Go to South Carolina for golfing

Go to South Carolina for golfing
June 7, 2009
Susan Fornoff
SFGate

The night before my reunion with the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Golf Resort, I'm lying on my bed, watching lightning bolts illuminate the Cougar Point course below my window and listening to sheets of rain pound fairways that already have received three days of storms off the South Carolina coast.
Images
Marshes, dunes and wild weather conspire to create an inc...(Todd Trumbull / The Chronicle)A view of the third green (upside-down teacup at left) on... View More Images

But I'm thinking about that disaster of a third hole a few months earlier, when I drove my tee shot just where my caddie suggested, then hammered a well-directed approach. The shot went long, over the upside-down teacup of a green. Then over it I went again. Then over it again, until I was etching a snowwoman in the box for my score on a harmless-looking, 268-yard par-4.

It is not the first time I have lain awake at night thinking about that hole, that course, that place. I covered the Masters at Augusta National and the U.S. Open at a variety of famous links, including Pinehurst. And I learned to golf in Northern California, which has such gorgeous seaside courses that it is sometimes impossible to think about packing up clubs for a cross-country flight to play on any other coast.

But I would give up five free rounds at any of them, yes, even at pricier Pebble Beach, to pay to play here just once more. I think of the Ocean Course - familiar to movie lovers as the serene setting for "The Legend of Bagger Vance" - and hear wind roaring around my head, picture grasses waving in the marshes and feel again the elation of accepting the ultimate challenge in golf.

This could well be the One; there's plenty of evidence that there's no course in this country tougher than the Ocean. In fact, when the world's best players staged the Ryder Cup here in 1991, many of them complained that not only was it too tough, it was unfair.
A 'Dye-abolical' course

I'm a bogey golfer, yet I do not agree with the "unfair" label. That might be because architect Pete Dye - whose courses are often described as "Dye-abolical" for good reason - has come back a couple of times to relax the potential penalties on the resort player (my friends and me). He fixed some of the areas around the greens so that we could hit the edges without having to watch the ball then slide off into a pond or a bunker. In 2012, all the big names will return for the PGA Championship and we'll see if this means they'll now set records.

Doubtful. At its longest, the Ocean Course stretches 7,937 yards and has a rating of 79.6. This last number measures what a golfer who typically makes par on every hole for a 72 can be expected to score on an average day, and it's believed to be the highest rating in the world. With that rating and a 155 slope - a number that conveys the difficulty of the course to the average player - the Ocean Course has been named the toughest course in America by Golf Digest.
Pebble Beach much smaller

For the sake of comparison, the iconic Northern California destination, Pebble Beach, measures 6,828 yards at its longest, with a 74.3 rating and 144 slope.

I do like to compare the two courses, no disrespect intended to Pebble, with its unmatchable history and lore; each anchors a luxurious resort. Kiawah resort President Roger Warren calls them "aspirational vacation destinations" - places people dream of going on a honeymoon, a special birthday, an anniversary.

Each also maintains an intimate relationship with its natural surroundings. The Ocean Course even uses shell sand for its cart paths, so they are in play; bridges are wooden, and the eight holes that are not adjacent to the beach were elevated (at the suggestion of Dye's golfing wife, Alice) to access the spectacular ocean views. Cart golf is not permitted until after noon, although carts do transport players to the first tee and from the ninth green to the 10th tee due to some design quirks created by Hurricane Hugo; otherwise, there's very much the feeling of a good walk unspoiled, with a nod to Mr. Twain.

Mansions are not in play, or even noticeable, on the Ocean Course, unlike at swanky Pebble. It costs $495 to play Pebble; the $350 charged in high season (spring and fall) by the Ocean Course includes a caddie, and mine seemed not at all disappointed to be carrying a bag of rental clubs for a female bogey golfer the first time I visited - in fact, he even ran to the clubhouse at the turn to find me a men's driver I could hit straighter - so I made a return date with David Drake this spring.

