If you've been on the Bluff for a while, you already know the rhythm. Golf at May River or Crossroads, lunch at Buffalos or the Canteen, a Wednesday stop at the farmers market if the timing works out. That rhythm hasn't changed much in years. What has changed, quietly and mostly through golf trade press rather than anything posted at the gate, is the map itself.
Palmetto Bluff opened its third golf course this year. What the golf writers haven't spent much time on is that the village meant to surround it doesn't have a restaurant yet, or a market, or anywhere to sit down after a round that isn't a golf cart ride back toward Wilson. For residents, that gap matters more than the course itself.
The Third Village Exists, But Only as a Golf Course
Anson Point opened for play on January 2, 2026, becoming the community's third course after the Jack Nicklaus Signature May River layout from 2005 and the King-Collins reversible nine-hole Crossroads course that opened in 2024. It's an 18-hole Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw design set on 500 acres along the Bluff's southeastern edge, near where the New River bends toward Savannah. Only 80 of those acres are actually maintained turf. The rest stays wild by design, managed by the Palmetto Bluff Conservancy through methods like prescribed burns rather than mowing crews.
That restraint was intentional on the ownership side too. South Street Partners, which has run Palmetto Bluff since 2021, asked Coore and Crenshaw to route the course without a land plan dictating it, meaning no homes line the fairways. It's a golf course first, built to anchor a village rather than sell lots along it.
As of January 2026, the club had a comfort station called The Roost under construction on the ninth hole, targeted for a March 2026 opening, meant to offer a curated food menu, cocktails, and grab-and-go snacks. A temporary clubhouse was expected to follow later in 2026. Beyond that, Anson Village is still what Palmetto Bluff's own materials describe as "the beginning stages." A marina is planned. A second, shorter golf course across River Road from The Farm has been mentioned. Hart Howerton, the architecture firm behind Wilson Village's original design, has been named for Anson's eventual buildout. None of that has a timeline attached yet.
So the honest state of things in August 2026: Anson Point is a real, playable, architecturally significant golf course. Anson Village, the place around it, is mostly still a concept with a comfort station.
What Two Decades of Wilson and Moreland Actually Built
Compare that to what's already standing. Wilson Village, dating to 2003, is the original walkable core: Buffalos, Octagon inside the Montage Inn, the Canoe Club pool, RT's Market, the waterfront chapel. Buffalos just went through a full renovation, new bar and menu, led by Lead Bartender Shelby Ehrenreich, with Chef Rhy Waddington's kitchen sourcing grits from Rollen's Raw Grains less than ten miles away and greens from growers in Hardeeville. That's the kind of detail that only shows up when a place has had years to build actual supplier relationships, not just a menu.
Moreland Village came later. Broker W. Bryan Byrne, in a 2023 interview, described launching it roughly five years earlier, which puts its debut around 2018. It reads differently from Wilson: more contemporary architecture, built around Moreland Landing's five-story treehouse and boat ramp, The Boundary's bowling alley and fitness center, Cole's Lowcountry Tavern, and the Crossroads course a short walk away. Where Wilson feels like a small Southern town, Moreland was built to feel more like a recreational hub.
Here's a rough comparison of what each village center currently offers, since the difference is the whole point:
| Village | Roughly established | Dining anchors | Social anchors | Golf |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wilson | 2003 | Buffalos, Octagon, Buzz café | Canoe Club pool, chapel, RT's Market | May River (2005) |
| Moreland | ~2018 | The Canteen, Flame Food Truck, Cole's Tavern | The Boundary, Moreland Landing treehouse | Crossroads (2024) |
| Anson | 2026 | None yet; The Roost comfort station targeted for spring | None built | Anson Point (opened Jan. 2, 2026) |
That third row is the whole reason this piece exists. A course with real architectural pedigree opened this year, and the village around it is still mostly marsh and a construction schedule.
Why This Actually Changes Your Week, Not Just the Map
If you play Anson Point this fall, you'll finish a round designed by two of the most respected names in golf architecture and then get in a cart and head back toward Wilson or Moreland for lunch, because that's still where lunch is. The farmers market, held on select Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at The Farm on Old Moreland Road, is still the closest thing the community has to a weekly gathering point, and it sits nowhere near Anson.
The Wednesday market at The Farm remains open to the public, curated by Lowcountry Made, with breakfast and lunch service from the Club's own culinary team.
That detail matters if you're trying to figure out where the community's actual center of gravity sits this year. It's not shifting toward Anson yet, even though Anson now has the newest, most talked-about golf course in the Lowcountry. The center of gravity is still firmly split between two villages that have had, respectively, roughly eight and twenty-three years to build out restaurants, markets, and gathering spaces, while the third one is, by the developer's own description, still in its early stages.
That's worth knowing if you're a member deciding whether to build your fall golf routine around the new course. It's also worth knowing if you're simply trying to plan around where the crowds and the construction will be. Anson Point's opening is real news. Anson Village functioning as a place you'd actually spend an afternoon is still a ways off.
What to Watch For Next
The pieces still missing are specific enough to track. A marina has been mentioned for Anson but has no announced date. The second, shorter course near The Farm has been referenced without a construction timeline. A permanent clubhouse at Anson Point is described only as a later phase, following the temporary one expected sometime this year. Until those show up, the practical map of daily life at Palmetto Bluff still runs through Wilson and Moreland, with Anson functioning as a golf outing rather than a destination.
For residents, that's the useful takeaway. The community now technically has three villages. Only two of them currently have somewhere to sit down afterward.
If you're weighing what a shifting village map means for property values in Wilson, Moreland, or the still-forming Anson corridor, that's a conversation worth having with someone who tracks these changes as they happen rather than after the fact. The Agency Hilton Head follows Palmetto Bluff's buildout closely, village by village. Request a Complimentary Market Valuation if you want to talk through what any of this means for your own address on the Bluff.
