While Harbour Town Golf Links might be Pete Dye’s most famous contribution to Hilton Head Island’s golf courses, Long Cove Club is perhaps his most celebrated by those who play it. Crafted with wider fairways to accommodate the average golfer, its 7,000 yards provide the perfect test of skill surrounded by the hallmarks of Lowcountry scenery from serpentine marshes to elegant live oaks draped in Spanish Moss.
Carrying all the hallmarks of a Pete Dye design, from railroad ties lining the bunkers to low-profile holes in 13 and 14 that take full advantage of the Calibogue Sound views, Long Cove Club presented Dye with the chance to tweak the formula, adding knobs, mounds and framing berms along generously sized fairways that created a more approachable experience. Multiple tee boxes and pin locations work in tandem with Long Cove’s famously ever-changing breezes to create a completely different experience with each round.
To golfers, it’s a love letter to the game. To those who study golf course design, Long Cove Club is a collection of greatest hits, built by one of the most celebrated groups of designers ever assembled. Working alongside Dye were his wife Alice as well as luminaries such as Bobby Weed, Tom Doak, David Savic, Ron Farris, Scott Pool and Pete’s younger son, P.B.
A Fresh Start in 2018
Long Cove would be the course that launched Bobby Weed’s design career, so it was only fitting that Bobby Weed Golf Design was tapped to oversee a comprehensive renovation in 2018. Along with reconstructing the original bulkheads using the 1981 designs, Weed’s team regressed fairways with TifEagle Ultradwarf greens and Celebration Bermudagrass.
“Preserving one of our generation’s most forward-looking and contemporary courses is a great honor and fit for us,” said Weed at the time.
The results of the renovation carried the course into the future, adding to its considerable legacy with honors including being listed among Golfweek’s Top 100 Modern Golf Courses (71) and Top 200 courses in the U.S. (18) as well as Golf Digest’s Second Greatest 100 Golf Courses in the U.S. (168). In 2024, Golfweek’s state-by-state rankings put Long Cove at number 5, while that same year saw Golf Digest naming it among its top 100 courses.
A Course Like No Other
Among those in the know, it is a course that stands apart, with GOLF Magazine founder Charles Price saying, “Long Cove is not only the best course on Hilton Head; it is not only the best course in South Carolina; it is, in my opinion – and I have been writing about golf course architecture for 30 years – one of the ten best courses in America.”
Those accolades are a testament to the way that Long Cove Club captures Pete Dye’s singular genius as a golf course designer – playing tricks with your mind, challenging you in ways that few courses can, and ultimately rewarding bravery. Just ask anyone who has ever approached the fifth green, going in totally blind with nothing but faith in your wedge that you’ll find the hole.
Hole-By Hole
One of the keys to Long Cove’s enduring appeal is that elegant consistency across all 18 holes. It’s a common saying among those who play here that there isn’t really a “favorite” hole because each is a standout in its own way.
Hole 1: Par 4, 423 yards from the yellow tees.
The first hole serves as a perfect introduction to Pete Dye’s brilliance, stretching along a bunker-lined lagoon at one side and soaring Carolina pines on the other across wide fairways. This is a hole that lets you ease into your game, letting it rip off the tees.
Hole 2: Par 3, 196 yards from the yellow tees.
This is a course of risk and reward, and the second hole serves as your first test. Do you trust your drive to make it across the wide meandering lagoon, hoping you’ll avoid the massive sand trap before the green? Or do you play it safe on the fairway that skirts the cart path and water? Choose wisely.
Hole 3: Par 5, 539 yards from the yellow tees.
While most golfers don’t have a favorite hole at Long Cove Club, it’s generally agreed that the course’s par 5s are among the most challenging. Hole three serves as an excellent example, with a layout that curves around a winding river, testing your accuracy down the fairway.
Hole 4: Par 4, 384 yards from the yellow tees
Don’t let the relatively straightforward layout of this hole fool you. With narrower fairways and imposing banks of trees on either side, its subtle doglegs can make approach shots harrowing.
Hole 5: Par 4, 317 yards from the yellow tees
The blind approach shot on this hole is infamous, forcing you to drive up a sheer bluff that blocks any view of the fairway. If you have a rabbit’s foot in your golf bag, this is the time to get it out.
Hole 6: Par 5, 543 yards from the yellow tees
Another monster of a par 5, this hole follows a gentle right-hand dog leg between stunning landscapes tapering down to an elevated green.
Hole 7: Par 4, 443 yards from the yellow tees
With its simple narrow fairway waving its way between treelines, this hole gives you a chance to see how much your drive still has on it after the first six holes.
Hole 8: Par 3, 233 yards from the yellow tees
Now that the heavy hitters have had a chance to show off on 7, 8 presents a similar challenge to shotmakers with demanding approach shots through winding obstacles.
Hole 9: Par 4, 428 yards from the yellow tees
At the turn, we see a perfect example of this course’s balance of risk and reward, with a tree-lined dogleg that dares you to get up and over it.
Hole 10: Par 4, 409 yards from the yellow tees
This whole exudes Pete Dye, with a gentle turn that offers just enough challenge on the approach shot to catch you sleeping if you’re not careful.
Hole 11: Par 4, 299 yards from the yellow tees
As you get closer to the water, wind begins to play an even bigger factor and hole 11 takes full advantage of the breeze, with narrow fairways and tricky hazards.
Hole 12: Par 4, 460 yards from the yellow tees
If the wind plays a factor on 11, it can change everything on 12. Approaching from the dogleg left can be a simple layup or a nerve-wracking pitch over water. It all depends on which way the breeze is going.
Hole 13: Par 3, 163 yards from the yellow tees
Don’t let the stunning marsh views that surround you distract you from an approach shot on this deceptively simple hole that demands precision.
Hole 14: Par 4, 417 yards from the yellow tees
Spanning a breathtaking stretch of the Calibogue Sound, hole 14 might be the one hole that breaks the common trope that there isn’t a favorite hole.
Hole 15: Par 5, 615 yards from the yellow tees
With the two waterfront holes having given you a chance to breath, 15 issues a challenge right from the tees with massive fairways that seem to stretch on forever, culminating n a green ringed by sand and trees.
Hole 16: Par 4, 460 yards from the yellow tees
With towering pines on either side, the meandering fairway of this tough par 4 demands both accuracy and power, rewarding more balanced golfers.
Hole 17: Par 3, 205 yards from the yellow tees
Pete Dye gets inside your head on the penultimate hole, daring you to take the risky shot across a lagoon brimming with the balls of those who failed.
Hole 18: Par 4, 460 yards from the yellow tees
The finale of Long Cove Club brings together everything that sets this course apart: wide fairways, keen challenges for shotmakers and lush Lowcountry scenery.
Long Cove Club is more than a golf course — it's one of the most exclusive residential communities on Hilton Head Island. With roughly 370 homesites nestled beneath towering pines and along the Calibogue Sound marshes, Long Cove offers a level of privacy and tight-knit community life that's increasingly rare on the island. Inventory is limited, turnover is low, and properties move quickly when they do come to market. For buyers who want world-class golf as part of their daily life — not just a vacation — Long Cove is one of the most compelling options on Hilton Head.
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