This time I've got my clubs, but at the range I realize I've got only four golf balls in the bag. I tell David I'll run in at the turn to buy a sleeve - am just hoping I don't need more than that. After 3 inches of rain overnight, I'm figuring I could lose balls in the wet fairways.

And with winds at 15 to 25 mph from the south-southwest, I'm figuring I could lose my composure too.

The course orientation puts half of the holes (the first four and the last five) in one direction and half in the opposite direction. Although there's not a prevailing direction for the wind, there is usually wind - and it could make as much as eight clubs' difference in how a hole is played, one day to the next. Think about it this way: If a four-club wind is behind you today on a par-3 and you need only a pitching wedge, you might need a 2-iron or utility wood to get you to that same green if a four-club wind blows against you tomorrow.

Our wind is two to three clubs behind us on the first four holes. Which makes the fifth through 13th holes grueling.

Not that that makes the other holes sissies. There are four other courses at the resort, and all of them seem gentle and kind by comparison to the Ocean Course.
See you later, alligators

My favorite might be the Osprey Course, where I got my first close-up of some creatures you'll never see at Pebble Beach. I had heard about the gators, of course, and was warned to stay away from them.

Still, I thought it was odd that just next to the 10th tee - my 10th tee, the second-shortest of the five options - sat two statues of alligators. I stepped up and whacked my drive, and then one of the statues nodded in my direction.

Later I was told that no one in South Carolina has ever been killed by an alligator, and that the one time someone on Kiawah was bitten, he reportedly deserved it. So I behaved.

I've played all the other courses except the Jack Nicklaus-designed Turtle Point, and shot 95 on each. Someday, I'm sure I will break 100 on the Ocean Course - a woman we join up with on this day of my second visit has a game like mine and has played there plenty of times but shot in the 90s just once.

"And," she said, "it wasn't a day like this."

This is a day requiring such intense concentration that I don't realize until dinner that I've got a red stripe on my chest. So concerned I was about the impact of the wind, I didn't notice the power of the sun.

And I don't realize until later that the greens and fairways have quickly, completely healed from the 3 inches of overnight rain - because, when I change my shoes, I notice that I do not have a speck of mud on my pants.
Back to No. 3

What I am, however, acutely aware of from hole to hole is that I still have the golf ball I started with. And that I can fall asleep with a new vision of that third hole.

This time, with the wind with us, I take out my 3-wood and put the ball in the area David suggests. So I've got 100 yards to the hole. Not wanting to be long, I use my pitching wedge and fire a shot right at the flag - but short. I take out my putter, roll the ball up to the green and two-putt for a 5.

"Yeah, you don't want to be long on that hole," David says.

That's true, too, on the 132-yard 14th hole, where we've finally, gratefully, put the wind behind us again. I optimistically try to reach the green with an 8-iron. I'm short, but I hit a nice chip that stops near the flag - until the wind grabs it and takes it into a collection area off the green.

I walk away with a 6, feeling a little sorry for myself. For a moment I think, maybe those pros were right and the Ocean Course is unfair after all.

But, nah. I'm sure I will break 100 here someday. And I'm happy to keep trying.
If you go

Kiawah Island, S.C., is a 10-mile-long by about 1-mile-wide strip of carefully stewarded marshland, luxury homes and well-tended golf courses about a 40-minute drive down the coast from downtown Charleston.

Golf

There's no twilight rate at the Ocean Course, no discounted greens fee for early birds, no standby special - although for the summer you can get about $20 off by playing any of the resort's courses after 2 p.m., when it is really hot and muggy in South Carolina. Otherwise, until rates rise Aug. 31, it's $273 ($232 for resort guests). And if you want to take a walking caddie along (ask for David Drake for expert guidance, pleasant company and cheerleading commiserator), a tip of $65 per bag is recommended. Oak Point costs $110 ($88); Turtle Point, Osprey Point and Cougar Point are all $174 ($139). (800) 654-2924; www.kiawahresort.com.