Escape to Kiawah!

There are five world-class golf courses on Kiawah that are open to the public. The courses that are open to our Kiawah guests are Cougar Point, Turtle Point, Osprey Point, and The Ocean Course.  All of Kiawah’s courses are set within the stunning natural beauty of the island.  The original land plan was designed to blend into the setting rather than dominate it.  Using the island’s magnificent setting of rolling sand dunes, expansive saltwater marshes and quiet maritime forests, each course was created as a unique expression of golf’s varied challenges and rewards.  You will often have to shoot over a Great Egret or a Great Blue Heron strolling on the greens as well as alligators sunning themselves along the many lagoons set in the courses.  This close tie to nature has made Kiawah Island and its golf courses stand out in the realm of world-class resorts.

Kiawah's most celebrated layout is Pete Dye's Ocean Course, host of the 1991 Ryder Cup Matches, the 1997 & 2003 World Cup of Golf and the 2007 Senior PGA Championship. The Ocean Course will once again take center stage of the golfing world when it hosts the 2012 PGA Championships.

The Ocean Course is a bona fide masterpiece. With all 18 holes offering panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean, it's likely The Ocean Course would have earned widespread acclaim had no tournament ever been played there. Located at the eastern end of Kiawah Island, The Ocean Course negotiates along 2 3/4 miles of pristine oceanfront property. According to Dye, “There’s no other golf course in the Northern Hemisphere that has as many seaside holes."

Some of the many honors The Ocean Course has received are Number 2 in Travel + Leisure Golf's World's Best Golf Courses; Number 4 in Golf Magazine's Top 100 Courses You Can Play; Number 8 in Golf Digest's America's 100 Greatest Public Courses; Number 10 in Golfweek's Top 100 Resort Courses in America; and Number 20 in Golfweek's Top 100 Modern Courses in America!

Kiawah's Turtle Point offers a combination of length and accuracy. This Jack Nicklaus-design has led to its selection for several important championships including the Carolinas' Amateur, the Carolinas' PGA, the South Carolina Amateur and the 1990 PGA Cup Matches, the club professionals’ version of the Ryder Cup. Opened in 1981, Turtle Point is a low-profile design with fairways and greens settings blended into the existing landscape. Nowhere is this more evident than along a spectacular three-hole stretch woven through rolling sand dunes directly along the Atlantic Ocean. With renovations completed in 2000, Turtle Point was ranked at 4.5 stars by Golf Digest in 2004.

Osprey Point is a Tom Fazio-layout, originally designated a "members only" course, but now it's open to resort play. It, too, has recently gone through a facelift. At Osprey Point, Fazio used a superb natural canvas to create a master-piece in playability and variety. The setting for the course features four large, natural lakes, fingers of salt-water marsh, and dense maritime forests of live oaks, pines, palmettos, and magnolias. Into that backdrop, Fazio blended a par-72 layout that takes advantage of its setting. Ranked in Golf Digest's "America's Top 75 Resort Courses," Osprey Point has grown into one of the favorite courses on the island. Osprey Point was ranked "4 Stars" & "Great Pace of Play" by Golf Digest 2004.

No course on the island, however, has undergone more changes than Cougar Point.  One of the most dramatic vistas on the island is the middle of Cougar Point’s front nine, along the Kiawah River, making this course a very memorable one. Cougar Point is the proud recipient of the 2008 “Golf Course of the Year” awarded by the South Carolina Golf Course Owners Association. Originally named Marsh Point, Cougar Point was redesigned by Gary Player in 1996 and plays 6,875 yards. It features a great blend of short and long par-4s, great risk/reward par-5s and extremely scenic and challenging par-3s.

Click here to learn more about the Kiawah Island Golf Resort's premier golf facilities.

To enhance the nature-course connection, each golf course on Kiawah has undertaken an extensive environmental program, and each has achieved designation as a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary by the Audubon International organization.  The Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary is an award-winning education and certification program that helps golf courses and other facilities protect the environment. To achieve certification, a golf course operated by a business entity must demonstrate that it maintains a high degree of environmental quality in a variety of categories. These include Environmental Planning, Wildlife Habitat Management, Resource Conservation, Waste Management and Outreach and Education.

Kiawah Island Golf Resort has been chosen as one of five winners in the golf club category of the Inaugural Golf Inc Green Awards. The awards competition sponsored by Golf Inc is aimed at recognizing golf courses and companies that have adopted programs and practices designed to promote environmental sustainability and responsible environmental stewardship.