Wild Dunes Resort – Links Course is a public course in Charleston, SC.

This course review of Wild Dunes Resort’s Links Course is based on a round played on September 19, 2023.

F1C’s Final Rating: 60/80 _{(Best-in-State List Contender)}

Read More: How We Rate Courses

Where to stay? -> Check out my Charleston, SC Golf Travel Guide.

Age. All of us show it in various ways. Over time, all of us slowly change into a person we wouldn’t have recognized as kids. Aging certainly has its disadvantages; getting old sucks. But, with age comes the most desirable traits in a person: maturity and wisdom, class and honor, dignity and grace. That is the theme of the Links Course: the advantages and disadvantages of aging.

The Links Course at Wild Dunes was Tom Fazio’s first course, opened in 1980. Like most things opened in 1980, the Links Course is going through a mid-life crisis. Its age is beginning to whittle away its vibrancy and changing its appearance, father time and mother nature changing the character of a course once found in Top 100 courses in the U.S. Wild Dunes has acknowledged this reality, recently announcing an $8 million renovation to their courses.

However, 40+ years into its history, the Links Course is developing a more rarefied form of maturity, dignity, and grace. Many, many new courses have been built in the Links Course’s lifetime, and the Links Course cannot offer you all the modern niceties of a course in its early twenties; but, those courses are becoming a dime-a-dozen. Golf’s version of little boxes on the hillside: resort courses developed and “designed” by golf’s biggest designers (or rather, an intern at their design company); sterile, without character, and without maturity. Those adjectives do not apply at Wild Dunes.

So, does it have a PGA Tour event, major championship history, or best in U.S. rankings? No. What it does have is seventeen golf holes that have stood the test of time, and one hole that had to have a bit of plastic surgery, and provides a player with an experience that very few ocean side courses can provide.

The practice facility is rough, y’all. Its across the street. The golf balls were as old as I am and the range mats could have been the golf balls’ younger brother. It is also pretty small. There’s a ball machine with tokens. The vibe is just that: old. It felt like I was in yesteryear – at a course past its prime and forgotten. It was time to find out if a book can be judged by its cover.

The First Tee

The range says no drivers or woods, but between you and me, I hit some drivers, and its a good thing. The first hole has the narrowest gap between trees on either side of the fairway. A fade into the first fairway is not possible, due to the overhanging left tree; a draw is required. This is how a older course also shows its age and partially some abandonment: overgrowth.

That yellow line, just in front of the teeing area, is 13-yards wide. No pulls, no pushes, you have to hit a draw that starts perfectly on-line in order to just make it off the tee, period. Two in our group did not make it past the red tees, and we are all below 10-handicaps. From the back teeing ground, it is a very tough tee shot, and I seriously considered taking a 5 or 6 iron off the tee to ensure I started the ball on line.

The rest of the first hole, if you successfully nail the field goal through the uprights on the tee shot, is a shorter par-5 that provides a good scoring opportunity, as the fairway is generous, but tightens near a green that is aligned to the left half of the fairway. A birdie opportunity awaits, but I missed a short putt and made par; the same as my partner who nailed the left-hand tree off the tee.

The second hole is a beautiful tee shot from the back tree over a mangrove-like area into a relatively blind fairway. It can be somewhat difficult to tell exactly where to aim, but the driving area is generous and a good drive will leave wedge in hand.

The third hole is a tough par-4, which provides something unusual for a Fazio design on the tee shot.

The fairway is angled at a 45-degree angle to the tee box, allowing a player to bite off as much of the angle as desired, with an increasing risk as more angle is cut due to the pond that flanks the entire right side of the fairway. A driver here could leave anything between 115 – 175 yards depending on how much angle is cut and where the pin is located on the green, which is angled at around 30-degrees to the fairway between some greenside trees. The green is also a tricky green, making this hole one of the hardest holes on this nine.

The course then moves to the fourth hole, which would be an uninteresting mid-length par-4 but-for a ridge that separates the green into two distinct tiers.

The fifth is a wild par-5 which is reachable in two, but is shocking due to the amount of elevation present on the approach shot. Remember, we are mere steps from the ocean on this course, and I’d estimate this approach shot, as well as the tee on the sixth hole, rise 20-30 feet above the surface of the fairway on the fifth. The green on the fifth is entirely blind from even the closest approaches, and two frontal greenside bunkers prevent anything from rolling up the hill.

The tee shot on the sixth gives you an idea what I mean. Again, this is tee box is 287 yards from the ocean, and I thought at the time it might be the highest point on the whole island; it is not common for a tee box to be this elevated so close to the beach. The sixth is a mid-length par 4 with a green, canted at a significant angle to the fairway, and is a somewhat difficult hole.

The seventh is a short par-4, with something less than driver required off the tee, and should provide a scoring opportunity.

The eighth is a mid-length par-3 with a 41-yard long green that is a mere 14-yards wide; another tough hole considering the length of the hole and width of the green.

