In the Studio with Charlie Rymer: Dunes Club Head Pro on Alligator Alley – Plus Two Other Favorites

Charlie Rymer:

Hi and welcome. I am Charlie Rymer along with my pal Dennis Nicholl. He’s the PGA head professional at The Dunes Golf and Beach Club. Dennis is one of the snazziest guys that you’ll ever meet. One of the most fashionable guys. We’re going to talk about the golf course in a minute, but I got to tell you every time I go to Dunes, and I’ve been coming to Dunes since I was probably about seven, eight-years-old, the logo, the merchandising. You have the coolest golf shop that I’ve ever been in anywhere on the planet. I’ve been in a lot of them and I don’t know how you pull it off. You got to have some smart people doing it for you.

Dennis Nicholl:

Yeah, we had a fortunate opportunity to renovate the golf shop back in 2017, going into ’18 and that changed everything because prior to that, we had this typical green carpet, mahogany wood. You could have taken our golf shop and put it in any golf course in the country. Changed it over. We have all coastal colors, ocean tones, laminate flooring, really changed the look of it. The way the flow of the traffic goes through there and it’s been a home run. I mean, our merchandisers just sells off the charts. Obviously the logo with the alligator. Everybody wants the souvenir to take home if it’s a guest that plays. The members obviously do special order and do a lot of club sales and things like that for them. It’s been a great, great thing. Cindy Graham’s our merchandiser, she’s been there 32 years. PGA professional as well. Obviously we do a great job with that and it’s something that people are proud of.

Charlie Rymer:

The Dunes Club, the golf course, the pedigree that you have. When I go through the gate at Dunes Club, it’s almost like you’re in this time bubble and it’s just such a neat place. Big events over the years. I’m sure you guys are interested in having big events in the future. Talk to me a little bit about the pedigree of Dunes Club.

Dennis Nicholl:

Yeah, well, I mean, obviously it started 1948 with Robert Trent Jones and the design and you used that cliche it’s timeless, but it really is. We’ve made a few changes over the years. The tee boxes or the length specifically, some of the holes, but for the most part, the holes are playing the way they did in 1952.

Charlie Rymer:

I love it.

Dennis Nicholl:

It’s great. Rees Jones is Robert Trent Jones’ son and we consult with him anytime we touch the golf course. We want to make sure it’s within keeping of his father’s vision and make sure that the architectural is sound. Any changes to any bunkers or greens or anything that we do.

Dennis Nicholl:

With that in mind, it’s always kind of in the back of our mind, it’s a championship golf course. We need to be able to host the biggest events you could possibly host, or your member guests, we talked about earlier. The golf course itself is challenging, but fair. We have obviously multiple different sets of tees for everybody. The design has elevated greens, we’re at sea level, you have to carry the ball on the green so it is a challenge for some of the higher handicappers, but yet they can’t wait to come back to play the next day. You know it’s a good golf course when it’s like that.

Dennis Nicholl:

Moving forward, we ran through a big series where in 2013 we switched the greens over to Bermuda. In ’14, we had the professional national championship for the PGA. In ’15, we had the South Carolina junior championship. ’16 we had the Southern Am. In 2017 we had the USGA women’s four ball. ’18 we redid the bunkers. We’ve taken a couple years off now to give the course back to the members when you go through kind of a run like that. At some point in a couple, three, four years, we’ll jump back into the game of having some majors there.

Charlie Rymer:

The conditioning at Dunes is always excellent. Top notch. Last time I was out, which was a couple months ago, I noticed the investment that’s gone on in the golf course. The tree management that allows you to get sod in some areas that needed some sod. I’ve got to think in looking that golf course, especially after Rees overseeing the renovation of the bunkers, I’ve got to think as we get into the growing season this summer, the golf course is going to be in the best shape maybe it’s ever been in.

Dennis Nicholl:

Absolutely. Steve Hamilton’s our superintendent. He’s been there since 2001 so 22 years. Does a great job, his whole team. Obviously they’ve been challenged over the years with COVID and getting staffing and things like that. To be able to keep the course the way it is with the challenges I know behind the scenes that he deals with has been phenomenal.

Dennis Nicholl:

We have a greens committee that looks at these things and we have a 10-year plan for tree management. You can’t just let things grow all the time, right? You have to manage them and limb them up. You got to make sure the specimen trees we call them are accentuated and those are a focal point out there so that when you’re standing on a green, you just kind of let your eyes gaze across the property, you catch that tree. That beautiful tree. If a pine tree’s growing up right through the middle of it, you need to try and make some adjustment. Nobody wants to get rid of trees, but you also got to free up some of the space for the grass to grow. Grass doesn’t grow in shade. It doesn’t grow in the wintertime when you don’t get the morning sun.

Dennis Nicholl:

There’s a lot of those issues that a lot of the superintendents around the country have to look at and manage that whole thing. We put a plan in place for 10 years and it’s starting to come to fruition here just early, even the first year or two that we started to work on this. You can really see some of those corridors opening up. You can stand on our sixth green and look and you can see all the way down to the 13th and Lake Singleton. Beautiful panoramic views, so that’s what we’re trying to accomplish.

