South Carolina's five highest-ranked publicly accessible courses — every one of them fully bookable, no member sponsorship required. The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island sits atop the list, host of the 1991 Ryder Cup "War by the Shore" and the 2012 and 2021 PGA Championships, with Pete and Alice Dye's design raised so that all eighteen holes catch the Atlantic. Harbour Town Golf Links at Sea Pines, the PGA Tour's annual RBC Heritage venue since 1969, was Pete Dye and Jack Nicklaus's collaboration that launched both architectural careers. Jack Nicklaus's May River at Palmetto Bluff winds through Bluffton's Lowcountry marshland and 300-year-old live oaks. The trail closes with the Pawleys Island pair from the late Mike Strantz: Caledonia Golf & Fish Club, his first solo design, with its iconic live oak entrance and dramatic 18th finishing over water to the clubhouse, and True Blue Golf Club across the road, his fourth signature course, with sweeping waste areas and oversized greens that turn each round into shotmaking theater. The geographic spread, from Kiawah and Hilton Head in the Lowcountry to the Grand Strand sand barrens of Pawleys Island, makes this a true pursuit.