Course Comparisons / South Carolina

Moss Creek Golf Club North Course vs. Palmetto Dunes Oceanfront Resort - Robert Trent Jones Course: The Hilton Head Island Choice

Hilton Head Island sells one image, the beach, and hides its better argument, which is variety. Within a short drive a golfer can choose between a private Tom Fazio shot maker's course inside a members club and a public resort headliner whose signature hole runs straight at the Atlantic. Moss Creek North and the Robert Trent Jones Course at Palmetto Dunes are that choice in its purest form.

Moss Creek's North Course opened in 1978, the second championship course at a private 36 hole club. It plays par 72 at 6,510 yards, with a 72.3 course rating and 134 slope, and locals know it as Devil's Elbow North. GolfPass describes the type honestly: a shot maker's course, short and tight, with elevated greens surrounded by water or signature trees. John Fought updated the North Course in a renovation running from March to August 2025, which signals a membership still investing in its second course rather than treating it as overflow.

The Jones Course is older and louder. Robert Trent Jones Sr. designed it, it opened in 1969 at Palmetto Dunes, and Roger Rulewich, a Jones associate, led the renovation in 2002. It is the headline course of the three at Palmetto Dunes, threaded by the resort's lagoon system, and its par 5 10th plays directly toward the Atlantic. That hole is the resort's entire marketing department in a single fairway, and to be fair to it, the hole earns the attention. Golfers remember the ocean holes. They plan trips around them.

The golf, compared straight

Moss Creek North asks the more interesting questions per yard. At 6,510 yards it cannot bludgeon anyone, so it defends with angles, elevated greens and water placed where a lazy approach finishes. A 134 slope on a course that short tells you the trouble is real and close. The Jones Course defends with scale and setting, lagoon water in play across the property and a closing stretch built for resort drama. Neither course is long by modern standards. The difference is temperament. Moss Creek is an examination in a quiet room. The Jones Course is an examination with the ocean watching.

Concede the Jones Course its best point fully: the 10th hole experience, a par 5 bending toward the Atlantic, is something Moss Creek cannot replicate at any price, and for a visitor making one Hilton Head trip it may be the single hole they describe at home. Concede Moss Creek its best point too: a freshly renovated private Fazio, played at member pace with no resort groups ahead, is the better weekly golf life, and residents voting with their dues have said so for decades. Our Hilton Head Island ranking tries to hold both truths at once.

Access decides most rounds of this argument

The Jones Course is resort golf. Stay, book, play. Moss Creek is private, members and guests, full stop. So the comparison resolves differently depending on who is asking. The visitor has no real choice, and should make peace with that quickly, because the Jones Course is a fine prize: a Sr. design from 1969, sensibly renovated by his own associate's hand in 2002 rather than reimagined by a stranger, with a signature hole that delivers. The resident, or the guest of a member, has the genuine decision, and for them the 2025 Fought renovation tilts it. A club that closes its North Course from March to August to update it is telling you the course matters to the people who play it most.

In the wider South Carolina state ranking, resort headliners and private members courses fight this same fight on a bigger stage, and the state is deep enough that neither of these needs charity to appear.

The verdict

For the trip, play the Jones Course, play the 10th toward the ocean, and take the photograph everyone takes. It is the better single day. For the life, Moss Creek North is the better course to belong to: tighter, trickier, freshly renewed, and built for the fiftieth round rather than the first. The golfer who should pick the other one anyway is the low handicap visitor who finds a member host. Skip the beach photo, take the Devil's Elbow test, and learn what Hilton Head golf looks like when nobody is selling it to you.