New company will operate the golf course at Rose Hill. Here’s what we know
More than two months after Rose Hill Golf Club severed ties with its old operating company and closed to the public because of “issues” with the state, the Rose Hill community’s board of directors has hired a new company to operate the course, Rose Hill General Manager Crystal Higginbotham confirmed Monday.
Hallmark Golf Group will begin operating the golf course on Aug. 1, Higginbotham said. Called Monday, Tim Ashley, the PGA general manager for Hallmark Golf, said the course will reopen by Aug. 1.
Hallmark Golf is in charge of operating two other Bluffton courses — Crescent Pointe and Eagle’s Pointe — and The Golf Club at Hilton Head Lakes in Hardeeville, according to the company’s website. Hallmark Golf Group I LLC, located in Houston, Texas, purchased Crescent Pointe and Eagle’s Pointe in 2019, according to Beaufort County property records.
Hallmark Hilton Head Lakes LLC, also in Houston, purchased the course at Hilton Head Lakes in October 2020, according to Jasper County property records.
Ashley said Hallmark Golf will operate Rose Hill as a “semi-private” course, offering memberships and public play. The company will honor full members who paid their membership dues for this year, he said. But some of the memberships, like the 30th Year Anniversary Membership, “went away” with the previous operator and will not be honored.
Rose Hill, a gated community along U.S. 278 in greater Bluffton, severed ties with its former golf course operator, Stephens Golf Group, in late March due to “issues with the State of South Carolina,” leaving non-residents who paid to play golf at the course with no explanation and no access.
The course’s closure appeared to be tied to the owner of Stephens Golf’s August 2020 arrest for operating the course with a revoked retail license. The S.C. Department of Revenue arrested Andrew Stephens for $144,000 in unpaid sales taxes.
Stephens was released on a $10,000 personal recognizance bond the same day of his arrest and continued operating Rose Hill until this spring. In late March, a note handed to potential golfers warned that the course was closed temporarily. Under the neighborhood’s covenant, Rose Hill could not operate its own course, Higginbotham told a reporter at the time
