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More than 30 years ago when Pete Dye was shaping the Ocean Course on a sandy spit of South Carolina land on the outer edge of Kiawah Island, a group of us hopped into a Jeep with the designer and allowed him to drive us along the beach and through the dunes where he was building what many consider one of his masterpieces.
The sun was out, the wind was blowing and Dye’s imagination was coming to life amid the scruffy landscape that adjoins the Atlantic Ocean. It was like a dreamscape except the sand and sea oats were real.
As golf course settings go, there are few more dramatic than the Ocean Course, where the Atlantic can be seen from every hole. The Ocean Course is an event in itself and as it hosts its second PGA Championship this week, it is as big a star as Rory McIlroy or Bryson DeChambeau.
On a calm day, the Ocean Course is difficult. If the wind blows – and it tends to do that this time of year there – the Ocean Course can be as punishing as it is provocative.
This is the kind of place the PGA Championship should be played, a big and famous bucket-list course that has a magnetic allure. It may not be a course you’d want to play every day but it’s a place that was built to test the game’s best – and thrill the resort guests.
Major championships are bigger than other events and deserve the biggest stages. The Ocean Course, love it or loathe it, delivers that.
“I think this golf course is possibly the toughest championship course on a day-to-day basis that these players will ever see, especially if the wind blows a little bit,” ESPN analyst Curtis Strange said.
In its own way, it’s like the Stadium Course at Sawgrass, another Pete Dye design that is visually intimidating. The edges are sandy and the Ocean Course asks straightforward questions even if the conditions tend to bend the answers.
Other than the out-and-back routing on both nines and its proximity to the beach, the Ocean Course isn’t linksy. Most of the greens are raised, requiring players to fly the ball in rather than use the ground.
When the PGA of America decided to move the PGA Championship from August to May, it was a masterstroke. It required other scheduling adjustments from the PGA Tour and the result is a better schedule that benefits not just the PGA Championship but also the tour itself.
If the tour schedule is like a big meal, we’re at the entrée portion now, a big fat steak and baked potato that stretches through the summer, a rhythm of big events that eventually will culminate with the Ryder Cup as dessert.
“I think this golf course is possibly the toughest championship course on a day-to-day basis that these players will ever see, especially if the wind blows a little bit."
Curtis Strange
No course in relatively recent memory has made a more dramatic debut than the Ocean Course did with the 1991 Ryder Cup matches, where the antagonistic tone was as intense as the drama. The Ocean Course was instantly famous. It’s different now and that’s probably a good thing.
Initially, the areas immediately off the fairways and around the greens were an almost unplayable collection of sand and scruffy undergrowth that swallowed golf balls. It’s more refined now but the penalty for a big miss is still severe.
It can be conquered, however, as a bushy-haired Rory McIlroy won the PGA Championship there by eight strokes in 2012. He was so far ahead on the final hole that he could lay his head back and allow himself to enjoy the sea breeze blowing across his face.
Here’s a quick and random question:
What do David Lynn, Carl Pettersson, Blake Adams, Jamie Donaldson and Peter Hanson have in common?
They all finished T7 or better in the PGA Championship at the Ocean Course. None will be at Kiawah this time.
Funny how the game works. McIlroy will turn up at the Ocean Course this week with the attention on him again because he just snapped an 18-month winless streak by capturing the Wells Fargo Championship, immediately reinstating him among pre-PGA favorites.
McIlroy isn’t the same player he was in 2012. He won that PGA by eight strokes largely by ripping big, slinging draws off the tee and letting the ball bound down the fairways. Now he’s teaching himself to hit power fades off the tee, an interesting change for a guy considered among the best drivers of his or any generation.
Though he won the Wells Fargo Championship, he hit just 19 fairways (only three on Sunday) which won’t work at the Ocean Course.
To now, this is a year without a defining player or moment. The most impactful image may be that of Hideki Matsuyama’s caddie, Shota Hayafuji, briefly bowing toward the golf course on Augusta National’s 18th green after Matsuyama won the Masters in April. It was both poignant and sweet.
Matsuyama and Justin Thomas (the Players Championship) have won the two biggest events played in 2021. McIlroy, Brooks Koepka and Jordan Spieth have won again, DeChambeau won the Arnold Palmer Invitational by flying his tee shots over what looked like an ocean, Stewart Cink looks young again and Collin Morikawa looks capable of keeping the Wanamaker Trophy he won at Harding Park last year.
Riding along the beach with Pete Dye all those years ago, the Ocean Course had a dream-come-true quality about it. There would be no homesites, just a golf course that felt as big as the ocean beside it.
It was built for moments like this one.
Top: The 18th hole of the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island
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