Secession pages

SECESSION GOLF CLUB

Founded 1986

LEE PACE

CHAPTER ONE

A Walk in the Park The Essence of The Secession Experience

he quintessential oh yes moment at Secession Golf Club varies from one member and guest to the next, but for each there’s a trigger that morphs their state of mind into a netherworld of relaxation and softened pulse rates and heartbeats.

For some, it’s turning left off Islands Causeway just two miles outside of Beaufort at the club’s entrance, past the understated oval sign adorned with the Secession version of the stars and stripes, through the iron gates, alongside the lake to the left and the crisply trimmed hedgerow farther up on the right.

“The first time I drove through that gate it made the hair on my arms stand up a little bit,” says Pat Ryan, who visited from New York in the mid-1990s, played nine holes and promptly inquired about joining.

“When I first came through the gates, what struck me was the tranquility of the place and the conditioning,” adds Chris Summers, who first caddied at the club in 1997 and now is on staff as the club’s accommodations manager. “It was literally jaw-dropping. When you’ve been here a long time, you kind of lose sight of it because you see it every day. People come through the gate and are awed by the beauty.”

For some it’s walking into the Low Country-style clubhouse and seeing a familiar face, perhaps long-time Director of Golf Mike Harmon or one of the bartenders or waitresses. Harmon beams telling the story of the arrival one year of Bob Moseman, a member from New York City, who checked his golf bag at the caddie stand and promptly went on a hugging orgy with every familiar face he saw.

“His son was with him, and Bob Jr. looks at me and says, ‘Pro, I have to tell you, I’ve never seen my dad hug anyone in my life,’” Harmon says. “‘He doesn’t hug me, he doesn’t hug my sisters. And I’ve seen him hug fifteen people here in

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CHAPTER FOUR - THE LOW COUNTRY’S LINKS

CHAPTER FOUR - THE LOW COUNTRY’S LINKS

and later Devlin. The entrances to the greens had to be taut and consistent and state regulators restricted the amount of maintenance run-off into the marshes.

“We had to be so careful with the drainage,” Devlin says. “We can’t dump into the marshes. If you look at the edge of all the fairways, they slope back into middle. This whole place has an unbelievable drainage system.”

Another part of the Secession golf experience that Devlin likes is the close proximity of one green to the next tee, accomplished with walkers and caddies in mind and no need to accommodate fairway homesites and real estate. When the course opened in 1992, Devlin measured the cumulative distance from every green to the next tee and wrote a letter to Golf Digest on the subject.

“I threw the gauntlet down for any modern golf course that had been built since the 1980s that had less walking between the green and the next tee for eighteen holes,” Devlin says. “We measured it—580 yards total. And there hasn’t been a golf course come forward since that can beat it.”

Each day is defined by the wind and the elements, and those can vary from hour to hour.

“You can tee it up at 8 a.m., have a gentle breeze at five miles an hour, then it picks up a little on the back nine,” says Greg Crum, caddie services coordinator. “You come in, have lunch, go back out, and it’s completely different. A front’s moved through, and it’s blowing thirty miles an hour.”

Crum remembers one day around 2005 when it was sunny and seventy degrees on the first tee. By the second hole, the black wall of a storm front was on the horizon, and the wind was blowing thirty miles an hour.

“The golf course itself is very receptive, and lot of amateurs come through and play their best round here,” Crum says. “The fairways are spacious, the greens are spacious, but when wind comes through, it’s a different animal. The greens are pretty tame compared to a lot of courses, the reason being if you had hills and bumps buried in the greens, when wind blows it would be brutal.”

“Down here, you never know where it’s going to rain,” caddie Tim Dechert says. “If it’s a hundred percent chance of rain, it may not be right here. It could be down in Hilton Head, it could be across the river. Guys look at their phone, see it’s going to rain this weekend and say, ‘I’ll cancel.’ Meanwhile, it’s beautiful out here.”

The caddies look at the American flag hung above the clubhouse from their vantage point in the caddie shack every morning when they show up to get a bag. If it’s blowing from

The revetted-wall or stacked-sod bunkers as shown on the eleventh and thirteenth (inset) holes are an important part of the look and feel of the Secession golf course (opposite).

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Town and Club are Ideal Fits

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ecession members Don Sherrard and Rich Roach spent an evening several years ago sampling Beaufort’s night life and stopped at The Huddle House on Sea Island Parkway on the way back to the club for a late-night snack. As they were waiting to be served close to midnight, the restaurant was overrun with football players, cheerleaders and band members from the local high school looking for a bite after an away game.

Sherrard and Roach told the cheerleaders if they’d do three cheers in the middle of the restaurant, they’d pick up the tab for the entire house. The cheerleaders complied and Sherrard and Roach treated the house to a midnight meal, the manager adding that it was the “first time he’d ever run out of steaks.”

“That’s a wonderful story about the town and the club,” says Mike Harmon. “What a boon it’s been to the club having that gem of a town just five minutes away.”

When Secession built its clubhouse in 1996 with thirteen upstairs bedrooms and later added rental options through the Blue-Gray Estates, the connection between town and club was severed to a degree. But still today, overflow for major club events sends golfers into Beaufort for accommodations, and members enjoy mixing up their visits with dining at the

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club and in the varied restaurants in Beaufort.

“I bet we send fifteen to twenty thousand dinners to town a year,” says Harmon. “No telling how much income is generated annually. In the early days, I think some of the townsfolk saw the club logo and were a little skeptical. But over time, they see us giving a $5,000 scholarship to local kids and it sinks in. That town is a huge plus for us. If we were fifteen minutes farther toward the beach, no one would go into town. But at five minutes away and having a club shuttle, it couldn’t be easier.”

On most any night during the high seasons of spring and fall, you’ll find Secession members eating the lamb shank at Old Bull Tavern, lobster and shellfish bisque at Wren Bistro or shrimp and grits at Saltus on Bay Street. And they might well run into one of the club’s dozens of regular caddies.

“It’s been neat to see the relationships evolve with the caddies and members,” says Tom Robson, a Secession member who lives in Beaufort. “It’s like seeing a friend rather than your employee. I think the small-town feel of Beaufort promotes that.”

Bay Street is the commercial thoroughfare of Beaufort; historic neighborhoods featuring homes like the James Rhett House (above) splinter off to the north.

17 Par 3/124 yards

We waited a long time to get the proper approvals to build this hole, and it was certainly worth the time and trouble. It turned out to be a challenging and memorable hole. It takes an exact shot to a very small green—only 3,000 square feet. The green is totally surrounded by the marsh, and the blustering wind out there and the small target can make this a difficult hole.

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