Wade Hampton Golf Club

Wade Hampton Golf Club occupies a pair of enclosed valleys at Cashiers, at about 3,650 feet in Jackson County. Local landowner William McKee founded the club in 1986 after planning that began in 1982, and Tom Fazio's course opened in 1987. It has held Golf Digest and Golf World rankings and hosted the 2013 USGA Senior Amateur, where it played 6,842 yards at par 72, the longest venue in that championship's history to that point. The club is named for Wade Hampton III, the South Carolina governor and senator whose family's summer home stood on this land in the nineteenth century. Unlike most mountain courses, the layout has little more than 100 feet of elevation change, with Fazio working creeks, rock and the valley floor into the routing.

This is a golf club first. The clubhouse offers dining and there is lodging for members' guests, but the amenity list is deliberately short compared with the plateau's lake-and-croquet communities. The club is member-owned and private; third-party directories describe membership as by invitation and direct inquiries to the club. Homes sit along the course and on the surrounding slopes, and the club markets its own real estate.