The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, the toughest golf course in the United States
Every year, different magazines, media agencies and golfing bodies announce the list of the toughest golf courses around the world. The more a course is torturous and taunting, the higher rating it will get.
Pete Dye, who tortured his opponents throughout his career as a player, is now a golf-course architect and is known for designing some of the most difficult golf courses around the world.
The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island is also one of his creations, which got listed as the most difficult course in different magazines and journals at different times.
It has recently become the fourth golf course in the world to host each of the four major championships after it staged the 2012 PGA Championship. It also hosted the Senior PGA Championship in 2007 and the Ryder Cup in 1991.
Wind is always a serious topic among the players who visit the venue to play golf. The uncertainty sometimes forces the players to bring up to 8-club difference while moving from one hole to another.
Moreover, it has the most number of seaside holes than any other golf course located in the Northern hemisphere.
According to the original design, they were planned to sit behind the dunes. However, the design was later modified after Dye’s wife gave a suggestion of raising the entire golf course in order to give a beautiful view of the Atlantic Ocean from each of
the tee box on the course.
It certainly did improve the overall view of the course. Yet, it also increased the difficulty level and made it more demanding for the players to reach the par mark each time they play a round.
In 1991, when Ryder Cup was held at the venue, the best players in the field such as Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Colin Montgomerie and Fred Couples won some of the holes even with a double bogey on their scorecards.
That was the time when the Ocean Course started receiving high ratings as being one of the toughest golf courses around the world.
A time came when the prestigious Golf Digest rated it as number one in its list of America's 50 toughest resort golf courses in 2007.
“No surprise to me the Ocean course at Kiawah Island was ranked the hardest course in the U.S. by Golf Digest," National Golf Editor Tim McDonald wrote in a blog for TravelGolf.com.
"I've played the course. First, it sneered at me as I strode up to the first tee. It landed a few early jabs, toying with me, then began to work effectively to the body, taking its time”.
Apart from it toughness, it was also ranked among the top-10 public courses in the United States. These honours did play an important role in bringing some of the biggest golf events to the region, ranging from world golf championships to world cups.
According to the course Superintendant Jeff Stone, the course keeps on reshaping itself each year, making things difficult for the players to maintain accuracy.
“This course changes every day,” Stone said prior to the start of this year’s PGA Championship. “Today, you’ve got wind blowing and sand moving. When I first got here, Pete told me, ‘This course walks. It moves.’ And he’s exactly right”.
He told that the sand moves from its original position after the wind blows at the course. As a result, new dunes are created and fairway shapes are also changed by the time.
By and large, players must have a high level of patience in order to get a commanding position in any of the tournaments they play.
Otherwise, the Ocean Course always waits for the players to make the tiniest of mistakes, which are later turned into miseries because of the course conditions.
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