A week after reopening, replacement trees are going up at Harbour Town

What Hurricane Matthew ripped out, Harbour Town is hastening to put back in.

A small fraction of it, anyway.

Though it would be near impossible to replace all the trees downed on the home of the RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing, crews already are on site this week to plant more than a dozen large oaks and palms in key areas of the course, which reopened for play just last week.

The oak trees are all at least 55 feet tall, with trunks some 18 inches in diameter. Sabal palms are in the 30-foot range. One magnolia tree will be put back at Harbour Town’s third hole. And next month, seven tall pines arrive.

“Replacement trees of significance,” said Cary Corbitt, vice president of sports and operations at Sea Pines Resort.

Though it represents maybe a little more than 5 percent of the 400 or so Harbour Town trees knocked down by Hurricane Matthew, those spots were deemed critical either to maintain shot strategy or to fill in areas where too much tree canopy had been lost.

“We really only tried to identify the critical trees,” Corbitt said.

Even so, Harbour Town’s par-4 10th hole will receive 11 of the replacement trees — four oaks, four palms and eventually three pines. The par-5 second hole is set for a pine tree and five palms.

“As far as the in-play areas, they were the hardest hit,” Corbitt said. “We also lost a lot of trees on (No.) 3, but they were in the wooded areas.”

The third, ninth, 11th and 16th holes also are targeted for planting, each with multiple trees. Atlantic Dunes, the newest Sea Pines layout that was open just three days before hurricane evacuation began, also was deemed to need one oak.

Huntsman Tree Supplier, based in Lake City, Fla., is providing the replacements. Corbitt said the company has worked with several other prominent clubs to replace large trees felled either by storm or disease.

Gary Mullane, a Hilton Head Island tree consultant who serves as Sea Pines’ arborist, headed the search to find an able supplier.

“They were readily available,” Corbitt said. “They certainly had the inventory.”

Though Corbitt declined to give a price tag on the two dozen trees, an online check shows trees even 20 feet tall can run upward of $3,000 apiece to transplant.

“This whole effort is hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Corbitt acknowledged.

But ostensibly worth it, as officials strive to maintain the tight test that Harbour Town has provided some of the PGA Tour’s best for nearly a half-century.

The par-4 ninth, for instance, challenges any approach shot from the left as trees pinch in. In certain spots, tee shots into the trees may have recovery options that weren’t there before.

“I think you’d be hard-pressed to say the golf course lost a lot of strategy,” Corbitt said, “but those of us who knew where the trees were and how they played might see it a little. The significance of the golf course is still intact.”

Bland Cooper, the tour agronomist assigned to oversee the RBC Heritage setup, was at Sea Pines to check on the course within days of Matthew moving out.

“They’ve been supportive of everything we were doing,” Corbitt said. “Our relationship with the tour is as strong as ever. From a tour aspect, there have been no concerns.”

This story was originally published November 15, 2016 at 6:31 PM with the headline "A week after reopening, replacement trees are going up at Harbour Town."