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Mike Harmon, the only head professional Secession Golf Club has ever had, keeps two words close to his heart.
Old is one.
No is the other.
They are not exactly buzzwords in today’s rapid-fire world but Harmon and the visionaries who created Secession on the soul-soothing tidal banks of the Intracoastal Waterway in the South Carolina lowcountry have always had a clear vision of what they want, understanding the timeline arcs across generations rather than months.
Located in the moss-draped charm of Beaufort, Secession is one of the game’s special places, a spot where the game and the people who play it come together like a fine cabernet, the inherent richness of the experience enhanced by time, place and camaraderie.
The best golf clubs have a distinct understanding of what they are and what they want to be. At Secession, Harmon’s title doesn’t do justice to the role he plays.
Since Tim Moss and Bob Walton founded the club in 1986, Harmon has sold every membership, turning away plenty of prospective members by understanding what they wanted wasn’t what Secession provides.
Secession isn’t about gaudy second homes, a beach club or nightly chef-inspired specials. It’s about golf in a gorgeous setting where mandatory walking is one of two requirements. The other is appreciating what Secession offers.
That’s where Harmon’s touch runs through the place.
“Our model was very simple, it’s understated,” says Harmon, who’s 65 (and no relation to noted instructor Butch Harmon and his two teaching brothers). “Our golf course is superb but that’s not what people remember. They remember the experience. They remember the town of Beaufort and they remember the back porch.”
The back porch at Secession is iconic. Not unlike the way the clubhouse at Shinnecock Hills looks out across the golf course with a mesmerizing view, the porch that frames the Secession clubhouse is a lesson in lowcountry charm. Between the rocking chairs, the cocktails and a view that would inspire the late author Pat Conroy, it’s a big part of what separates Secession.
It’s not just about the golf at Secession. It’s about the feeling it creates.
That is what has guided Harmon through more than 30 years at Secession. Through good times and bad, he has kept the club true to its intentions and set it on a path to achieving the status only a few attain.
That’s where the word old comes in.
“You can’t buy old,” says Harmon, who was a good enough player to qualify for the PGA Tour in 1980. “We’re trying to do something special here and that’s going to take nearly 100 years.
“When we started, I had never played the great places of the world and you have to do that to understand what we were doing. This was a 100-year plan. It could happen in 75 years but to put a club in the class of Pine Valley or Cypress Point or Seminole takes time.”
The golf course was originally laid out by Pete and P.B. Dye but it was ultimately built by Bruce Devlin, who says it’s the only course among the 200 or so he has designed that does not have a prevailing wind, despite its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean.
While the layout may not rival Pine Valley, Secession (named for the nearby house where the Confederate articles of secession were signed) is modeled on what has made Pine Valley what it is. The words and wisdom of longtime Pine Valley president Ernie Ransome have been like gospel to Harmon.
Like Pine Valley, Secession has 750 members. Similar to Pine Valley, only 50 of those members can live within 100 miles of the club. The similarities continue with approximately 17,000 rounds and 10,000 bed nights a year at Secession.
With approximately 200 members from the New York area and another 100 or so from Chicago, most members drop in three or four times a year for two or three days at a time.
“It’s a simply wonderful, comfortable place to come hide for a couple of days,” Harmon says. “It’s 50-50 if they come here to play golf or just to sit on the porch.”
The members know what they’re getting and what they’re not getting. That’s where Harmon invokes the word no.
“Mr. Ransome said the finest word in the English language is one of the shortest – no,” Harmon said. “No sets the parameters of the great clubs. We get asked about club doing brick-oven pizza and sushi and having a 20,000-bottle wine cellar.
“The answer is no. Keep it simple. Once you go down the road and try to elevate, it never stops.”
There is no music on the course at Secession and, if Harmon has his way, there never will be. There are no carts either. Actually, there are two for use in extreme cases and Harmon says it is his goal to make sure Secession never adds a third.
“When you talk about a simple place, walking, throwing your bag on your shoulder and playing till dark, that simplicity attracts traditionalists and they work at their game,” says Harmon, adding that up to two-thirds of the club’s 750 members have been single-digit handicaps. “The members, they get it. They understand it.”
Harmon tells the story of a friend having lunch at the Myopia Hunt Club in Massachusetts. The menu was small with just seven items. “What’s good?” the visitor asked. “Everything,” the waiter said. “The menu hasn’t changed in 65 years.” “Why so few things?” “There is enough to have something different every day,” the guest was told.
At Secession, the menu is one page. Fried grouper sandwiches and burgers are popular, as are grilled oysters.
There could be more but Secession doesn’t want more. Harmon sees to that.
“I’ve used the analogy of a successful business,” Harmon says. “Say you’re making metal parts and you expand, expand, expand. The fatal mistake is buying a steel mill to support the making of that product.
“That’s where the company dies. They don’t know the steel industry. Someone has to say no.”
Secession opened for play in 1991, making it a 28-year-old golf course. It’s still a babe by the standards of classic golf clubs but it’s finding its way.
“I think once you reach 50 it will be hard to change anything,” Harmon says.
He intends to keep it that way.
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