If you drove down Retreat Avenue this summer, past the Avenue of the Oaks and the roundabout where Frederica Road meets Kings Way, you noticed the fencing. Construction equipment sat where fairways used to be. For most of the season, the Seaside Course at Sea Island Golf Club, the one that hosts a PGA TOUR event every November, was simply gone. No cart paths, no flags, no golfers.
Most people who noticed assumed it was routine. Courses close for maintenance all the time, aerification, drainage work, the occasional new bunker. What actually happened at Seaside this year was bigger than that, and the timing tells you something about how tightly Sea Island runs its golf calendar heading into a milestone year.
What Was Actually Behind The Fence
Seaside closed on May 1, 2026, and is scheduled to stay closed through October 18. Five and a half months is a long stretch for a single course to sit dark, even at a club that operates two other 18-hole layouts. According to Sea Island's own golf information page, the closure covered a full restoration led by Love Golf Design and built by MacCurrach Golf Course Construction, timed to coincide with Seaside's approaching 25th anniversary as a Tom Fazio design. The stated goal was to preserve the course's original character while introducing enhancements, language that leaves the specifics open but confirms this was a rebuild, not a touch-up.
The timing matters because Seaside doesn't get to rest quietly after a project like this. It's one of two courses, alongside Plantation, that hosts the RSM Classic, the PGA TOUR's annual stop in the Golden Isles and the last official event on the TOUR calendar before the winter break. That tournament returns to Sea Island Golf Club November 16 through 22, 2026.
Do the math and the runway is short. Members and residents will get roughly four weeks of play on a freshly restored course before the world's best golfers walk the same fairways on national television.
Three Builders, Ninety-Seven Years
Seaside has only really changed hands a few times since it opened, and each version tells you something about how the club thinks about its own history.
| Era | Who Built It | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Original design | Harry S. Colt and Charles Alison | 1929 |
| Full redesign | Tom Fazio | 2001 |
| Restoration | Love Golf Design, built by MacCurrach | 2026 |
Fazio's version is the one most current members grew up playing. He tied the original Seaside nine to the old Marshside course, merging two separate identities into a single layout. Davis Love III, the tournament's longtime host and a Sea Island touring professional, once described the result as turning "18 holes that didn't match into 18 matchless holes." That quote is now a quarter century old, which is exactly why 2026 was chosen for the next chapter. A course due for its 25th anniversary either gets left alone or gets a serious look. Sea Island chose the latter.
The Four-Week Window
Here's the part that actually changes something for people who live here rather than visit here: the sequence is backwards from what usually happens at a TOUR venue.
Normally a host course gets restored, the TOUR arrives to christen it in front of cameras, and members spend the following season learning what changed by watching how the pros played it. At Seaside this year, that order flips. The course is scheduled to reopen to members on October 18, a little more than four weeks before the TOUR arrives. Anyone who plays Sea Island Golf Club in that window will get the first real look at the restoration, the first read on how the new work drains, how the restored bunkering plays into the wind, before a single professional tees off.
This isn't an isolated move either. Plantation, Seaside's tournament partner, went through its own reworking in recent seasons under Davis Love and his brother Mark, who reintroduced some of that course's earlier character. Two host courses getting the same kind of attention in the same stretch of years suggests a club deliberately sharpening its two biggest assets ahead of a run of anniversary golf, rather than reacting to wear and tear one course at a time.
For a resident, the practical takeaway is simple. If you've been waiting to see what changed at Seaside, the window opens in mid-October, not after the tournament, when tee sheets tighten and the course settles into its next quarter century of normal wear.
What Actually Changes For Residents This Fall
Tournament week brings its own set of adjustments, and they're worth knowing before mid-November arrives.
The course and tournament grounds close entirely on the Monday and Tuesday of tournament week, this year November 16 and 17, for final setup. Wednesday, November 18, is the Pro-Am, and it's free to attend, with gates opening at 7 a.m. Regular tournament play runs Thursday through Sunday, November 19 through 22.
Parking during the tournament isn't at the golf club itself. Patron parking sits at St. Simons Island Airport off Skylane Road, with continuous shuttle service running from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. If you live near Skylane Road or use that stretch of the island regularly, expect more traffic and shuttle activity than usual for that one week.
A quick reference for anyone planning around it:
- Course closed for restoration: May 1 to October 18, 2026
- Scheduled to reopen to members: October 18, 2026
- RSM Classic tournament week: November 16 to 22, 2026
- Course closed for setup: Monday and Tuesday, November 16 and 17
- Pro-Am, free admission: Wednesday, November 18
- Tournament rounds: Thursday through Sunday, November 19 to 22
- Patron parking: St. Simons Island Airport, off Skylane Road, with continuous shuttle service
One more detail worth knowing if you're newer to the island: Sea Island Golf Club sits on Retreat Avenue, on St. Simons Island, not on Sea Island proper. The club carries the Sea Island name because it's part of the Sea Island Resort family, but the actual address is off the roundabout where Frederica Road meets Kings Way. It's a small piece of local geography that trips up plenty of newcomers and occasionally a delivery driver or two.
A Course Worth The Wait
Five and a half months is a long time to lose a golf course, especially one that anchors so much of the island's fall calendar. But the closure isn't idle downtime. It's a deliberate bet that Seaside's next 25 years should start with residents playing it first, before the cameras arrive and before a PGA TOUR winner adds his name to a leaderboard on a course that, for a few weeks this fall, will belong first to the people who actually live here.
If watching the fall calendar fill back in has you thinking about what it would actually take to call this island home, whether that's a cottage near Retreat Avenue or something further down the coast, Ganten Kirby offers a complimentary home valuation as a no-pressure place to start.
