BUCKET LIST | KIAWAH ISLAND GOLF
Golf in the Lowcountry Place South Carolina’s Kiawah Island Golf Resort high on your must-play list. BY DALE LEATHERMAN INFO TO GO Kiawah Island Golf Resort is located 21 miles from Charleston, South Carolina, and Charleston International Airport, serving daily nonstop flights from 26 U.S. cities.
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iawah Island offers golfers the opportunity to play five championship courses, each one a unique design from five of the world’s leading architects,” said Brian Gerard, director of golf, Kiawah Island Golf Resort. “Among them is Pete Dye’s internationally renowned masterpiece, The Ocean Course, which features the most seaside holes in North America. The venue for this year’s PGA Championship (May 17–23), it also hosted the famous 1991 Ryder Cup and the 2012 PGA Championship. The resort offers an abundance of diverse accommodations (including The Sanctuary, a Forbes 5-Star beachfront hotel), 10 miles of beach, more than a dozen restaurants and an array of other recreational programs, all of which make Kiawah Island Golf Resort a unique golf destination.” Life moves at a leisurely pace on Kiawah, a balmy Lowcountry barrier island. It would be a travesty to play the resort’s golf courses as a marathon. Instead, treat the experience
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like a five-course dinner, savoring the nuances of each one before moving on to the next.
THE OCEAN COURSE (7,356 yards, par 72, 144/77.3)
With its vast waste areas, wetlands, elevated greens and pot bunkers fringed with shaggy grasses, this is an extraordinary test of golf and a feast for the eyes. As often happened with the Dyes, a suggestion from Alice became a gamechanger. When Pete raised the course level to give every hole an ocean view, the east-west track became exposed to wind off the ocean that often proves penal. Club choices can vary as much as eight clubs, so your caddy quickly becomes your best friend. There are many signature-worthy holes, including the 221-yard, par-3 Hole 17. Water wraps the front and right side of the green, and two pot bunkers guard the left side of the two-tiered target.
