Secession Golf Club - Lady's Island (Beaufort), S.C.

[Tim Gavrich]

I had a chance to play Secession Golf Club yesterday. I'm playing in the U.S. Open qualifier there May 9 and am unable to play the normal practice round day, so I got to play it this afternoon. There are plenty of pictures in Walter Morris' profile and I dared not whip out my phone to take pictures on the course, so here are my thoughts, for what they're worth, instead:

- Setting: My home course's best holes are the five that interact with the surrounding marshland. The rest of the course is like pretty much every other coastal South Carolina course. Secession starts by the marsh and pretty much stays there for 18 holes. Even the "inland" holes are in sight of the surrounding marsh. Those marsh areas are maintained in such a way that you can find and play a ball hit into them. The presence of wind is constant (and, I was told, there's no real prevailing wind, so the course is bound to play completely differently in all those different winds.

- Ambiance: The whole feel of the club is geared toward the all-encompassing enjoyment of golf. It starts with head pro Michael Harmon's hospitality - every single Secession member I chit-chatted with today said some variation of "Oh yeah, Mike's a great guy!" Greg the caddie master was very helpful and all the members seem to have the time of their lives when they're on-property.

- Par 5s: One of the best sets of par 5s I've played. It starts at the 512-yard fifth, which is reachable but requires an almost-all carry over marshland. The layup out to the right of the green requires much thought, with a couple bunkers complicating matters. Number 9, at 612 yards, played into the wind yesterday and has a bunch of clusters of bunkers that must be negotiated, including a neat pair of Spectacles about 200 yards out from the green. The 10th runs in the opposite direction and has this awesome little spine and slope arrangement short of the green that makes for great run-up possibilities. And then the sub-500 yard 16th is the best, with a 10 foot deep bunker guarding the green on the right side and marsh left and long. Centerline bunkers short of the green, once again, complicate one's layup prospects.

Secession is the second best course in the state of South Carolina that I've played, a tiny bit behind Palmetto GC and a tiny bit ahead of Bulls Bay. It's a place I would be thrilled to be able to play every day.

Your thoughts/questions?

[Mark Pritchett]

Glad you had a good day and I agree with your thoughts.  Everything about the club exudes pure golf.  Everytime I play the course I like it more than I did the previous visit. 

The playability of the marsh makes it a lot fun as many of my most memorable shots at Secession have been from the marsh. 

[Mark Pritchett]

What did you do on 17? 

[Tim Gavrich]

Mark--

Playing the 13th at Pawleys hundreds of times prepared me very well for Secession #17. I hit a 9 iron into about a 1.5-club wind and just missed my 12-footer for birdie. Pin was front-right, about 12 feet from the bulkhead.

[ward peyronnin]

Some plusses
No housing
Ground game
holes in changing directions
Minusses
Huge 70's mounding framing so many views(almost fatal)
First hole
Oppressively in your face macho Johny Reb stereotype

[Lou_Duran]

A lot to be said for having a great golf culture.  Interesting history.

[Ed Oden]

The experience at Secession is fantastic.  It is a very cool place and, for the most part, I really enjoy the course.  However, two things hold it back for me.  First, #1 is a disarmingly poor hole in my opinion.  And second, as a collective group, the greens are among the flattest and most uninteresting that I have seen on any course of note. 

[Josh Tarble]

I very much enjoyed my day at Secession...I agree that the setting and overall ambiance of the club is great.  I thought the routing in general was really enjoyable and utilized the marsh and inland portion really well. 

I didn't mind #1 as a concept...play out left to avoid the lake or take it on and have a shorter or better angle, however, as #1 I didn't enjoy it that much since it effectively takes driver out of your hands to begin the round.

Ed,
I also thought the greens were rather flat, but the entire site can't have much more than 5 feet of elevation change.  I think wild greens would have been completely out of character with the course.  I thought the green surrounds were pretty interesting and made up for a little bit of lack of contours.

[Josh Tarble]

I also have to wonder....how much on the course would have changed if Pete Dye would have finished it?  I think it's excellent as is, but for some reason feel like the word "unpolished" describes it.

Not talking about conditioning, because I thought that was excellent.

[Tim Gavrich]

Interesting responses. I will agree that the greens are fairly flat, but I can understand the reticence to go much bolder, given the everpresent wind and the speed at which the club seems to like to maintain them (whether or not that desire for speed has compromised the quality of the course's green complexes is certainly a debate worth having).

I wonder if we might talk a bit more about the opening hole.

I'm intrigued/surprised at the comments against #1. It's certainly no "warm-up" opener, with the intimidating opening look off the tee. When I played it on Saturday, I hit a 3 wood within about 90 yards of the green with the hole playing downwind and would certainly entertain hitting driver into a breeze due to the large (much larger than it appears!) landing area off the tee. I loved the sharp corners on the left side of the green (I thought I'd see that feature on other greens but don't recall seeing it) and the little fairway buffer between the edge of the putting surface and the hazard left, knowing that the fronting bunker might be tough to fly without going over the green downwind. I don't find it a perfect hole or even a great one by any stretch, but I also did not feel vibes of disarming poorness when I played it.

Just my two cents of exposition; interested to hear others'.

[Joel Zuckerman]

I love number one...however it doesn't love me back.  When I played it 6 times for the HHH last summer I only managed to reach the fairway with my final try...hole #91 of the day!

