The Sea Island resort continues to credit famed British golf architect H.S. Colt for its Seaside design, but in truth it was never purely Colt's design. It was the work of Colt's partner, Charles Alison, who traveled to the U.S. and beyond in the 1920s and 30s while Colt remained in England. But the Seaside Course isn't even Alison's anymore--it is purely Tom Fazio, who incorporated Alison's original Seaside nine (today's 10-18) along with a nine (the Marshland Nine) designed in 1974 by Joe Lee, to create a totally new 18- hole course. But in keeping with the resort’s heritage, Fazio styled his new course in the design fashion of Alison, with big clamshell bunkers, smallish putting surfaces and exposed sand dunes off most of the windswept fairways. The Seaside Course has hosted numerous USGA championships and has been a mainstay of the PGA Tour’s early season roster.

Early in his design career, Jack Nicklaus said he would design resort courses differently than championship ones. Great Waters is a vivid example of that intent. With a routing that features 10 holes on Lake Oconee, Jack and his associate Jim Lipe worked hard to vary the encounters with water. On one hole it's a carry off a tee, on another, it's beside a green, while on a couple, it's a cove in front of a green. Every encounter features a generous bailout option. Another concession to resort golfers: The greens are big but simple, with few complex contours.

This course, formerly known as Canyon Ridge, opened in 2005 to regional acclaim in large part due to several holes that crept out to the edge of Lookout Mountain in northwest Georgia, peering down to a valley floor several hundred feet below. Other parts of the design were less successful. New owners rechristened the club McLemore and brought in Rees Jones and Georgia native Bill Bergin to remodel the course. Those soaring views were opened up even further, revisions were made to the bunkers and greens, and a new 18th hole was built on a previously inaccessible ledge of land farther out over the precipice of the mountain. Golf Digest deemed that hole, a breathtaking par 4 that rides the clifftop and seems to levitate above McLemore Cove, one of the best 18 holes built in the U.S. since 2000. Part of a gated community, McLemore offers attractive overnight packages, and a new 245-room hotel and resort will soon be added to the collection. —Derek Duncan

Sea Island’s golf courses have a long and rather convoluted history covering nearly 100 years of expansion, reconfiguration and renovations. Through it all, the historic Seaside has been the one that people schedule their visits around, full of holes that skirt Saint Simons Sound, the intracoastal marshes and sandy dunes refurbished by Tom Fazio in the late 1990s. The Plantation course, which started as a combination of one nine designed by Walter Travis in the 1920s and another from Dick Wilson in 1960, and synthesized together by Rees Jones in the 1990s, has typically played second fiddle. Not so much now. Keying on the original forms and concepts laid out by Travis, the Sea Island-based team of Mark and Davis Love III, along with lead architect Scot Sherman, stripped Plantation in 2019 and rebuilt it as a homage to early Golden Age design with deep coffin bunkers and squared-off plateau greens. The staggered bunkers eat into the broad fairways at intervals to set up zig-zag angles and others have been introduced as dastardly centerline hazards, like the Principals Nose feature on the short, drivable 10th that replaces a long bending par 4 in order to make room for a massive putting course near the resort clubhouse. Other holes were broken up and recombined to better fit the property’s small footprint and create more sporting half-par holes. There’s even a touch of Pete Dye in the design in the use of bulkheading, small pot bunkers and S-shaped tee-to-green strategies. Guests will still instinctively gravitate toward Seaside and the long water views, but if they skip over Plantation they’ll miss a course jazzing it up on the opposite side of the architectural spectrum, and one of the more interesting designs in the southeast.

This South Georgia course opened in April 2004 and has hosted a number of Nationwide Tour and Web.com Tour events. The Davis Love III signature design routes neatly around natural quarries, creeks and oak trees, challenging players with unique shot options while providing a serene backdrop for a round of golf.

Ranked 8th for Golf Digest’s Best New Upscale Public Course of 2002, the Oconee course is known for its risk-reward shot options and views of the serene Lake Oconee on five holes. Forced carries over water inlets and opportunities to cut corners on tree-lined doglegs make this Rees Jones design a pleasure to play.

One of the nine-hole courses that makes up The National: The Ridge, Bluff, and Cove. The 1997 Tom Fazio-designed property utilizes the natural contours of the Lake Oconee shores, making no two holes feel the same. Elevated greens, winding creeks and rolling terrain add variety to this course.

Work on Old Toccoa Farm started during the financial crisis. After nine holes originally opened in 2015, Dan Proctor and Dave Axland, a long-time shaper for Bill Coore and Crenshaw, finalized their design in 2020, earning recognition with a top-10 award in Golf Digest’s Best New survey. The course features 300 feet of elevation change and stunning views of the surrounding Chattahoochee and Cherokee Nation Forests.

Originally known as Port Armor Golf Club, this Bob Cupp design opened in 1986, the first golf course on Lake Oconee. Acquired by Reynolds in 2005 and renovated in 2013, the Landing is a Scottish-style resort course set within a naturally wooded landscape.

A Tom Weiskopf and Jay Morrish design, Harbor Club is a serene lakeside layout just an hour from both Augusta and Atlanta. The 15th hole is a Weiskopf special, a short par 4 with a number of obstacles, including sand on each side of the fairway, plus water lurking behind the green to catch long approaches. Winding creeks come into play on many holes, including the all-carry short par-3 17th and the home hole, where water's in play on the tee shot and approach.

Former host of the Georgia Open, this parkland-style course just 40 miles from Atlanta is acclaimed for its bentgrass greens and aggressive bunkering. Designed by Tom Fazio in 1998, The Frog is a certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary for natural wildlife.

This Jim Fazio-designed North Georgia course boasts 378 acres of championship golf surrounded by breathtaking mountain scenery. Frequent elevation changes between holes and a secluded woody feel make for both a tough test of golf and an opportunity to take in the tranquil forest environment.

Fueled by $28 million in donations and naming rights, Bobby Jones Golf Course is a remarkable re-imagination of an exhausted and dangerously tight course in Atlanta. The Bob Cupp design offers a reversible nine-hole course, elite practice facilities, weekly camps and clinics for kids, instruction and clubfittings and a restaurant with striking skyline views.

Built on an island that sits between Savannah and the South Carolina border, Bob Cupp and Sam Snead weaved their design at the Club at Savannah Harbor in between marshlands, native vegetation and tidal wetlands of the Back River. The layout, which boasts a number of short par 4s but tips out over 7,200 yards, hosted the PGA Tour Champions' Liberty Mutual Insurance Legends of Golf Championship for about 10 years.