Small, tightly bunkered greens and tree-lined fairways; iconic red-and-white candy-striped lighthouse behind the 18th green; hosted the inaugural Heritage Golf Classic (won by Arnold Palmer) in 1969 and hosts the RBC Heritage annually.
This course is in our GSPro library — pull it up in any bay and play it wall to wall.
No. 18 — The Lighthouse HoleSignature
Par 4 · 478 yds
Pete Dye and Jack Nicklaus built the fairway from fill dredged out of the harbor; the sound guards the entire left side and the red-and-white-striped Harbour Town Lighthouse sits behind the green as the target line for every approach shot on TV.
"Confirmed in GSPro; a great precision-and-accuracy course to recommend to members who don't want to just bomb driver."
The 1969 Pete Dye masterpiece (with a young Jack Nicklaus consulting) that changed American course design. On dead-flat Lowcountry ground at Sea Pines, Dye rejected the era's bulldozed mounding for low-profile golf: tiny greens, railroad-tie bulkheads over lagoons, and fairways threaded through live-oak corridors where position beats power every time. It opened the week of the first Heritage Classic — Arnold Palmer won — and the RBC Heritage has been played here every year since, the week after the Masters, under the candy-striped lighthouse on 18.
Shot-shapers and plotters — the rare famous course where a straight 220-yard hitter can beat a wild 300-yard one. Essential for Dye completists and anyone doing a Hilton Head trip.
The 18th, playing along Calibogue Sound to the lighthouse, is one of golf's great closers — a huge exhale of open marsh after 17 holes in the trees, with wind suddenly in play. Before that, the par-3 17th over water and the tiny bulkheaded greens of the back nine show Dye's genius for menace without length.
Short by tour standards but claustrophobic: overhanging oaks, minuscule greens and water tight to the putting surfaces. A beginner can play it, but bring extra balls and zero ego — this course punishes crooked far more than short.
In GSPro and a community favorite — SGT runs its RBC Heritage event on it. It translates brilliantly to the sim: tight corridors and tiny greens reward the members who plot, and it exposes anyone who just swings driver. One of the best 'famous course' picks in the Clubhouse library.
Public resort golf at Sea Pines — anyone can book, at a price: green fees around $335 in season. Stay-and-play packages soften it, and the course closes to the public around RBC Heritage week each April.
Source: — · high confidence
