Sea Pines Resort - Harbour Town Golf Links Course Review: The Front-9 (RBC Heritage)

Harbour Town Golf Links is one of the ultimate bucket list courses you can play in golf.  This Hilton Head track hosts the RBC Heritage every year on the PGA Tour, and is a pure golf experience that lets you walk in the footsteps of the game's greatest players. 

 

To play well here you have to think your way around this Pete Dye and Jack Nicklaus design and find the correct sides of fairways for optimal angles into the greens.  Harbour Town is not a long golf course (with five sets of tees ranging from 5,084 yards to 7,099 yards), but that's part of its soul and charm for amateurs and professionals alike. 

Harbour Town's narrow corridors and small greens are its main defense, with waste areas, pot bunkers, and water hazards designed to intimidate and reward.  You can’t overpower Harbour Town, but you can tame it if you're precise. 

 

It's the wrath of Mother Nature however, that's perhaps the grandest hazard of all.  After navigating through most of the course trying to avoid the clutches of oak trees, Harbour Town's final holes unleash the howling winds from Calibogue Sound, and correct targets become even smaller when the course opens up to water. 

The Harbour Town staff is highly regarded in its own right, and few resorts can match the world-class caliber of attention you'll receive.  It all starts at the top with Director of Golf John Farrell,  who's extraordinarily down to earth, but also obviously very hands on. 

 

Meeting John for the first time felt like reconnecting with an old friend, and every staff member I spoke with treated me like the most important person on the grounds.  And best of all, it was completely genuine.  Harbour Town isn't just one of the best courses in golf.  The complete experience also makes it of the best things in golf.  They even let me bring my 16-month pup Sammy on the course with me.

With a great collection of long and short holes that keep you on your toes, Harbour Town also encourages you to contemplate strategy and exercise imagination.  Challenging holes and heroic shots await at almost every turn, and players of all skill levels will find stimulation on this revered par-71 track.

Harbour Town is a fun course to play because its traditional design allows any golfer to play well, but still forces you to look back and reflect on how you could have played better when your round is over.  And with that said, let's get right into my detailed Harbour Town Course Review: The Front-9. 

HOLE NO. 1 
Par-4, 410 yards (Heritage tees) 
The opening tee shot might look easy on TV during RBC Heritage coverage, but it's anything but in real life.  And right away you get a taste of what to expect at Harbour Town: narrow fairways and small greens that reward shotmaking precision and positioning over brute force.

 

 

 

A cluster of trees and branches on the right side of the fairway (about 150 to 200 yards out) are magnets for the inaccurate off the tee.  You'll need to hit your drive about 250 yards from the back Heritage tees (or 232 from the Blue tees) and pretty straight to avoid these trees.  If you can, the landing zone becomes twice as wide as anything shorter. 

 

 

Even if you find the fairway however, too far right and you might not have a clean look into the green.  While misses left will almost certainly be blocked by trees and force you to punch out. 

 

You'll have to thread the needle between a 20-yard shoot on approach with trees left and right.  Hit it too close on the right side and branches will swat your ball down into the mulch.  Too far left and a similar fate awaits, with shots knocked down into a grass and sand bunker that extends about 40 yards and along the left side of the green. 

 

 

 

The green is small and mildly undulating, and slopes back towards the tee.

 

 

 

 

HOLE NO. 2 

Par-5, 502 yards (495 yards Blue tees)
This shortest par-5 on the course is a definite birdie opportunity if you play it the way Dye and Nicklaus intended.  Stay in the left fairway off the tee, otherwise you won't have a shot into the green.  Trees extend off the right side from about 150 yards out, and then again closer to the green. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Playing from the left side gives you a better angle and clear look into the diagonal green.  But hit it too far left and you'll find yourself in a bunker that's about 35 yards long with overhanging tree branches that will affect your next shot.  To clear this hazard you'll need to hit at least a 265 yard drive.  But be warned, the landing zone gets much narrower.

 

 

Second shot lay-ups will need to avoid a huge limestone and mulch waste area off the right fairway, which also brings another cluster of trees into play if you're too far right.  And you guessed it, these menacing oaks will block most shots into the green. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The small, kidney-shaped green is protected by a bunker in the right-front (which is a tough escape because you're working with such little green side to side), and a smaller pot bunker in the back which sits in a devilishly mounded chipping area. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HOLE NO. 3 

Par-4, 469 yards (411 yards Blue tees)
I hit my best drive on No. 3 and felt like I was about to get in a groove.  As straight as I can possibly hit driver, which is what you need to do here, and pretty far too.  The fairway gets narrow 225 to 285 yards off the tee with sand waste areas on the right and trees on the left.  And I almost took my drive past that to a landing area where the fairway gets about 25 yards wider, but with more rough.  I smoked it.

 

 

 

Unfortunately I also smoked my approach shot.  Getting ready to hit my second into the green, the young sapling on the right side seemed to bother me for some reason.  And I knew the small green would be difficult to hold.  So I decided to take less club and hit harder, thinking I could throw it up higher in the air and put some of that Tour stick it spin on my ball. 

