Cougar Point Golf Course, Kiawah Island, South Carolina

We decided early on that this would be a food, wine and experience blog...so this post has nothing to do with food or wine unless you count a very good toasted bagel at the snack shop. But it has to do with golf. This is our first trip to Kiawah Island. We've booked three tee times at courses here on the island. Cougar Point, the course the winds around our rental house (our back deck looks out at the 11th hole close to the green), Osprey Point and Turtle Point.

Yesterday we played Cougar Point...largely considered the most forgiving and fun of the island options. There aren't that many people down here this week being off season. We had already noticed that the course wasn't crowded at all. This proved to be true. We had no pressure from people behind us other than a super fast, long ball hitting duo that played through everyone.

The temperature was balmy in the mid 80s with pretty thick cloud cover up until the 16th hole or so. The course itself is very picturesque with lots of water and views of the Kiawah River and low lands. The rough is an interesting, spongy thick ground cover that can swallow up your ball quickly and make finding it challenging. It's a Gary Player design that plays 6212 yards from the men's standard tees (6875 from the tournament tees and 4776 from the women's). The bunkers are enormous but with soft, fine sand that hitting out of wasn't overly problematic once you got used to the consistency.

Some of the most unique things about this course? Alligators in all the bodies of water. I didn't really believe there could be that many of these ugly, dangerous reptiles but when attempting to look at water's edge for my wayward ball and coming up eye to eye with one...decided that he could just keep that ball and I'd be avoiding anything bigger than a puddle for the rest of the round. There were lots of beautiful birds, squirrels and other wildlife roaming around that along with the Spanish moss hanging off so many of the trees gave the whole thing a rain forest type of look.

We all enjoyed the course very much. Is it worth $211 a person a round? Not sure...would have felt better if it was a hundred less. Rich also didn't like that the course often comes up to and around the island's main road so there is some passing traffic and sounds of cars that break the otherwise perfect silence.

We'd recommend it if the cost doesn't scare you and you're looking for an enjoyable, challenging round.