Drive past the roundabout at Frederica Road and Kings Way this month and you'll find one of Sea Island's three championship courses standing empty. Seaside, the Colt and Alison links course that turns 25 as a Tom Fazio design this year, has been closed since May 1 and stays that way until October 18, 2026, while Love Golf Design and MacCurrach Golf Course Construction carry out a restoration meant to honor the original character of the course while sharpening its drainage and bunkering.
If you live in St. Simons Island Club, you've probably already heard about this. What you may not have worked out yet is that the course closed for renovation isn't the one your neighborhood is built around.
Your Home Course Isn't the One Behind the Fence
Island Club, often called Island Club at Retreat, wraps the Retreat course, not Seaside. Retreat is the Davis Love III and Mark Love design that runs through the middle of the neighborhood, past the community pool and the tennis and pickleball courts, and it hasn't missed a single day of play this year. Sea Island's published fee schedule shows Retreat open straight through the summer and into fall with no interruption.
That distinction matters more than it sounds like it should. A lot of the chatter around this closure treats "Sea Island golf" as one undivided thing, as if every resident on the island lost a golf day in May. For Island Club specifically, the course outside your back door is untouched. What changed is the rotation you use when you want a different look, a different set of holes, or a change of pace from Retreat's dramatic slopes and undulating greens.
What Is Actually Happening to Seaside
The restoration is being framed by Sea Island as a 25th-anniversary project, tied to the year Fazio reworked the original 1929 Colt and Alison layout into the modern 18 that plays today. The course closed to the public and to members alike on May 1 and reopens October 18, a stretch of just over five and a half months. Love Golf Design, the firm run by Davis Love III and his brother Mark, is leading the design work, with MacCurrach Golf Course Construction handling the build.
This isn't the first time Sea Island has sent a course under construction in recent years. Plantation went through its own redesign under Love Golf Design starting in December 2019, reshaping greens for drainage and recontouring bunkers while restoring some of the course's older fairway lines. Retreat's last major work came under Davis Love III and Mark Love back in October 2000. Seaside's closure is simply the next course in that sequence to get its turn, and the fact that it's happening in a year the course is marking a quarter century under Fazio's design gives Sea Island a reason to do the work now rather than in five or ten years.
Where the Rotation Actually Shifts
With Seaside closed, anyone in Island Club looking to play something other than Retreat this summer has fewer options inside the gates and a short list outside them.
On property, Plantation is the obvious substitute. It's the older of the two closed-course cousins, first laid out as a nine-hole course by Walter Travis in 1928 and redesigned by Rees Jones in 1998 before Love Golf Design's more recent work. Plantation and Seaside normally share hosting duties for the RSM Classic, so Plantation picking up extra rounds this year isn't a downgrade so much as a shift toward the other tournament-caliber course on the property.
Off property, residents have a few real choices within a short drive:
- King and Prince Golf Course, an 18-hole, par-72 layout on the north end of the island, home to the Hampton Club and recently restored under the direction of Billy Fuller, the former course superintendent at Augusta National.
- Sea Palms Resort, which has its own 18-hole main course and a shorter nine-hole West Course, and which has recently rebuilt and reshaped its bunkers with new white G-angle sand along with fresh native ornamental grass plantings that have changed the look of several holes.
- Frederica Golf Club, a private equity facility on Pikes Bluff Drive, an option for residents who already carry membership or reciprocal access there.
None of these replace Retreat, because Retreat was never the course that closed. They replace the variety Seaside used to provide, and for the next several weeks that variety costs a little more to chase down.
What a Round Actually Costs Right Now
Sea Island's published green fees show how differently Plantation and Retreat are priced this summer, and how sharply both jump once fall arrives.
| Course | June 1–Aug 31, 2026 (18 holes) | Sept 1–Dec 31, 2026 (18 holes) |
|---|---|---|
| Plantation | $260 before 3 p.m. / $220 after 3 p.m. | $335 |
| Retreat | $195 before 3 p.m. / $175 after 3 p.m. | $245 |
Retreat runs roughly $65 cheaper than Plantation at every summer tee time, which is worth knowing if you're an Island Club resident who assumed the two on-property courses were priced the same. Both jump by more than $70 once the calendar flips to September, before Seaside has even reopened. If you've been putting off a Plantation round because Retreat is right outside your door, late summer is the cheaper window to make the trip.
The Timing That Makes This Interesting
Seaside reopens October 18, three and a half weeks before it hosts the PGA TOUR's RSM Classic, scheduled for November 16 through 22, 2026, at Sea Island Golf Club. That means the same course closed all summer for reshaping bunkers and refining drainage will be tournament-ready almost the moment it comes back online, with pros in the field for the TOUR's final event of the fall season walking the same greens that were under construction in August.
For residents, that compresses a lot into a short window this fall. The course reopens, tournament infrastructure goes up on Seaside and Plantation, and within weeks the neighborhood is watching Golf Channel broadcasts filmed on a course some of them can see from their own street. Sea Island has hosted the RSM Classic since 2010, and the tournament has generated tens of millions in charitable giving for the Golden Isles over that run through the Davis Love Foundation. This year, the story on the ground is a little more personal for anyone who lives inside the gates: the course got worked on all summer, and it's back just in time to matter on national television.
Off the Course, Nothing Changed
Whatever inconvenience the closure has caused on the fairways, it hasn't touched clubhouse life. The Davis Love Grill at the Retreat clubhouse has kept its regular hours all season, the community pool and the tennis and pickleball courts have run on their normal summer schedule, and none of the neighborhood's shared amenities have been affected by work happening on a course a mile and a half away. If your relationship with Island Club has more to do with a Friday evening at the grill than a Saturday tee time, this closure has been a non-event.
That's really the point worth sitting with. A five-and-a-half-month closure on one of the most recognized courses in the country sounds like it should reshape daily life for everyone nearby. For Island Club specifically, it reshaped the choices available to people chasing variety, nudged some rounds toward Plantation or off-property options for a few months, and left the actual rhythm of the neighborhood, the course outside your window, the grill, the pool, completely intact.
If you're weighing what that kind of stability is worth when you look at property here, or you're curious how a golf-forward neighborhood like this one holds its value through a season of construction next door, The Listing Pros Team spends as much time watching what happens on these courses as we do watching what happens in the local market. Request a Free Home Valuation whenever you're ready to see what an Island Club home is worth today, restoration season or not.
