Scot Sherman, ASGCA, will serve as lead design associate on the Ocean Course at Sea Pines Resort, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Love Golf Design will completely redesign the course, beginning later in 2015.
Sherman has already begun permitting and design work on the project.
“Sea Pines has set the standard for resorts and golf over many years,” Sherman said. “Their recent resort-wide improvements demonstrate the owner’s wish to reach a new standard, and our team is committed to delivering a great result for them.”
The historic Ocean Course was originally designed by George Cobb in 1962 and was the first course built on Hilton Head Island. Love Golf Design will totally re-design the layout. “Our goal is to build a golf course that players will fall in love with and want to play over and over again,” Sherman said. “To accomplish this, we will re-think and re-build everything – even some slight re-routing of the existing layout. We’ll build features and create a strategy that will lead players around the golf course and help them have fun.”
The Ocean Course project is part of overall improvements to all three golf courses on the property, including recently completed enhancements by ASGCA Past President Pete Dye to his Heron Point design, which reopened for play in Septmeber. Dye’s team softened the green surrounds and contours, enlarged several greens, and added ornamental landscape beds throughout the layout. The putting surfaces were re-grassed with TifEagle Bermuda grass.
Additionally, following the 2015 RBC Heritage in May, Harbour Town Golf Links will close for the summer as its fairways will be changed to cutting-edge Celebration Bermuda grass. Harbour Town’s greens will also be re-grassed with TifEagle Bermuda, the same grass on the putting surfaces since 2001, and the irrigation system will be replaced.
The team members who will also work on the Ocean Course re-design include Cary Corbitt, Sea Pines vice president of sports and recreation; MacCurrach Golf Construction; Tony Altum Irrigation Design; Thomas & Hutton Engineering; and Jim Cregan, golf course superintendent.
“We are thrilled and honored to work with Sea Pines on this project – the experience of their team is second to none,” says Sherman. “Davis, Mark and I have career-long connections with the Resort, and working there feels like coming home again.”