JAMES ISLAND — On a sunny Wednesday morning, Charleston’s Municipal Golf Course was busy with mostly retirement-age golfers, all of whom had to cross four dangerous lanes of Maybank Highway to get from the ninth hole to the 10th tee.
“My blood pressure drops 15 points when I get across,” Barry Teagle said after rolling across the busy road in a golf cart.
“It’s death-defying,” said Jim Kelechi, who had crossed minutes earlier. “They need to do something.”
State law requires drivers to stop when someone is in a crosswalk, but golf course patrons say sometimes cars do and sometimes they don’t. That’s the take-your-life-in-your-hands fear golfers riding in carts or crossing on foot face every day at the Muni.
But Charleston County aims to remedy the situation with an $800,000 project to improve safety, which should be done before the end of the year. The state’s gas tax is funding the effort.
Key to the project is installation of a “HAWK” signal, a “high-intensity activated crosswalk” with multiple red flashing lights that can be activated by those who need to cross. It would be the first of its kind in Charleston County.
“It kind of looks like a traffic signal,” said Alex Owsiak, the county’s capital programs manager. “Hopefully it will help golfers to not get hit.”
An example of the type of pedestrian-activated traffic signal Charleston County plans to install on Maybank Highway at a Municipal Golf Course crossing.
Charleston County/Provided
Neither the county nor the golf course were aware of any accidents involving golfers in recent years.
In theory, traffic wouldn’t have to stop more frequently because cars are already required to stop when the crosswalk is in use. But a particular challenge, some golfers said, is that with four lanes of traffic some people stop while others don’t.
“You kind of have to wait until all four lanes are clear,” course Manager Marshall Ormand said. “We’ve been pretty fortunate there hasn’t been anything major.”
The 10th tee sits on the opposite side of Maybank Highway, which golfers must cross to play some of the holes at the Charleston Municipal Golf Course on James Island.
Grace Beahm Alford/Staff
An average of more than 41,000 vehicles travel that stretch of Maybank Highway daily, a number that’s been rising fast due to development on Johns Island. All of the traffic between Johns Island and James Island passes through the golf course.
“The course manager we spoke to last year said there have been some close calls,” said Owsiak.
When the municipal course was created in 1929, the area was lightly populated and traffic was not an issue. Today, the golf course sits on all four sides of a very busy intersection, where Maybank Highway and Riverland Drive meet near the foot of the Paul J. Gelegotis Bridge to Johns Island.
Frank Dudek, working as a course ranger, waits to cross Maybank Highway at the Charleston Municipal Golf Course, Thursday, July 30, 2026, on James Island.
Grace Beahm Alford/Staff
Crossing the highway further down Maybank Highway toward Johns Island was also a hazard years ago. Construction of that taller, four-lane bridge over the Stono River in the early 2000s prompted the city to spend about $2 million to build a tunnel under the road so golfers could safely cross near the foot of the bridge.
“Before they put in the tunnel it was the same thing down there,” said golfer Ken Martin. “People come whizzing down that bridge.”
More than 50,000 rounds of golf are played on the 120-acre course yearly, according to the city. The property was given to Charleston with the stipulation that it would always be a municipal golf course.
The city requested the road safety improvements, which Charleston County needed to approve because counties manage a portion of South Carolina’s gas tax funds.
The project officially began the week of July 27 and includes reworking the entrance and exit to the golf course and sidewalk improvements.
Details of the safety improvements planned at the golf cart crossing on Maybank Highway.
Charleston County/Provided