The ninth hole is a long par-4, unusual for this course which is a bit shorter, but on our day, gained length from a significant headwind coming from the ocean. I’d imagine this is the prevailing wind, and it took a good drive and a very solid hybrid to reach this green, which is flanked by a small lake on its front quarter. Further adding to the difficulty, the lake in the picture 100% had alligators in it, and I wanted to hit my tee shot as quickly as possible and get back to the cart, as the tee box is a peninsula within this lake. I’d say more than one alligator has sunbathed on the back tee box of the ninth.

Making the Turn

After the ninth is a small turn shack, which gave me one of the worst hot dogs for which I have paid American currency to acquire. Then we were off to the tenth, a short par-4 that again rises to an elevated green some 30-40 feet above the fairways surface. This rise, again, is 257 yards from the ocean, and I’d be willing to bet that its the highest point on the whole barrier island.

You can see where the grass turns shiny, that is where the real elevation begins, and the the entire left of the hole is no good as there is a large drop off the entire way down to the thirteenth fairway. This is such a great hole, because it is only 280-yards to the front edge of the green, but missing the green is brutal, because the green aggressively slopes from right-to-left. Anything right of the green is no good, because the chip is very hard to keep on the green; anything left and…well – that’s down on the thirteenth.

On the eleventh hole, large bees became annoyed with our presence and decided to wage war. We quickly surrendered, and ran back to the cart to head for the red tees. Unfortunately, one of our comrades was lost in the Great Bee War of 2023, and by lost, I mean he was stung and cried about it for the next hole or two (I would have as well, in fairness). The eleventh is a straight-away, significantly downhill par-4, so we weren’t missing much.

The twelfth hole is a fantastic par 3 both optically and by design.

To start, the hole is bunker-less and around 160 yards, with a green that slopes significantly from left-to-right. To get a ball close on this green, the ball would need to land significantly left of target, but that area of the green is blind to the tee – a beautiful design. This is the type of hole that shows the maturity and class of Wild Dunes, this hole is a masterpiece of non-cookie-cutter design. I’ve never played another hole like it.

The thirteenth hole is a slight downhill tee shot, uphill approach shot, mid-length par-4 that is tough due to its length, but is otherwise unremarkable. Then, the routing gets interesting, as you drive back by the parking lot and the bag drop, back by the clubhouse, and start on the fourteenth, a twin-par 5 to the first hole which sits just to the right of the first. This cannot have been the original routing of this golf course. The thirteenth spits you out in the parking lot; this had to be the original eighteenth. The fourteenth had to be the original tenth.

The fifteenth hole goes across the street and begins a fantastic four-hole finish. The fifteenth plays along the marsh to the left and is a mid-length par-4. Scenic, but paling in comparison to the final-3.

The sixteenth, a long-par 3, plays inside of the same marsh area, with the green approaching the northern facing beach of the island. The green sits angled at a 45-degree angle, but at an angle that will catch pulled shots and faded shots if a proper target is chosen. There’s also more room to the left of the green than appears, which is where my shot ended up.

The seventeenth hole is the best on the course from a aesthetic standpoint, and one of the better beachfront holes I’ve played. From a design standpoint, its a straightaway par-4, but there’s some genius in Fazio on this hole. The hole is just so pretty and optically distracting that the golf really doesn’t matter all that much. Fazio gives you a simple tee shot, even if a touch narrow, to enjoy the view.

This is where age is beauty, because with modern U.S. golf courses, holes typically just aren’t built this close to the ocean any more, and the elevation added to this tee shot really helps you appreciate the view.

The eighteenth is where age is sadness. The eighteenth as designed was a dogleg right par-5 running along the beach as the island turned from its north facing beach to its east facing. Here is an overhead of that hole:

But that hole is gone now, coastal erosion eating it away, and by the end of 2014, the hole was all but lost.

Mother Nature and Father Time destroyed the eighteenth, but Dr. Fazio – Wild Dunes’ plastic surgeon, performed repairs, changing the eighteenth from a par-5 to a closing par-3. The result is wonderful. I love closing par-3s; and this one, with its beautiful ocean backdrop is a stunner.

Final Thoughts

The last four holes are quite memorable and well worth the price of admission, and are a fantastic example of how age can affect us and our surroundings both in a positive and negative manner. I am excited to return post-renovation to see if they mess it up or make it better. Because, I believe that the current iteration of Wild Dunes is still winning and still proving Mother Nature and Father Time wrong; but you should play it soon, because both Mother Nature and Father Time are undefeated.

F1C Final Rating

Shot Options: 8
Challenge: 6
Layout Variety: 7
Distinctiveness: 8
Aesthetics: 9
Conditioning: 6
Character: 7
Fun: 9

Total: 60/80

Learn More: How We Rate Courses

Ratings Scale Detail:

> 70: Top-50 U.S.
65-70: Top-200 U.S.,
60-65: Best-in-State List
57-60: Best-in-state List Contender
53-57: Very Good
48-53: Good
40-48: Average
> 40: Poor