Behind the Gates: The Lowcountry’s Private Golf Clubs

For every resort course you can book in the Lowcountry, there is a private club you cannot. These are the addresses that show up on Golf Digest rankings and never on a tee-time app. The concentration of talent here is remarkable: Tom Fazio, Jack Nicklaus, Pete Dye, Coore and Crenshaw, and Seth Raynor all built inside this 100-mile stretch. Here is what sits behind the gates, from the Bluffton corridor up through Kiawah.

The Bluffton and Okatie corridor

Highway 278 runs past more elite private golf than almost anywhere in the Southeast. Colleton River Club in Bluffton gives members two championship courses, one by Pete Dye and one by Jack Nicklaus; the Dye course hosted the 2015 U.S. Junior Amateur. A few minutes away, Berkeley Hall runs two Tom Fazio eighteens and carries a 4.9 member rating. Belfair, also Fazio, has landed on Golf Digest’s America’s 100 Greatest. Hampton Hall is a Pete Dye Signature course stretching to 7,503 yards.

The Okatie cluster is just as deep. Callawassie Island holds the distinction of being Fazio’s first South Carolina design, 27 holes across three nines. Chechessee Creek Club, a Coore and Crenshaw layout, plays firm and fast to a 4.9 rating. Oldfield Club is a Greg Norman signature course threading the Okatie River. Out in Ridgeland, Congaree Golf Club is the standout of the whole region: a Tom Fazio design that hosted the 2021 Palmetto Championship on the PGA Tour and the 2024 Presidents Cup, run as a philanthropic club.

Kiawah, Charleston, and the classics

Kiawah Island keeps its members’ golf separate from its famous resort. Cassique is Tom Watson’s only South Carolina design, a links-style layout along the Kiawah River. The River Course is a Fazio design winding through tidal marsh. Nearby Seabrook Island Club, a Willard Byrd course renovated by Rees Jones, sends four holes along the ocean.

Charleston anchors the historic end of the list. Yeamans Hall Club and the Country Club of Charleston are both 1925 Seth Raynor designs built on his template-hole principles; the Country Club hosted the 2019 U.S. Women’s Open. Daniel Island Club offers two eighteens by Fazio and Rees Jones and has hosted Korn Ferry Tour championships. Up in Awendaw, Bulls Bay Golf Club was Mike Strantz’s final completed design, a dramatic 7,340-yard course ranked among the state’s best. And in Beaufort, Secession Golf Club holds a cult following for its walking-only, caddie-driven policy on a Bruce Devlin and David Graham layout.

North of Savannah, The Savannah Golf Club claims the longest history of all. Founded in 1899 on a Donald Ross layout, it is recognized as the oldest golf club in North America. Marshwood at The Landings, an Arnold Palmer course, hosted the 1976 U.S. Women’s Open.

Access to these clubs usually means an invitation or a residence, and many of their members arrive the same way they play: quietly and by private aircraft. If you are planning a visit to the region’s gated communities, the local FBO and charter options are covered at lowcountry.one/private-aviation. For the full course-by-course rundown, including the public and resort tracks you can actually book, see lowcountry.one/golf.