Wild Dunes Resort always will be best-known among golfers as the home of Tom Fazio’s first solo design. The Links Course, which opened in 1980, not only introduced Fazio to the golf world, it set the stage of Isle of Palms, S.C., a barrier island 30 minutes north of Charleston, to evolve into one of the Southeast’s great resort destinations.
And evolve it has. Over the past five decades, Wild Dunes has become a popular destination for golf (Fazio’s Harbor Course opened in 1985) and outdoors sports and family recreation that includes water sports, racquet sports, waterside eco-tours, expansive trail networks, and recovery wellness. Regardless of your preference, Wild Dunes Resort cultivates an environment where active sports culture and low-country relaxation seamlessly intertwine.
There’s also the resort’s 11 restaurants, a variety of condominium, home and villa rentals, along with Wild Dunes’ signature hotel – the 153-room Sweetgrass Inn that opened in 2021.
“It’s bought in a new and different clientele other than golf,’’ Jeff Minton, Wild Dunes’ director of golf sports told me. “All of our amenities have benefited from it.’’
To support its growing popularity of racquet sports, Wild Dunes has partnered with Nike to host multi-day pickleball camps, where guests receive morning clinics and interactive round-robins led by resort pros.A dedicated internal pickleball association also provides a structured community for resort members. These additions build upon an already world-class tennis ecosystem that features high-level daily instruction, regional league pre-season retreat clinics for visiting clubs, and a thriving year-round junior tennis development program for local talent.
“We’ve always had solid tennis programming,’’ Minton said. “We’ll get a lot of people who come to the resort, who may be members at clubs in Charlotte, Atlanta or Greeneville. And before their league season starts, they come down and do a weekend of tennis clinics and round robins here. We’ve continued to grow those.”
For those more interested in water activities, the nearby Isle of Palms Marina serves as the gateway to lowcountry aquatic adventures. Visitors can take advantage of kayak and paddleboard rentals for quiet, self-guided exploration through local tidal creeks. The marina also offers guided ecotours to Capers Island, where captains pull up live crab traps – explaining local marine biology like male and female blue crabs or stone crabs – en route to the undeveloped nature preserve. Guests can also embark on dolphin sunset cruises to watch local bottlenose dolphins against the setting sun, or set out on casual, scenic inshore fishing trips along internal creeks to catch redfish, trout, and flounder.
Active days are supported by well-rounded fitness facilities and targeted recovery programs. Wild Dunes features two Life Fitness gyms – one on the second floor of the Sweetgrass Inn and a second expanded facility by the Links clubhouse. Group fitness options are equally varied, offering scheduled yoga, aerobics, and water aerobics sessions.
For post-workout recovery, the resort spa offers infrared saunas, zero-gravity chairs, plunge pools, and cold plunge facilities. A flexible day-pass access option allows sports enthusiasts to utilize these state-of-the-art recovery amenities without needing to book a full-length massage treatment.
For all of those amenities, however, golf continues to be the main drawing card. Combined this year, Minton said, the Links and Harbor course will play 76,000 rounds.
“Certain times a year there is a little bit more room to do more,’’ Minton said. “But keeping for a pleasurable experience and a reasonable pace of play, 76,000 is a solid number.’’
And while the Links Course, with its seasonside finishing holes still receives most of the notoriety among players and golf buddy groups, the Harbor Course has gained in popularity and attention since it reopened in November 2025 from a renovation project that rebuilt and expanded each of the 18 greens complexes and tee boxes and reshaped and moved many bunkers to beter accommodate today’s players. In addition, playing areas were expanded on multiple holes to enhance shot values and strategy.
The Fazio design team also elevated holes 9, 10 and 11, each of which along the Intracoastal, by five feet to keep serious King Tides from impacting play.
The Harbor Course has been named the South Carolina Golf Course Owners’ Association’s Course of the Year for 2026.
“So much – and so many valuable contributors – went into the redevelopment of the Harbor and to see, every day, how golfers respond to the quality, conditions and overall playing experience of the course is extremely gratifying,’’ Minton said. “To have the industry take notice and shine a light on what a distinctive and special course this is, and what it means to the community, says so much about our ownership’s commitment to making Wild Dunes an extraordinary resort destination for generations to come.”
Feature Photo: Harbor Course (Wild Dunes Resort)