Oak Point Golf Course (Johns Island, SC)

Oak Point is a Clyde Johnston course on Johns Island just outside the Kiawah Island resort entrance. It was an affordable alternative to the expensive resort courses back when I played it. Then in 1997, Kiawah decided to buy their competition and Oak Point became one of theirs. This meant affordable was no longer in the vocabulary and compared to the other courses, the value was no longer there.

 In 2004, they did some renovation work by eliminating the  third hole, lengthening the first into a par five, and making a new ninth hole, a par three. This apparently gave the golf magazines an opportunity to give Kiawah a best new resort course award. Talk about ridiculous! 

Clyde Johnston is well known golf architect whose work is mostly limited to southeastern part of the country. He's designed some pretty solid golf courses, but I don't think Oak Point would be high on his list of courses to see. It's a decent course with nice views of the intercostal waterway.

Looking at my notes, the course has large greens. It does get windy here and that makes it more playable. Water is play on seventeen holes. It tends to be on the sides and in some awkward places so local knowledge is plus on where to miss it. This is especially true on the par fives. The only hole that I wrote was super was the eighteenth. 

It plays along the waterway with the water cutting into the hole twice. Off the tee, the player either lays up to it or tries to carry it. Then on the approach, it's well short of the green, but it does protect the right side, especially the rear pin locations that are squeezed by the stand traps on the left. Too bad there aren't more holes like this!! Just a 4 (above average) rating. No one drives to Kiawah to play here.