Kiawah Island Club (River)

One of two 18-hole layouts at the private Kiawah Island Club (found at separate locations), the River course predates Tom Watson’s Cassique by some five years. It’s a Tom Fazio design that’s situated between Kiawah Island River and Bass Pond where six of the holes play along the water’s edge and the remaining fairways are routed around woodland, lakes and marshes.

In the book The American Private Golf Club Guide, author Daniel Wexler says “there is plenty of interesting golf here [and] the back nine features a particularly strong mid-section led by the 516-yard 13th (a water-bisected double dogleg) before holes run back-and-forth across an open expanse, with both the 14th and 16th affected by stands of live oaks.”

Pick of the holes on the front nine is “Monocle,” the short par four 5th, where a pond lies to the left of the fairway and a couple of flashed bunkers front the green on either side. The back nine ends with “Clock,” a 440-yard par four where the left side of the hole is separated from marshland on the left by a ribbon of waste bunker that runs all along the length of the fairway.