Originally built in 1929, the course was re-designed by Tom Fazio. It presents a real challenge to play. Here’s a link to the Club: https://www.seaisland.com/golf/seaside-course
This is from the website: Sea Island’s Seaside course is a Tom Fazio re-design of the 1929 classic by famous golf course architects Harry S. Colt and Charles Alison. Golf great Bobby Jones described it as among the best nine holes he ever played. By tying the original Seaside with the old Marshside course, Fazio, according to Davis Love III, transformed two nines from “18 holes that didn’t match into 18 matchless holes.”
Seaside is an ocean-side links course that combines its beautiful natural setting with a golf course that is both challenging and fun. The beautifully manicured fairways and greens are bordered by sweeping dunes mixed with native grasses, wildflowers, and bunkers. And the wind creates a different golf experience daily. Sea Island’s most dramatic layout, Seaside is routinely ranked among the top 100 courses in the United States. Along with the Plantation Course, it is the home of the PGA TOUR’s RSM Classic, a FedEx cup event hosted by Sea Island touring professional Davis Love III.
I played in 2016 and again in 2019. The weather was surprisingly poor for November. It was quite cold and wet. But I really enjoyed this course. It is rated at 132 and deserves to be so. It’s tough! I did shoot a 79, and missed a couple of easy-ish putts. But I was happy to post that score.
The course was being prepared for a tournament. So it was kind of fun to play to galleries, albeit with no-one in the seating areas…
This course is so much better than Plantation. Play that one as a warm up or of you just got off the plane. Leave Seaside when you are ready to enjoy the challenges of a really good course.
One non-golfing story. When we were there, a car transporter had gone on fire and the Captain ran the ship into a sand bank out of the main channel. Apparently, Brunswick is a major center for auto imports. The boat tipped over as you can see in this picture:
Car transport ship in the channel November 2019
Here’s a link to a story on the vent from the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/16/us/golden-ray-cargo-ship-georgia.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
The problem is that not only was the ship full of oil and other chemicals, but so were the 4,200 vehicles on board too, so the damage to marine life is going to be enormous. This is from the port’s website: Colonel’s Island Terminal ranks not only among the nation’s largest auto facilities, but it’s also one of the country’s most environmentally conscious. As a dedicated RoRo facility, the terminal is the second busiest port in the U.S. for total RoRo cargo and second busiest for RoRo imports. Owned and operated by the Georgia Ports Authority, the facility has three berths and three on-terminal auto processors.
I played again in September 2021, a few weeks before the RSM tournament. The golf course is really terrific, with sweeping dog legs and lots of strategically placed bunkers. The greens are not easy: I hit an embarrassing 41 putts in a round of 78 - go figure. My accuracy off the tee was ok, but my GIR was off the charts good. Not sure why. But what killed me were several 3 putts; could not get the pace nor the breaks right at all. Charitably, one of the caddie suggested it was due to over-seeding ahead of the tournament.
