Kiawah Island Resort, Seabrook Island Resort, Wild Dunes Resort

I'm walking down the 12th fairway of the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island, S.C., having just scorched one into the canal. And I'm thinking, "Monty shot 22 under here?"

Later, after our group putted out on 18, I set the ball down 6 feet from the hole. "If I make this," I announce, "Europe keeps the cup." Then I sink it, and raise my putter high in the air!

When one plays this fabled Pete Dye course, one should be pardoned for such musings and fantasies. After all, this is where two of the biggest international events in golf have been held, the Ryder and the World Cup matches.

Struggling with the 3-foot high cord and spartina grass, undulating fairways, saltwater lagoons, the ubiquitous waste bunkers (there are no regular bunkers on the course), and the wind, I couldn't help but wonder how Colin Montgomery blistered this track to win individual honors in the '97 World Cup. Sure, they softened it since '91, when bogey was a good score, but 22 under'!

I managed to sink that fantasy putt on 18, but I didn't face the pressure Bernhard Langer felt in '91 when a whole continent was counting on him to make that six footer to end the '91 Ryder Cup, dubbed "The War by the Shore."

To play on a course where such great drama unfolded was a high for me. Which is to say if you get the chance to play it, do so. Despite the ticket price and what you may have heard about course conditions (not true), it is as close as you'll get to a Scottish links this side of the Atlantic. Speaking of the Atlantic, it is right over the dunes and visible from the entire back nine, not the front, as you may have read.

The Ocean Course is classic diabolical Dye, but fair from the correct tees. Dye superimposed a terrific architecture on sand, creating roller coaster fairways (18), elevated greens (14 and 16) and splendid par 3's and par 4 doglegs around and over tidal canals, marshes and ponds (2, 4 and 17). I didn't realize how good the course was until a few days after I played it.

Kiawah Island Golf & Tennis Resort operates The Ocean Course and four other courses including Osprey Point, a good Fazio course opened in the '80s; Turtle Point, a decent Nicklaus signature course; Cougar Point, which Gary Player revamped two years ago and which some locals consider to be the best course on the island; and Oak Point, the latest resort addition, which was done by Clyde Johnstone and which lies just outside the Kiawah gate on a former rice and indigo plantation. All courses are open to the public, but resort guests can get on them less expensively.

Incidentally, a mile before you reach the gate, you'll see on your right Tom Watson's course under construction. This private layout is the second of The River Club's courses, the other being a Fazio which some have labeled one of the best in the state.

Located 21 miles south of Charleston, Kiawah Island, named after the Indian tribe that inhabited it in the 17th Century, is as clean and as abundant with natural beauty as any coastal travel destination in the U.S. It becomes clear after driving from one end of this small barrier island to the other that environmental preservation was paramount in the island's development. Six- and seven-figure homes all but obscured by dense forests of oaks and pines attest to the island's rarified niche in the residential marketplace, prompting one part-time home owner from New York to remark to me, "Kiawah is the Hamptons for Atlanta and Charlotte."

Maybe so, but Kiawah is also a haven for vacationers who prefer a quiet, rustic environment to the busy-ness of the more urbanized holiday destinations. There is one resort here--the Kiawah Island Golf & Tennis Resort, which offers seaside villas and the 150-room Kiawah Island Inn whose main building includes a gift shop, a fine restaurant, meeting rooms and the reception area. The guest rooms, located in adjacent three-story lodges, sit under a canopy of oaks and pines and feature balconies overlooking the pool complex and the beach only yards beyond that. The Cougar Point clubhouse is a two-minute walk from the inn.

The resort caters to families, business groups, as well as golf and tennis outings, and the amenities, beyond golf, include two tennis complexes and miles of clean, paved bike and jogging trails. You can rent bikes or go on nature walks either at your leisure or with groups guided by personnel from the nature center. Because it is so rich in natural features--tidal lagoons, forest, freshwater ponds and marsh--you will see enough wildlife to fill several notebooks.

For reservations at the Kiawah Island Golf & Tennis Resort, call 800-654-2924. 

(Seabrook Island Resort & Wild Dunes Resort)