Off the Beaten Cart Path: Hidden Golf Gems

Old South Golf Links - Hilton Head Favorite

Old South Golf Links in Bluffton, SC is effectively in Hilton Head, as it is only separated from the Island by the marshy waters of the May River and IntraCoastal Waterway.  Built in 1992 using a desing by Clyde Johnston, Old South is a wonderful expression of Johnston's clear vision of what Lowcountry golf is all about.  Only a handful of holes have housing anywhere near it, meaning the course affords wonder encounters with a wide variety of wildlife and vistas through canyons of giant Live Oaks draped in customary Spanish moss. It doesn't get much better than this in the Lowcountry. In fact, Old South was voted Favorite Public Course by readers of Hilton Head Monthly Magazine in 2007, 2008 and 2010. (I don't know which course stacked he ballot box in 2009!)

Just over the bridge from Hilton Head Island, vacationers regularly make the short trip to Bluffton to play golf at Old South Golf Links amid towering oaks and rolling terrain while soaking in magnificent views from the island greens abutting the intracoastal marshes of McKay’s Creek. The six holes that front the waterway include two island greens where the degree of difficulty to get on in regulation are magnified when the wind stands up on its hind legs.

Old South also has an excellent practice facility that hosts the Old South Golf School and a collegiate golf management program in addition to providing the vacationing golfer with an opportunity to sharpen their weapons for tackling the track.

The Grill at Old South also serves the best breakfast AND burgers in the area - but the menu has many other items that you would normally find in a good restaurant. When you go, plan to eat there - you won't be sorry.

Green fees are very reasonable for the Hilton Head area, ranging from $65 to $95 depending on the season. Of course, email and Golf Rewards members get the best rates.

I love Old South, and I've played all the courses in Hilton Head. There is an ambience among the staff and the course never lays down. Whenever I'm in Hilton Head, I never pass up a chance to play it.

Manikiki Golf Course, Cleveland OH

It is not intentional but a part of my nature. I love classic golf courses.

In considering what course to review next (among the more than 300 courses I have played in the last 4 years), Manikiki came to mind.  My friends know I am partial to Donald Ross, just as I am partial to Ellis Maples, Perry Maxwell, and Stanly Thompson as golf architects.  But selecting Manikiki for OTBCP was not because of its classic nature or its Donald Ross pedigree. Located in Cleveland, Ohio, Manikiki is clearly it is off the beaten cart path.

REVIEW Vista Links (VA)

by TIM GAVRICH, OTBCP Guest Blogger

The Vista Links, a daily fee course located about six miles from Lexington, VA, and Interstate 81 in western Virginia, opened in August of 2004.  Designed by Rick Jacobson -- a former member of the Nicklaus Design team - the course provides an engaging trip through the Blue Ridge Mountain foothills,

Sapelo Hammock (GA)

by LARRY GAVRICH, OTBCP Guest Blogger

When a course layout engenders praise and complaint in about equal measure, count on it to provide an interesting four hours. During our round at Sapelo Hammock, in the central coastal region of Georgia, one of our playing partners labeled one par 3 as “the worst designed in America,” a few holes before claiming another hole as “The worst designed par 5 in America.”  Yet Golfweek magazine has called the course’s par 3s and par 5s “spectacular.” Offered another of our playing partners: “[It is] a great course to walk, and fun to play every day.”

The Montrose Golf Links of Scotland

by HENRY LISTER, OTBCP Host

To talk of golf in Scotland evokes thoughts of wild terrain, seaside fairways with high wind and rain.  The first names that come to the minds of Americans are St. Andrews, Carnoustie, Muirfield, Turnberry, and others that constitute the British Open rotation of courses.  Golfers who have been to the homeland of golf

Maggie Valley, NC - Great Mountain Golf

by HENRY LISTER, OTBCP Host

Mention the phrase "mountain golf" and you will receive a variety of reactions. Such reactions typically are based on the golfer's last experience with the highs and lows of playing on less than flat land.  But everyone agrees that there is nothing like mountain golf. There are the views, of course,

Hyde Park GC, JAX (FL)

by HENRY LISTER, OTBCP Host

Hyde Park Golf Course is a link to America's golfing past that needs to be preserved. This is an older course, built just after World War I by Donald Ross, that was just outside of the city proper at the time. Over time,

Why I host this site

by HENRY A. LISTER
OTBCP Host

Many of my friends have been notified of my assuming the hosting of this site. They are intrigued, mostly, and amused of my further involvement in some golf-related venture. But one friend explored more deeply my motives by asking, "Who would care to read about obscure, out-of-the-way courses? Wouldn't it be better to visit, play and write about the more popular courses?"

The question revealed more about my friend than it did about my motives. Surely, I am not a

Graysburg Hills (TN)

by HENRY A. LISTER
OTBCP Host

In the foothills of the Tennessee Appalachians, a place I consider to be the Garden of Eden, has some of the most picturesque dairy farms in the world. Lush fields of alfalfa and corn stretch for miles, punctuated by silos, barns, and cows – lots of cows. Driving between two of the state’s oldest towns of Jonesborough and Greeneville, you can become slightly disoriented as you drive through, around, or past one dairy farm after another. The tranquility of the setting is only slightly disturbed when you wind through a cut in a hillside along a small stream and find before you a manicured area that is immediately recognized as a golf course. It is then that you have arrived at Graysburg Hills GC.

Graysburg Hills (graysburghillsgolf.com) is dear to me. Having lived nearby and played the

Furnace Creek (CA)

By ED STONE
OTBCP Guest Blogger

In 1927, a date-palm caretaker laid out three holes of golf at what is now the Furnace Creek Inn & Ranch Resort in Death Valley, California. Little did he know he was building the world's lowest golf course at 214 feet below sea level. The course was expanded to nine holes by 1931 and eventually
evolved into a full 18-hole layout.

Big changes came in 1997 when Perry Dye, oldest son of noted architect Pete Dye, was hired to