Crescent Pointe has hoards of hazards on every hole.

If you’re a fan of Arnold Palmer’s feisty-but-fair golf course designs and want to play one on your Hilton Head golf vacation, drive about 10 minutes to the town of Bluffton where you’ll find Crescent Pointe Golf Club.

Crescent Pointe, which opened in 2000, is the only public course in the immediate Hilton Head area designed by The King and it really doles out the royal treatment with heroic carries, delicate strategy and even some elevation changes.

Water and wetlands are in play on every hole, making this course a study in risk/reward scenarios. Palmer and design partner Ed Seay continually temp you to bypass the safe route and go for glory.

Perhaps the peskiest hazard, however, is the thick pampas grass that borders the wide fairways, making would-be benign approach shots from the rough quite precarious.

On the thrilling, par-three second hole — all over water from the tips — beach-style bunkering, a recurring feature here and in other Palmer courses, adds an aesthetic touch. For sheer grandeur, the par-three 16th hole plays beside a vast tidal marsh.

If you play this Palmer powerhouse, be sure to make use of the GPS-equipped carts to gauge distances to, over and around Crescent Pointe’s ever-present hazards.

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