Course's 18th hole set to reopen

ISLE OF PALMS—Want to know how well the controversial Wild Dunes beach renourishment is doing?

Here's a clue: They'll be toasting it with champagne Wednesday.

Members of the Wild Dunes Club will raise their glasses on the tees to the Links golf course's new signature 18th hole, admiring its sweep around the Dewees Inlet point to a rolling elevated green framed by palmettos and ocean dunes.

Then each member will play it once before it opens to the public Friday.

To do that last year, they would have needed snorkels. By spring, erosion of the inlet beach had eaten away half the old green and tourists stomped overhanging chunks of its turf into the frothing surf. The condominiums alongside had waves washing through the carport or into the pool. Vacationers were fleeing and the owners were staving off condemnation.

The course's closing hole is now a wide, Scottish links-style expanse behind mounds of dunes above a supple beach where sunbathers loll.

The beach was renourished last year. It handled its first blast of winter storms well, and the sand fences are building more dunes.

"It's just beautiful out here now," said Paige Rice of Belton as she tanned on a beach chair in a spot where last year she would have had to come up for air.

A $10 million project dredged sand from offshore for a two-and-a-half-mile stretch. It saved the inlet beach, the golf course and at least six condominium complexes, and put to rest nearly a decade of wrangling among property owners and residents that led to a test of wills between property owners and state regulators. Wild Dunes paid $7 million; the public paid the rest.

The fight — whether public money should be used to shore up private property in a gated resort to protect potential tax revenue — is over, for now. But with the volatile shifting and shoaling of the inlet, the beach already appears to be eroding.

Some of that is just perception, said Tim Kana, president of Coastal Science & Engineering, which helped the Isle of Palms win permits for the dredging project last summer. The shifting sands and new dunes are reshaping a narrower beach along the golf course at the inlet. His staff inspected the beach in March after the winter storm season and didn't find significant problems.

"The short answer is yes," he said, the renourishment should last the predicted eight- to 10-year life of the project. The longer answer is touchier. Any large hurricane or storm could dramatically alter the beach, and some spots might erode faster than others. There's no guarantee that property along the stretch will not erode.

That puts the city of Isle of Palms in about the same spot as Folly Beach, where a 2005 renourishment is eroding significantly, particularly on its Lighthouse Inlet end, and renourishment is expected to be needed in six to eight years.

The Isle of Palms put $100,000 in reserve last year from tourism tax money to pay for ongoing work on the project beach and its eventual renourishment; another $50,000 was set aside for work on other stretches of the city's seven miles of beach. That was supposed to be an annual payment. But after revenue shortfalls, there's no money set aside for it in the 2009-10 budget.

"I thought we had to renourish. It was the only acceptable salvation," Mayor Dick Cronin said as he looked over the new 18th green after a round of golf. "The beach is crowded with people; it's worked out very well." Asked about having the money for the next round of dredging, he said, "Each day is a new horizon."

Wild Dunes' lost resort business is returning, said Andressa Chapman, marketing director. City Administrator Linda Lovvorn Tucker said she was told the Wild Dunes resort accommodations were fully booked for the Memorial Day weekend.

The Links course temporarily replaced the 18th hole with a short par 3 and designated what was the 17th as the closing hole. But golfers at the plush resort club kept their eyes on the new fairway as it took shape. One player at the driving range earlier this week impulsively crossed the parking lot to ask a visitor if the 18th was open yet.

"It's unbelievable," said club member Bill Rogers, as he teased golf director Jeff Minton on the 17th about sneaking over to the unopened hole to play.

"It's a big deal for us, for sure," Minton said. "It brings back the award-winning tradition back to the Links course. It's a seascape panorama from tee to green. It's one of those holes where, when people get done playing, they're going to say, 'Wow. That was awesome.' "

Reach Bo Petersen at 937-5744 or bpetersen@postandcourier.com.