If you have played the back nine at Sanctuary Golf Club any time in the last few years, you have probably noticed something strange near the second tee: a cart path that climbs twenty feet up a man-made ramp to a second tee box perched above the fairway. It looks out of place on a flat lowcountry course laced with pine, palmetto, and the Little Satilla River. It is not an accident, and it is not the work of a golf architecture firm chasing a trend. It came from the same person who decided this stretch of Waverly needed better views of its own holes, because the man who owns the course also happens to have spent forty years selling jalapeno peppers and enchilada sauce.
That man is Steve Dawson, who founded Hatch Chile Co. in 1987 and now owns both Sanctuary Golf Club and its sister course, Heritage Oaks Golf Club, across the county line in Brunswick. If you live inside the gates at Sanctuary Cove, you already know the course looks better than it did a decade ago. What you may not know is who is behind the turnaround, what he has actually spent his money on, and that the golf world outside Waverly has started paying attention in a way that is unusual for a semi-private club this far off the interstate.
From "Left to Die" to a Junior Tour Stop
Long before Dawson owned it, Sanctuary Golf Club had a rough stretch. Golfers who played it in the years after its 2006 opening describe a course that lost its conditioning, a layout designed by Fred Couples and Davis Love III's Love Golf Design that had the bones of something special but none of the upkeep to match. Reviewers who came back after the ownership change describe a different course entirely: fast greens, tighter fairways, and a level of maintenance that has moved it into conversations about the best-conditioned courses in coastal Georgia.
The proof is not just in golfer reviews. In 2026, the Georgia PGA Junior Tour brought its Southeast Junior Open, one of its marquee "MAJOR" events, to Sanctuary Golf Club for a three-day tournament in mid-July. That followed the Southeastern Junior Golf Tour's LC Classic, held on the course in early May. Two ranked junior events in one golf season is not something that happens to a course that is coasting. It happens to a course that has been rebuilt to a standard tour directors are willing to put in front of the state's best young players.
One Owner, Two Courses, Different Personalities
Dawson does not run Sanctuary Golf Club as an isolated project. He also owns Heritage Oaks in Brunswick, and the two courses read like siblings raised with different obsessions.
| Sanctuary Golf Club | Heritage Oaks Golf Club | |
|---|---|---|
| Location | Waverly, GA | Brunswick, GA |
| Designer | Fred Couples / Love Golf Design (2006) | — |
| Length | 7,500 yards | 6,897 yards |
| Signature water feature | Little Satilla River and marsh along the back nine | Intracoastal Waterway, notably the 385-yard 4th and 213-yard 5th |
| Distinct investment | Simulator and Learning Center with indoor hitting bay, five two-bedroom cottages | Elevated artificial tee boxes at the 2nd, 14th, and 18th holes |
Both courses sit on flat lowcountry ground, the kind of terrain that gives golfers very little to look at from a standard tee box. At Heritage Oaks, Dawson's answer was to build up rather than dig down, adding elevated pads that give players a different sightline on three separate holes. At Sanctuary, the bigger investment went into something golfers do off the course as much as on it. He built five two-bedroom cottages within walking distance of the clubhouse, each with a screened porch overlooking the practice facility, and paired them with an indoor simulator and learning center where cottage guests get free tee times on the simulator. It is a package clearly aimed at the kind of golfer who wants to disappear into coastal Georgia for a few weeks in January rather than fly in for a single round.
Why the Cottages Matter More Than They Sound Like They Should
A golf cottage rental is not, on its own, remarkable. What makes it worth noticing is who it is built for. Golden Isles winters draw a steady run of snowbirds and second-home owners looking for exactly the kind of extended, low-key stay these cottages offer, and Dawson built them close enough to the practice green and driving range that a guest can walk out the door with a wedge and a sleeve of balls before breakfast. For residents inside Sanctuary Cove, that means a small but steady stream of visiting golfers who are not looking at real estate, are not part of a wedding party, and are simply here to play a course they heard about from another golfer. It is a quieter kind of foot traffic than a resort brings, and it fits the pace the community has always been built around.
The course itself will mark its 20th anniversary in 2026, having opened under the Love Golf Design and Couples partnership in 2006. Two decades in, it has gone from a course that longtime players describe watching decline, to one hosting the state's top junior golfers on a course built to test them.
What Residents Are Actually Seeing Right Now
If you live in Sanctuary Cove and have not been paying close attention to the club's calendar, here is the texture of what changed in 2026 alone. The course hosted the SJGT LC Classic in early May, then the Southeast Junior Open in mid-July, a designated Major on the Georgia PGA Junior Tour. Both events bring traveling families and coaches through the clubhouse and onto the practice range for multiple days at a time, a different rhythm than the usual weekend member play. If your tee time got harder to book on a Tuesday morning this summer, tournament traffic is a reasonable explanation.
The bigger shift is less visible but more permanent. A course that a decade ago drew comments about neglected conditioning is now being chosen by tournament directors who have dozens of Georgia and Florida courses to pick from. That kind of validation does not come from a marketing budget. It comes from greens that hold up to three straight days of competitive play and a layout that tests golfers instead of just occupying land.
None of this changes the fundamentals that drew people to Sanctuary Cove in the first place: the 1,400 acres along St. Andrews Sound, the day dock on the Little Satilla River, the walking trails winding through the property. What it adds is a golf course with a genuine second act, run by an owner whose day job has nothing to do with golf and whose choices on the property, from elevated tees to a cottage colony to a junior tour calendar, all trace back to the same instinct: build the thing a flat, quiet stretch of coastal Georgia was missing.
If you have questions about what is happening in Sanctuary Cove, whether it is the course, the community, or anything else about calling this stretch of Golden Isles home, Lori Lynn knows this market from the ground up. Let's Connect.