Charlie Rymer:

Yeah. Sadly, I’m very familiar with your tree management because when I play golf these days, I’m in the trees a lot. I like to be able to swing. Talk to me a little bit about your signature stretch, Alligator Alley. 11, 12, and 13. Walk me quickly through that stretch of holes.

Dennis Nicholl:

Yeah. Well, the famous stretch we call it, Alligator Alley, starts with the par four number 11 and that hole has changed over the years. It used to be kind of a vanilla 320 yard hole straight away and the swash was on your right side, but never really came into play. Well, back in 1992, they changed it. Built a peninsula green out into the swash. Now it’s this beautiful dogleg par four that you come in. We’re actually looking at adding another set of tees that even push you further back into the swash area so that now your entire first shot comes over the swash. Your second one goes back over the swash. It’s a great golf hole. Challenging hole obviously because of the peninsula green, but it’s a great way to start that Alligator Alley.

Dennis Nicholl:

Then you move to a par three, number 12 where again, the swash comes into play where your tee shot carries over the swash to a green that has a backdrop of Lake Singleton behind it. We’ve been able to actually recently clean up a bunch of the brush and trees and really free up that vision again of that lake behind. It’s a really great golf hole.

Dennis Nicholl:

Then our famous par five 13th hole is Waterloo and it’s a horseshoe dogleg all the way around Lake Singleton. Now it plays 640 yards from the tip so it’s a challenging hole, but your first shot lays up short of the lake. Then the second one cuts across the corner. Your third shot into the green. Everyone thinks once they got over the lake, they’ve survived. The game begins from a hundred yards in because we have a two-tiered green, bunkers surrounding it and it’s just difficult. Great hole, Sports Illustrated, top 100 holes in America. It’s very famous. Lee Trevino famously said we should blow it up and build condos on it because he took an eight one year in the Senior Tour Championship. Yeah, it’s just a great stretch of holes. 11, 12, 13. If you can get through there even par, you’ve had a day at the Dunes.

Charlie Rymer:

The thing about 13 is I’ve always had this fascination with alligators. If you hit it close to the water, you better be careful because you got a big boy that lurks around out there.

Dennis Nicholl:

Yeah. We have, 10, 11, 12 have the swash that comes in, well that’s salt water. The alligators don’t typically lay out on those holes. Once you get to 13, they built a dam back in the fifties and that’s which created Lake Singleton which is now a freshwater lake. Yeah, the banks of all on 13, we’ve had upwards of 10 gators out there at one point. We do have one big one now that’s kind of like, you don’t want to go anywhere near him.

Charlie Rymer:

Yeah, and they’re very still. I always love it when you play a golf course in the Lowcountry and you look over there and there’s like 15 golf balls around the alligator because people are like, it’s not real. They think it’s fake. Believe me folks, those alligators you see in the Lowcountry, South Carolina, they are not fake. Dennis, let’s finish up with your favorite hole on the golf course outside of Alligator Alley.

Dennis Nicholl:

Yeah. Well, when you play with the members and the members play every day, obviously Alligator Alley, the marketing holes we call them, that’s what you see on all the, I mean this is number nine behind us. That’s another great golf hole. Those aren’t the ones the members, when you’re in your game against a little 5-5-5 bet you have, there’s certain holes where you have to play well.

Dennis Nicholl:

Number seven comes to mind as the first one on the front line. A little short par four, but a narrow green, very difficult to putt. If you walk away, a foursome might have one par, two bogies, and a double on this little short par four that you think you should make par on every time. That’s a kind of a turning point.

Dennis Nicholl:

Then you get to the back nine and one of my favorites is 16. It’s a really short par four. All the bets are coming down to the end. You need to make a birdie on 16 if you’re going to try and win your match. A lot of guys can try and drive it down short of the green and flip a little wedge and others try and lay back and hit a full shot in, but it’s surrounded by seven bunkers. It’s just a difficult little hole. Two-tiered with a big nose right in the middle of the green. That’s one of the greatest visual holes coming in as you’re finishing your round. Those are the secret ones that you want to play well.

Charlie Rymer:

One more thing, folks watching this, you have a big membership, but it is possible from the outside to get access and play golf at Dunes. How do folks go about doing that?

Dennis Nicholl:

Yeah, obviously we’re a private club. We have 850 members now. We do have a waiting list to get in the club so it’s a great situation to have and members are playing more than ever. Our guest tee times are becoming more and more limited as we go. For example, this year we’re members only on Saturdays. Next year might be Fridays and Saturdays.

Dennis Nicholl:

We do have some open tee times on the other days of the week and if you stay at select hotels that we have, what we used to call member hotels, we call them partner providers now. They can book a tee time for you at The Dunes Club, or if you’re a member of another private club any place else in the country, your head professional can call us. We send them a reciprocal form. They fill it out for a request and we can book those tee times that way. There are a couple ways to play. We just don’t take any walk on play directly from the street.

Charlie Rymer:

Well believe me folks, it’s a little bit of work to get access to the Dunes Club, but it is very much worth it. Dennis Nicholl, PGA head professional, Dunes Golf and Beach Club. As always, great spending time with you Dennis.

Dennis Nicholl:

Thanks Charlie, appreciate it.