This is what the 18th hole looked like in August. The condos behind the green could be next to go.
I was just about to go to press with the latest edition of the HomeOnTheCourse Community Guide, with an entire issue dedicated to the golf communities near Mt. Pleasant, SC, including the famed Wild Dunes Resort. Then word came this afternoon that I would have to update the copy; the 18th green on Tom Fazio's Links Course has fallen into the sea.
As I indicated here a month ago, it was inevitable, based on what I saw in early August during what could have been one of the last times anyone played the par 5 18th. The hole, which is a beauty, runs along the ocean and is flanked by now-threatened condominiums down the right side and behind the green. Huge white sandbags propped up the left side of the fairway beginning over 100 yards from the green and running
down the edge of the fairway to the green, where more sandbags seemed to be all that was propping up the putting surface. The surf was pounding on the bags, and a few had split open.
According to an article today in the Charleston (SC) Post & Courier, the 18th hole has been relocated away from the ocean and turned into a par 3, shaving a full two strokes off the formerly par 72 course. Who knows if the 18th will ever return to ocean side, given environmental regulations regarding dunes, beaches and the sea turtles that lay their eggs just below the fairway.
Ocean holes are too few to begin with, and they aren't building any more. Here's hoping Fazio and the owners of Wild Dunes can work some magic and fool Mother Nature.