Ocean Winds Course (Mallard)
6473 yards – 72 Rating – 138 Slope – 94 Score
Day 17; May 7th, 2017
When I was researching courses to play in South Carolina, one of the first thoughts I had was wanting to play on a barrier island. As I was scanning reviews and pictures of courses I ran into a picture of a sign that read “please don’t feed the alligators.” It was at this point that the courtship between the Ocean Winds course at Seabrook Island Resort began.
Ocean Winds, perhaps surprisingly, doesn’t offer a ton of ocean views, but it doesn’t promise that. What it implies, and delivers on, is stiff ocean breezes as you work your way around the course. This is especially true of the back nine which is far more open – both in the width of the fairways and the vegetation around them – than the front.
Indeed, the front and back nine’s are quite different. The front has numerous dense stands of tall trees and very narrow fairways, especially (at least the way I play) in the landing areas. Being a little bit off could easily leave you in the woods, likely in a place dense enough to require a pitch out rather than a recovery shot. Between the distance lost on the shot that hit the trees and the often necessary escape shot, bogeys come easy should you misfire on a tee shot.
The tradeoff is that it’s a beautiful stroll filled with wildlife, we saw deer on multiple holes for example, through some pretty straight forward (literally and figuratively) holes. Without a lot of angles or elevation changes, you can rely on your stock club length and a mistake is never compounded by leaving yourself short sided on a dogleg.
While the fairways on the back are still a bit narrow, the landing areas open up more than on the front. More significantly though, there are far fewer trees and as such this side of the track is more forgiving to a slightly wayward tee shot.
This does not mean the course suddenly get easy, however. Given the relatively short length of the course (over the 50 rounds I played in 50 states only 7 courses were shorter), the rating and slope are pretty steep… all of this resulted in one of the higher scores on my trip. The open spaces invite winds coming off the ocean and those breezes seldom decline to attend. A slight fade can turn into a slice fairly quickly by catching a prevailing wind. The good news is that recovery is much more likely, even for significantly more unwieldy shots.
There are relatively few bunkers on this course, not really needed because of the tree and wind protection. However, there is a decent amount of water to keep you honest as you move your way around. We found the course to be in very good condition.
I found the staff to be quite attentive as well as being very friendly. This included a 10-15 minute “tutorial” in the pro-shop on different grass types and how to properly care for the course (e.g. divots and ball makrs on the green) while you are playing on each type. This may have been the most instructive 15 minutes of my trip! Also, not overly surprisingly based on the “do not feed” sign… we found the gators to be, if not friendly, at least not overly aggressive.
Overall the experience at Seabrook Island was really good. I’d certainly enjoy returning and playing the Oaks course as well.