 

 

 

 

Instead, of course, I hit it thin.  And learned that missing long over this green is absolute death.  There's one large bunker on the left side, and three more stationed on the right and back side with gentle mounding.  But over that third bunker in the back is a nice, small little slope that pretty much just carried my ball right into the creek.  Morale of the story here?  When No, 3 at Harbour Town gives you an easy short-to-medium iron from the middle of the fairway into the green, don't get fancy.  Just take it.  I will next time. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HOLE NO. 4 

Par-3, 200 yards (187 yards Blue tees)
As strong a risk-reward one shotter as you'll ever play.  With water front, left, and back, it's a difficult long-iron placement shot over water no matter where the pin is tucked. 

 

 

 

 

The challenge gets hacked up when the pin's on the left side however, and can be a humbling, knee-knocking experience.  The "Please do not feed or disturb the alligators" sign doesn't make things any easier.  The pin was left on the day I played, and I hit a little baby fade into the green, took my two-putt, and got out of there.

 

Trademark Dye railroad ties surround the green making making it as stunning as it is perilous.  There's plenty of room on the right side, and a very generous bailout area if you want to play it safe.  But you still need to be careful with distance control.  Two bunkers behind the green are the only thing separating you from the lagoon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

HOLE NO. 5 

Par-5, 549 yards (511 yards Blue tees) 
Aiming to the left off the tee can shave yards off this dogleg hole and give you at least a shot of reaching the green in two.  However, there are two strategically placed bunkers on that side (one is about 30 yards long) that pretty much force a lay-up if you find them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whether you're going for the green in two or laying up with your second shot, there are more than 10 bunkers strategically zigzagging from left rough to right rough all the way to the green.  And they guard positions, landing areas, and the green in a manner that makes them both physical and psychological dangers. 

 

 

 

 

You also have water running along the entire left side (starting at the dogleg's corner) and a king-sized greenside bunker on the left to deal with on approach.  The putting surface is twice as deep as it is narrow, and slopes left to right with a back fall off.  But this hole is really all about the bunkers, and your choice in whether to challenge them with risky shots or play it safe. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HOLE NO. 6 

Par-4, 419 yards (404 yards Blue tees) 
The ideal drive will carry the bunker on the corner of this dogleg right hole as it gives you the shortest approach in.  However, anything short of that bunker (or even in it) and you'll be blocked by trees.  Miss too far right and you'll be in a waste area that runs along the entire side of the fairway.  The safer drive is left, again a risk-reward decision. 

 

 

 

 

 

On approach you're hitting into the largest green of the day so far.  You might have to contend with a short tree on the left if you're approaching too far from the left.  And the tall tree on the right has a few branches that almost reach the front of the green.  But your second shot is pretty much wide open.

 

So you might be thinking this is an easy green in regulation.  But not so fast.  The putting surface is heavily contoured from the back to front, and it also has the most tilt of any green you'll see to this point.  Hitting the green isn't a guaranty you stay on the green.  Two bunkers protect the left front, while one larger bunker flanks the right side. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HOLE NO. 7 

Par-3, 195 yards (172 yards Blue tees) 
Next to the signature finishing hole, No. 7 is the most recognizable and sometimes most confounding hole on the course. 

 

 

The small green is surrounded by sand front, left, and back, with a forced carry of about 140 yards over water.  But it's the trees that also surround the green that are most pestering, and will swat errant shots just about anywhere.

 

 

 

 

Shots can ricochet onto the green, into the lagoon, or even fall straight down behind a tree. 

 

 

It's pretty much all or nothing here.  A good shot will give you a great look at birdie.  A bad shot will remind you that golf can be very cruel. 

 

HOLE NO. 8 

Par-4, 473 yards (435 yards Blue tees) 
Not only the toughest hole on the course, but probably also the most intimidating.  Keep your drive right off the tee, otherwise a cluster of trees, bunkers, and lagoon are all in play on approach.  You're actually better off in the right rough than the left fairway (where you'd probably be forced to lay-up to get back into position).

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's about 300 yards (260 from the Blue tees) to the end of the split fairway, that also marks the corner of the dogleg left.  But even from this spot your second shot will need to be well placed and precise through a window of trees. 

 

 

The lagoon and bunker on the left run into the green from about 100 yards out and are dangerously close to a deep but skinny green.  There's no room for error anywhere on this hole, and if you escape with a par consider that a triumph.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HOLE NO. 9 

Par-4, 332 yards (322 yards Blue tees) 
If the wind's at your back and you're a big hitter, driving the green is a definite possibility.  If you're a mere mortal like myself, you pretty much want to stay center fairway, or maybe put your tee shot slightly opposite of where the pin is cut.

 

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Trees are even more adversarial on approach as you have the thread your second shot through trees that bear a resemblance to goal posts.  Best to just aim for the clubhouse clock and make sure you have the right club. 

 

 

The green is heart-shaped and sloped both left and right from the middle ridge.  One large bunker in the front and three pot bunkers in the back provide protection.  It's a stunning finish to the front-9 with Harbour Town's exquisite clubhouse just steps away from the green.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

READ MORE: Sea Pines Resort - Harbour Town Golf Links Course Review: The Back-9 (RBC Heritage)