I remember the first time I saw/played it at high tide...filled with water and hundreds of white birds circling above..it turned the normal death grip on the driver into an absolute stranglehold!  (Only later did I come to learn there is a drop area at the end of the footpath leading to the fairway.)

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Love the place, the ambiance is superb and I love that first tee shot adjacent to the putting green with the white chairs sitting there,rather unique first tee setting, I am also one who loves the first hole.
Surprising to read that the greens are seen as flat..there are some very tricky speedy putts out there, which with more severe undulation would be unplayable.
I think about the green complexes at holes 3,4,6,7,8 and 9 for instance..flat???
I can think of putts on all of those that if you get above the hole you are in trouble, but perhaps I have just played it more and know the putts better.

[Mark Pritchett]

I like the first hole more and more each time I play it.  I actually look forward to it! 

In a recent tournament, we started on number two and thus finished on one.  How do you like it as a closing hole? 

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Re Pete Dye and finishing the job.
Everytime I play there I cant help but think that the way the course flows would be different if Dye had been involved, somehow the terrain would not be as appreciated and that the course itself would be become more than the suroundings.
One of the things that realy'works" at Seccesion is that the course blends so well with all around it, very little quirk, no gimmicks it as much abut playing in the lowlands as it is playing the course.
Every Dye I have played it becomes about the course itself, which is not a critisism just a fact.
I like the laid back just play the course feeling at Secession.

[Josh Tarble]

Re Pete Dye and finishing the job.
Everytime I play there I cant help but think that the way the course flows would be different if Dye had been involved, somehow the terrain would not be as appreciated and that the course itself would be become more than the suroundings.
One of the things that realy'works" at Seccesion is that the course blends so well with all around it, very little quirk, no gimmicks it as much abut playing in the lowlands as it is playing the course.
Every Dye I have played it becomes about the course itself, which is not a critisism just a fact.
I like the laid back just play the course feeling at Secession.

MWP,
That's a very interesting opinion.  I don't disagree with on some of Dye's courses kind of "clashing" with its surroundings.  But I can't help but think this was supposed to be different from his standard courses.  I am kind of imagining a "Golf Club" like course only in the lowlands.  I really saw a lot of Dye in the course as it was...I initially thought that he was the architect before reading anything about it. 

But like I stated above, it just kind of felt a little unpolished for whatever reason...maybe it was a bit of the artificial mounding and some of the bunkers seemed a bit off to me.  I just wondering if this feeling would have been more or less accentuated if Pete had done the job from start to finish.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

I agree 100% with the mounding and have even asked Bruce Devlin about that.
He said that the members requested the fairway mounding to prevent run off into the 'native areas".
Example would be to the left of number 7, where personally I would love to see an incline taking balls that bailed left into the brush.
Same to the right of number 1..those mounds are not realy needed,same could be said for the large mounding to the right of number 12 a great hole but somewhat overdone with the mounds...see I agree

[Ed Oden]

Mark, I would like #1 a lot more as a closing hole than as the opener (but not more than the current 18th).  Personally, I don't think a sizeable forced carry over a hazard to a diagonally angled fairway is ideal for the first shot of the day, especially on a windy site.  For those who haven't been to Secesision, here is the view from the first tee...



I would understand it more if Secession was a ballbuster course.  But I don't think that is the case.  The 18th is the only other hole with a tee shot comparably demanding.

As for the greens, in retrospect, "flat" was probably a poor choice of words on my part.  Clearly they are not flat.  But I stand by my feeling that they generally have very little internal contouring, particularly in comparison to most other courses of similar reputation.  While Secession's greens may "fit" with the low country landscape, that certainly hasn't deterred other coastal courses from utilizing more dynamic greens to great effect.  At the end of the day, I find the greens at Secession (again, taken as a collective group since there are some exceptions) to be the weakest link on an otherwise very solid golf course.  In fairness, I have the same criticism of Royal County Down, which I absolutely love.  So I'm not saying I don't like the course.  Rather, just offering what I see as its biggest drawback.

I thought Dye routed Secession before leaving the project and Devlin used Dye's routing.  Is that not the case?

[Josh Tarble]

Ed, I believe that is the case...I guess when I mentioned I see a lot of Dye's work in the course, it really comes from the use of angles and hazards in the routing.

[Joel Zuckerman]

At Secession, the directive is:  "If you're going to miss, miss big," and by examining Ed's photo you can see what I mean.  A high slice on #1 that finds the middle of what is usally a flat,dry sand bed affords a short iron (maybe 9 or wedge) to the green.

The problem is if you JUST miss, and the ball dives into the thick tangle a few yards short of the fairway.  That poses a problem, either with a lost ball, or one that has to be chopped out laterally into the short grass.  The "miss big" theory abounds early in the round; on #4 (miss big to the right) on #5 (yank it hard left if missing the fairway to the right) etc.

[Matt MacIver]

The 'just miss/wide miss" design strategy is an interesting one.  I had several wide misses there and was only not penalized severly when and where the tide was out. 

For my part I think it's a solid, straightforward course that's always in great condition and has a really cool golf vibe, from the clubhouse to the dorms to the caddies.  But it doesn't top my list of "run right back to the first tee" like Musgrove Mill, Bulls Bay or even Chechessee does for me.