harbour Town's tight ones makes the week's PGA Tour transition one of the more striking on the schedule.

Harbour Town is part of Sea Pines Resort and is open to resort guests and members at premium daily-fee rates. The property is one of the most-visited daily-fee championship courses on the East Coast. Caddies are available; walking is permitted but most rounds use carts given the resort's destination-property model.

Low-country South Carolina climate keeps Harbour Town playable year-round, with the firmest conditions in October through April. Summer humidity and afternoon thunderstorms compress mid-day rounds through July and August. The Calibogue Sound wind is the constant element; the course was designed for wind, and the small green complexes punish approach shots that don't account for it.