A renovation sensation at Wexford Plantation in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

The Wexford Plantation on Hilton Head Island has always had a unique distinction: It is the only gated community on the South Carolina resort island that offered both ocean access to pleasure boats and yachts via their lock system, and a championship-caliber golf course.

Obviously there are numerous other communities with courses, but no deep-water access, and just one or two communities that have the water access, but no golf. The problem at Wexford has been that the golf course, designed by Willard Byrd and opened in 1983, was pretty tired, dated and “blah,” not quite the green-grass showpiece that this community deserves. Well that has all changed now, thanks to a multi-million dollar renovation of both the course and coastal-style clubhouse.

Arnold Palmer and his design company enacted the course changes, and they have made what was a nice-enough course into a knockout. The aim of the renovation was to transform the playing strategy, characteristics and look of the Wexford layout, while also incorporating design changes that will improve drainage and reduce maintenance costs.

The renovation encompassed repositioning and reorienting tee complexes, significant bunker removal and strategic old/new bunker placement and modifying, along with tree removal, to increase sun exposure and widen fairway corridors. Most notably is the re-contouring of numerous greens, including interpretive replicas of famed green complexes like the Road Hole, Redan, Alps or Biarritz, which describes some of the greens found at classic courses like National Golf Links of America, or Fisher’s Island.

The course renovation now puts Wexford squarely in the conversation regarding Hilton Head’s best private golf communities, and or course it forever stands alone in any discussion of the island’s finest golf-and-boating communities.