Kiawah Island Golf Resort - The Ocean Course

Pete Dye designed The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island in 1991 specifically to host the Ryder Cup later that year — the famous "War by the Shore" where the U.S. beat Europe 14.5-13.5 in one of the most-discussed Cup editions ever played. The course sits on a piece of South Carolina Atlantic coastal land that owner Charles Fraser had set aside specifically for the championship venue. Dye routed the eighteen holes along the ocean edge of the island, with ten holes playing directly along the dunes and eight more inland but still exposed to ocean wind. The site's exposure to Atlantic weather is the architectural constant — the course was designed assuming wind and was set up that way for the 1991 Ryder Cup.

The Ocean Course plays around 7,876 yards par 72 from the championship markers, with paspalum turf (a salt-tolerant grass for the oceanside subsoil) and a slope in the upper 150s — at the maximum of what the USGA slope system allows. The course hosted the 2007 Senior PGA, the 2012 PGA Championship (Rory McIlroy won at -13), and the 2021 PGA Championship (Phil Mickelson won at age 50, becoming the oldest major champion in history). The seventeenth — a 221-yard par-3 across a marsh with the ocean visible behind — and the eighteenth, a 487-yard par-4 with the Atlantic on the left for the entire approach, are the routing's most-televised stretch.

The Ocean Course is open to resort guests at premium daily-fee rates. Walking is permitted but the routing's length makes it a difficult walk; most resort rounds use carts with caddies. The pricing puts it among the higher-priced public-access courses in America.

South Carolina low-country climate keeps the Ocean Course playable year-round, with the firmest conditions in October through May. Summer humidity and afternoon thunderstorms compress mid-day rounds through July and August. The Atlantic wind is the constant — the course was designed for wind, and rounds without it play noticeably easier than Dye intended.