Travel File: Georgia coast

Golf Digest, March, 2001 by Mike Stachura

The Golden Isles of Georgia are just far enough off the Interstate to make you think you're in another place. But it's not another place, it's another time.

There is a long-held impression that this spot is a quaint anachronism. If you have never been to the Golden Isles (the southeast Georgia barrier islands St. Simons Island, Little St. Simons Island, Sea Island and Jekyll Island near Brunswick), what you are likely to imagine is a place of Southern charm that hasn't changed since the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts made Jekyll Island their private retreat in the late 1880s. Even if you concede that the region has advanced beyond the turn of the century, you are quite sure it has not left the 1950s (seersucker, madras and white bucks, ex-Homecoming queens at every table and 6-year-olds with manners).

True, the Golden Isles are a dated destination, but for all the right reasons. The pace is slow. The manners are legitimate. And the area itself still has the feel that it could be 1880 or 1955. The tidal marshes and sea views are still the inspiration for poetry, whether you're on a cruise off the coast of Jekyll Island or practicing at the idyllic Sea Island Golf Learning Center.

And if you absolutely have to have your Big Mac or your PowerBook or your StairMaster, you can still find that here. But why would you want it? Instead of getting supersized, get downsized at The Fourth of May Cafe on St. Simons (at least eight kinds of vegetables on the menu). Instead of logging on, check in at The Cloister and read a Reynolds Price or Walker Percy novel on the resort's five miles of private beach. And instead of sweating, play golf. Because not only do they do just about everything right here, they do golf even better. The golf is the best the modern world can offer without forgetting the way things used to be.

St. Simons Island
Sea Island Golf Club.
.... Plantation Cse.,
$145-$175.
.... Seaside Cse.,
$185-$215 (800-732-4752).

Maybe there is a place in the universe that has a better 36-hole layout. Until the mother ship returns, however, I'll choose Sea Island and go have myself a sweet tea in the clubhouse. The golf club, reserved for members and guests of The Cloister hotel, used to be home to four distinct nines. But the foursome is now a bigger, bolder twosome. Rees Jones made the new Plantation 18 look prettier (you can see the Atlantic Ocean from seven holes), yet play tougher (the new 18th hole is a heroic par 5). Meanwhile, Tom Fazio worked some sleight of hand on the original Seaside layout: He found a way to keep it as it was and make it better. First, he took the old, average Marshside Nine and turned it into high-caliber low-country links golf. Then he restored the Seaside Nine to its 1920s sand-dunes roots, while beefing up the challenge to keep pace with 21st-century technology (the 13th hole plays the same but looks more natural than before with its dunesland trim). Seaside and Plantation are two grand old courses that look new. Or are they two new courses that look old? You decide.

.... The Hampton Club, $68 (912-634-0255). Hidden on the northern end of the island, the course has the feel of an island within an island. How much of a getaway is this? Aaron Burr rested at this site, then Hampton Plantation, after his 1-up victory over Alexander Hamilton in 1804. The course provides the right mix of relaxation and challenge. A shortish but adventurous Joe Lee design, Hampton is memorable for a stretch of four holes on the back that weave through vast marshland. The 12th is just a little flick to an island green, and the 14th is a tempting par 5 whose fairway was rerouted to preserve the nettlesome magnolia tree guarding the green. When you're done, wander over to the ruins of Fort Frederica, built in 1736 by British General James Oglethorpe to prevent the Spanish from taking over Georgia in the 1740s.

...11/42 St. Simons Island Club, $125-$185 (912-638-5118).

A third option for guests of The Cloister, this Joe Lee design, with water and sand as plentiful as they are at the hotel's private beach, is being reworked by Davis Love III. It will go by the old name of the Retreat Course and should reopen this summer.

... Sea Palms Resort (Great Oaks/Sea Palms/ Tall Pines), $50-$80 (800-841-6268). Chip Beck helped make the resort famous in the '80s by wearing the logo on his visor. There are 27 classic George Cobb, Florida-like holes here. Water's in play on 17 of them, including eight holes on Sea Palms. A slew of state golf events have been held on this stout course. The finishing hole on Great Oaks, which tips out at 423 yards with water and bunkers left and right, is particularly strong. Great Oaks and Tall Pines were renovated last year.

Jekyll Island Jekyll Island Golf Club ...11/42 Great Dunes Cse., $21; ...11/42 Oleander Cse., ...11/42 Pine Lakes Cse., ... Indian Mound Cse., $35 (877-453-5955).

There has been golf on Jekyll Island longer than at Merion, Oakmont or even Pinehurst. There are three 18-hole layouts and a nine-hole course that looks as if it has been transported from some Scottish fishing village. That's 63 holes of public golf, the largest such facility in the state. There are two quality Dick Wilson editions: the brutish Oleander, where the wind has bent trees at right angles over the years, and the Pine Lakes layout, where the holes tend to be tighter and longer. Joe Lee's Indian Mound is wider and gentler until you get to the greens. But the real treat is the Great Dunes Nine, a Walter Travis design from 1928, which replaced earlier courses at Jekyll that dated to the 1890s. The fairways roll and crash like ocean waves, and the greens are about the size of the corner table at Tony Soprano's favorite deli.