Atlantic Dunes by Davis Love III

Atlantic Dunes opened in 2016 as Davis Love III's ground-up reconstruction of the old Ocean Course, the first golf course ever built on Hilton Head. Love and lead architect Scot Sherman kept the routing's coastal soul while modernizing every shot value—raising tees and greens, scattering coquina-shell waste areas, and framing the corridors with wind-tossed seaside grasses. It plays to a par 72 of roughly 7,000 yards and earned National Course of the Year honors shortly after opening.

Where Harbour Town is a claustrophobic chess match, Atlantic Dunes breathes—wider, more sculpted, and built to let the Lowcountry wind become the primary defense. The green complexes carry real movement, including a reverse-Redan short hole and multiple tiered surfaces that make position off the tee matter more than raw distance. It is the most visually generous of the resort's three courses, and the only one that lets you smell the Atlantic.

14

Coquina and Live Oaks

The 14th is Atlantic Dunes at its most sculpted—a green set among coquina-shell waste bunkers tufted with native seaside grasses, all under a canopy of moss-draped live oaks. It's the shot that shows what Davis Love III did in the 2016 rebuild: hazards that photograph like scenery until you're standing in one. Position off the tee, not power, sets up the approach.