Town Rankings / South Carolina
The Best Golf Courses in Mount Pleasant
Mount Pleasant is Charleston's suburb across the harbor, and its golf grew up in the old rice country along the Wando River, where the marshes were diked fields two centuries ago and are now the scenery subdivisions sell by the lot. That history is under every fairway here. Rivertowne hosted an LPGA Ginn Open, which put this suburb on national television. Dunes West plays through the old rice fields on the Wando. Patriots Point looks back at the city skyline from the harbor's edge. The golf is spread across that whole geography, from pro tournament venue to harbor side public.
Four courses make the list, all reachable, none fully private in the Yeamans Hall sense, which changes the ranking's character. This is a contest a visitor can actually enter. We score the golf first, then the day, then access and value, and Mount Pleasant rewards the golfer who plays the field rather than fixating on one famous name, because the honest truth here is that the top three are closer than their reputations suggest.
1Rivertowne Country Club
Rivertowne is Arnold Palmer's design from 2001, a semi private club on the Wando River, and the LPGA Ginn Open in its past gives it the strongest competitive evidence in Mount Pleasant. Tournaments are an audit. The LPGA does not stage events on courses that cannot present a fair, demanding test for the best women players in the world, and Rivertowne passed that audit on television, in this suburb, which still surprises people who think Charleston golf ends at the bridge.
Palmer's design language suits the ground: a course that plays through the Wando's marsh and river country with enough width to breathe and enough trouble to respect, built for members and public windows alike. Membership and public play coexist here, which keeps the operation honest in a way fully private clubs never have to be.
The concession is that Palmer's name, like several big signatures of his era, covers work executed by his design company at varying intensity, and Rivertowne does not have a single hole the wider game talks about. It wins Mount Pleasant on completeness rather than on a famous stretch. Complete, tested, and on the river is enough. No. 1.
2Dunes West Golf and River Club
Dunes West is Arthur Hills from 1991, semi private, in the Dunes West community on the Wando, and its setting is the one the town's hook leads with: golf through the old rice fields on the Wando River. Hills used the marsh and river ground to give the round a Lowcountry identity that community courses often promise and pave over. Here the water is the architecture's partner, and the closing holes in river light are the ones Mount Pleasant golfers describe to each other.
Semi private access, membership and public windows, keeps it bookable, and a community course that keeps its identity under daily play deserves credit for the keeping.
The concession is the community frame itself. Houses are part of the picture at Dunes West in a way they are not at Rivertowne, and the round's wilder moments alternate with suburban ones. Golfers who need their Lowcountry uninterrupted will notice. Golfers who care about the shots will mostly forgive it, because the river holes earn the forgiveness. Second, close behind the Palmer, and the prettiest argument in town.
3Charleston National Golf Club
Charleston National is Rees Jones from 1989, semi public, with marsh and Intracoastal holes on the north side of Mount Pleasant. Rees Jones built his reputation on demanding, championship minded golf, and his name on a semi public course in a Charleston suburb gives this list its sleeper: the design pedigree at No. 3 is arguably the equal of the names above it, and golfers who like their golf stern tend to rank Charleston National first of the three and argue about it happily.
The concession is that stern, in Jones's 1989 idiom, can shade into hard for hardness's sake, and a course that examines every shot will wear out the casual groups who make up much of a semi public tee sheet. The marsh and Intracoastal holes give it scenery Rivertowne partisans underrate. The overall test gives it respect nobody underrates.
Third on our card, first on the card of anyone who scores a course by how few cheap shots it allows. Mount Pleasant is lucky to have the argument.
4Patriots Point Links
Patriots Point appears on two of our town lists because it belongs to both conversations, Charleston's and Mount Pleasant's, and it finishes fourth in each for the same reason. Willard Byrd's 1979 design, next to the USS Yorktown, has harbor views on nearly every hole and the downtown Charleston skyline across the water. No course in this ranking, and few in the state, can match its setting for a late afternoon round.
The concession, again, is design depth. A 1979 layout asked to compete with a Palmer that hosted the LPGA, a Hills in the rice fields, and a Rees Jones is outgunned on architecture while outgunning everything on the view. That trade places it last here, as it did across the harbor.
Last with a view of the whole city is still a good evening. Play Patriots Point when the light turns, after the sterner courses have had their say, and let the harbor close the trip.