From Ryder Cup formats to weekend warriors, fall in Hilton Head is golf heaven
As the weather cools down and young students go back to school, Hilton Head Island and the surrounding areas start to see an influx of golfers on group trips.
Group travel is a major part of the fall golf season at the Sea Pines Resort. Sea Pines has three courses, including Atlantic Dunes, a reconstruction of the Ocean Course, the first golf course on the island. It’s also home to Harbour Town Golf Links, the site of the only PGA Tour event in South Carolina until last year. Harbour Town is currently closed for restoration and set to reopen in November.
Mark Goodwin, Sea Pines’ director of sales and marketing, said corporate travel tends to pick up in the fall. Corporate groups typically stay three to four nights and come from across the U.S. and the world, he said. Sea Pines is also set to host about 30 weddings this fall.
“We host a lot of offsite meetings annually, and we tend to see a demographic change – a lot of weekend getaways, shorter length stays of three-to-four nights,” Goodwin said. “We’re promoting to guests regionally, in North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida. We get the population from the northeast over Labor Day.”
Golf tourism impact
Golf is a significant driver of the South Carolina tourism economy. It’s especially important on Hilton Head, where Sea Pines developer Charles Fraser commissioned Pete Dye to build Harbour Town in the late 1960s. The course put Hilton Head on the map when it hosted RBG Heritage – then known as the Heritage Classic – in 1969 for the first time.
Hilton Head was the state’s third most popular golf destination in 2024, behind Myrtle Beach and Charleston, according to a study on the economic impact of golf from the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism released in April.
Spring and summer are the most popular times for a golf trip to South Carolina, the study found, but autumn falls closely behind.
“The historical aspect of it is really cool, because the DNA of the destination is as a golf destination,” said Charlie Clark, vice president of communications for the Hilton Head Island and Bluffton Chamber of Commerce.
RBC Heritage was initially played in late November in 1969, moving to September in 1973 for a year, then March and since 1983 has been a fixture in April. This year, 120,000 people attended the tournament; 70% of the four day event’s spectators earn more than $100,000 per year, according to the RBC Heritage's website.
As for the history of the tournament and its local significance, “It put Hilton Head Island on the map as a golf destination, and it’s part of the DNA of who we are,” Clark said.
Traveling recreational golfers and residents played an average of 33,777 rounds per 18-hole course in South Carolina last year, the state report said. Rounds were down by .3% compared to 2023, the report said, and admissions tax revenue from golf fell by 12%. This can be explained, in part, by a new state law eliminating the 2% admissions tax on most golf club membership dues last year, the report said.
COVID created increased interest in golf, course operators said. Golf rounds increased by 15% between 2000 and 2024, and golf admissions tax revenue from that same period is up 72%. The most growth happened between 2020 and 2021, and that demand has sustained with “uneven growth” since then, according to the study.
“It was obviously a sport where people could have outdoor events and socially distance. The National Golf Foundation has been reporting since COVID that the growth of golf has been exceptional. It’s been worldwide based as well,” Goodwin said. “Obviously, being able to offer such amazing golf courses, we were fortunate to be part of that growth.”
International groups come from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Scotland, France and Germany, Goodwin said. These groups tend to be larger, bringing about 24 people, whereas groups from across the U.S. can be between eight to 16 people. International groups also tend to stay longer, since they travel from further away, Goodwin said.
“Obviously, the volume of domestic is much higher than international,” he said.
Fall at Palmetto Dunes
Group, or “buddy” trips, are also a hallmark of fall at Palmetto Dunes Oceanfront Resort’s three courses, director of golf Clark Sinclair said. The weather is better, conditions improve and greens speed up.
Overseeding, the practice of planting cool-weather grass seeds over the warm-weather ones, tends to happen in November, but Palmetto Dunes will sometimes delay it a few weeks if there’s a big group in early November, Sinclair said. The resort saw 8,500 rounds of golf in September and expects to see 13,000 in October and 7,500 in November.
People come from “pretty much all over the planet” in the fall, according to the resort. Tourists mostly live within driving distance, Sinclair said, in the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, but this is also the time of year when Canadian snowbirds are making their way down the east coast for a Florida winter.
Golf resorts across the island reap the benefits of an amateur golf tour group that comes in the fall. The group brings about 800 golfers to Hilton Head every year, and they play at several different courses, Sinclair said.
There’s one group that’s been coming to Palmetto Dunes for 50 years from all over South Carolina. It’s typically a group of 20, but this year they brought 12 golfers, according to the resort. There’s another group that’s half European and half American, and they do a Ryder Cup format much like the one being played by the best players in the world this weekend at Bethpage’s famed Black Course in New York.
“It’s like 50 people or more – it’s big,” Sinclair said. “It changed a little after COVID but we’ve been taking pictures of these guys for years. It’s just fun to go see them – you see a lot of the same people.”
Summer tends to be a family vacation season, when people bring their kids to the island before they have to return to school, Sinclair said. But then people come back in the fall for a long weekend with friends.
“They love the island. They might come with family in the summer and come back with the guys in the fall,” he said. “It’s cool to hear. We talk to customers all the time, and it helps us to know they’re not just numbers we’re putting down on a piece of paper.”