Hiton Head Flat fact: In the Lowcountry, the country is, well, low

Courtesy of www.islandpacket.com

By JOSH McCANN
jmccann@islandpacket.com
843-706-8145

Published Friday, January 29, 2010

Lowcountry? Perhaps its low country.

Beaufort County and its surroundings are so overwhelmingly flat that most of the highest points are manmade.

County officials say a 2002 survey performed by an airplane using a laser showed mounds as high as 70 feet above sea level. But many of those were related to the building boom then under way.

"A lot of them are piles of dirt," said Dan Morgan, director of the county's Geographic Information Systems. "It's not natural."

The county's loftiest natural locations are probably about 40-feet high, he said.

Some of the lowest elevations recorded in 2002 were also created by humans -- the remains of old mining sites or the result of developers carving out bodies of water, Morgan said.

That's how Berkeley Hall in greater Bluffton manufactured what it claims is the highest point in the county near the 8th hole on its north course. Staff estimate the spot, atop a gully that separates tee from green, might be as high as 70 feet above the fairway's lowest point.

When Tom Fazio was designing the course, he piled up earth -- dug to form a lake -- to create a hill by the back tee, assistant golf professional Loren White said.

"They had to put it somewhere," White said. "There's actually quite a few hills on that golf course."

Fazio designed a rolling layout so the course would be different from others in the area, including its flatter, southern sister, White said. The undulating design provides a welcome change of pace for club members, many of whom moved here from the likes of Ohio or the Northeast.

"It's more like what you would see up there," White said. "It almost makes them feel like they're back home."

A similar story accounts for the highest point on Hilton Head Island, according to staff at the Country Club of Hilton Head.

Near the ladies tees of that club's signature 12th hole, a "silly little plaque" proclaims the highest point on the barrier island, towering 20-some feet above sea level and the nearby Skull Creek.

Tom Briley, a self-described "old retiree who works part-time" in the pro shop, said the claim of either local club doesn't impress him much. "Neither one of them were hills when the Indians were here," Briley said. "They pushed up a lot of dirt so they could brag about having the highest point."

He prefers our topography to that of central Pennsylvania, which he left about nine years ago.

The reason? No awkward uphill or downhill lies.

"It makes the golf courses easier than the ones most of us played up north," he said.

Not having significant hills for miles around impacts other types of athletes, too.

Dave Adams knows something about the problems the area's terrain poses for distance runners. He is athletic director at Bluffton High School, and his son, David, became a state record-holder in cross-country at Hilton Head Island High School.

Bluffton High's teams travel by bus about once a week to traverse area bridges to get the feel of hills, but it's still difficult for athletes here to practice ascending extended grades, Dave said.

As a result, few Lowcountry schools excel at distance running, he said.

Dave compared the challenge Lowcountry runners face to that football players would if they were prohibited from lifting weights. His son only became a rare exception to the rule by substituting work in the weight room and pool and on a stationary bike, Dave said.

"It was always a challenge," he said.

But it's one you can see coming a long way off.

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