True Blue Plantation Golf
Mark Strantz designed the golf course at True Blue after his success at the Caledonia Golf and Fish Club , right down the street in this lovely part of the lowcountry. True Blue opened to great acclaim and it took a while before the owners realized those average golfers, the mid-to-high handicappers, weren't coming back.
"It took us a few years to realize we had made it too tough," said John Springs, the general manager for both True Blue and Caledonia. "(Strantz) really built a tournament golf course. We're in the business of making money and our bottom-line players, those in the 15-handicap range, are our bread and butter. This wasn't a money-making venture for us."
Strantz was called back in to make the golf course more accessible to those players who don't play for paychecks. He, Springs and others went over the course hole-by-hole to see what could be done, which was a lot.
The core of the course was left intact, but quite a few changes — mostly subtle in nature — were made.
They went from bentgrass to TifEagle Bermuda underlaid with poa trivialis on the greens. The bentgrass suffered from the summer heat and, in high traffic areas, the greens were worn, making for tricky putts and frustrated putters.
When they changed the grass, they also flattened some of the undulation in unusable pin placement areas. They made other greens fairer, like the par-3 third hole, which had a tendency to lean away from the tee box and into water; players could hit good shots here and, if they didn't spin it like the pros, could find themselves in the water.
They took out some bunkers that were in the average golfer's landing area off the tee and made other fairways easier to hit, like on No. 8 with its narrow neck squeezed by two ditches on both sides. The ditches were filled.
The overall result was a course that essentially looked unchanged, but in fact was more playable.
"Quite frankly, it's been very successful," Springs said. "The original layout is virtually the same, you'd almost have to be a golf architect to figure out what we did to it. Over the last four or five years, we've managed to really bring True Blue's reputation to where we think it's one of the best in the area. I constantly hear, 'True Blue is my favorite course.'"
Count me among those who have been overheard saying that. In the golf industry, you're supposed to say "challenging" instead of "difficult." In True Blue's case, it's apt. The course manages to test your game constantly while rarely frustrating you with its demands.
Every hole requires thought and either power and precision, and sometimes a combination of both. The owners wanted a course where golfers could shoot their handicap. You can do it here, but it isn't like you can waltz around drinking vodka martinis and expect to do it. The course demands your full attention.
