Golf Club Atlas » The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island
I had lunch last week with a friend from Chicago (Greg O.), who has played everywhere, often multiple times. We were comparing the few courses we had seen in this travel-strangled year and the one course we had in common was The Ocean Course at Kiawah. His reaction was telling and sums up this updated profile:
‘I couldn’t believe how much fun I had in April. The last time I was there was a dozen years ago on a rough weather day and it was survival mode. This time, we caught it on a perfect day and all the great shots and holes became self-evident and it was a pure delight to be there. My memory was of a monster but the course is much more multi-dimensional than that.’
His sentiments sum up this profile. Given its origins as the host for the War by the Shore Ryder Cup, some people happily stereotype it as that. That’s not my take and never has been, even after the first Morrissett rounds there two months
prior to the Ryder Cup. Dad, my two brothers and I were enthralled by it from the start - and it just got better and better. And by ‘better’, I mean more playable with added variety. For example, in 1991 if you went just over the 11th green, you could easily end up in a foot print and struggle to avoid taking 4 shots from six yards off the green. Such outcomes and tales are in the dust bin of history but I am not sure people’s perception of the ‘monster’ has changed in proportion to the facts.
Good luck hitting - and holding - the plateau 11th green from 230+ yards. Photo courtesy of the PGA of America.From an architecture point of view, Dye did a couple of very interesting things that perhaps minimalist architects wouldn’t have pursued, at least to the same degree. First, at Alice’s prodding, he built up the fairways, especially holes 10-12, so that the golfer could see the ocean even when playing the holes removed from the ocean. What a great start to what is arguably the finest 9 in the golf-rich Palmetto state. Second, his judicious use of the plateau green is exemplary. Be it on 3 of the par 5s, on the par 3 holes 8 and 14, or on a short par 4 hole like the 3rd, I find all 6 targets to be compelling. Some sniff about wanting more ground game shots but how better to defend a par 5 hole from being mauled by the professionals in two while remaining rewarding for the rest of us to hit in 3 with a wedge? Same for the 3rd, now a drivable par 4 – super infuriating for the professionals who want to strangle a 3 out of the sub 400 yarder yet hitting that $%^& green with a crisply struck wedge is always deeply satisfying, at least to me. Indeed, of my four favorite holes (2, 3, 13 and 14), three feature plateau greens. The one shot 14th can be exasperating for sure, yet of all the shots I played in 2020, a perfectly drawn 5 iron that pierced the wind, hit at the front and released to the lower back left is tops in my memory bank, besting a hole-in-one at a lesser hole. The house-free, coastal setting really does set the table for indelible moments, each and every time you play there.This 2020 updates my 2006 update, which amended the original that was present when GolfClubAtlas.com went live in 1999. I have played it a bunch because who doesn’t love playing beside the ocean, am but a 4 hour drive away and the family that I work for has owned it this century. This update adds the perspective of Brian Curley who helped Dye route the course in 1989. Brian notes,
‘It has the toughest second shot par 5 lay-ups of any course that I have ever seen.' Without doubt, the par 5s will go a long way in determining the winner of next year’s PGA Championship. Like Augusta National, I admire a course with 4 par 5s that create great score variation/suspense. Those 4 greens (i.e. the 2
nd, 7
th, 11
th and 16
th) are effortlessly and undeniably prickly targets, even for Bryson DeChambeau.
On one of his last visits there, Pete Dye ruminated about playing the 12
th hole from the 400 yard tee markers where it would be ‘drivable. ‘ Yikes (!) , yet that is precisely where we now find ourselves. Dye’s vision of the future was spot on. Even though the course is now 30 years old, it holds technology at bay
without ridiculous green speeds and still lures an aging short hitter like me to make an 8 hour roundtrip. For me, that’s great architecture and May can’t get here soon enough.
Best,