Dramatic Facelift

The $125 million, beachfront Sanctuary hotel isn't all that's new at Kiawah Island (S.C.) Resort. The Oak Point golf course has re-opened with a new look.

Gone is notorious par-4 third hole that featured a sharp dogleg right requiring an iron off the tee, then a short iron to a green with absolutely no margin for error. To make up the four shots to par that the elimination of the hole caused, the green on No. 1 was pushed back approximately 130 yards, changing the hole from a 402-yard par-4 to a 530-yard par-5 with the green guarded by water on three sides.

Additionally, architect Clyde Johnston built a new 152-yard par-3 ninth hole next to the clubhouse with Haulover Creek as a backdrop.

Kiawah Island Resort has a total of five courses -- the famed Ocean Course, host of the 1991 Ryder Cup Matches, Osprey Point, Turtle Point and Cougar Point. Plans are also underway for a new clubhouse at the world-renowned Ocean Course scheduled to open in early 2007.

Kiawah's Director of Golf and PGA of America President Roger Warren said the changes at Oak Point were part of an ongoing effort to make the resort one of the top golf destinations in the world.

"Since the mid-'90s, renovations of Cougar Point, Osprey Point, The Ocean Course and Turtle Point had been completed along with the construction of some magnificent clubhouses. The results had been dramatic,'' Warren said. "Our work at Oak Point, is just a continuation of this process. We feel that Oak Point now ranks right up there with the top resort courses in the region, comparable to the rest of the Kiawah courses."