Kiawah Island Golf Resort – The Ocean Course

One of Pete Dye’s most superb designs, this course received worldwide attention when it hosted the 1991 Ryder Cup Matches and the 1997 World Cup of Golf. Golf Digest named it “America’s Toughest Resort Course” and the third best overall resort course in the nation. The Ocean Course has 10 holes that play directly along the beach, more than any other golf course in the Northern Hemisphere, and covers more than two miles of oceanfront dunes. Sandy waste areas everywhere and near-constant wind can wreck the best round, but it’s worth the pain, especially since a 2002 redesign by Dye repositioned the 18th green against the shore, making the final hole truly memorable.

Best Hole: No. 17, a 197-yard par-3 with a wide, shallow, bulkheaded green guarded in front by a lagoon and a pair of pot bunkers on the left, plus dunes behind the green.