by Trent Lorcher

Created on: August 11, 2008   Last Updated: August 19, 2008

Why limit yourself to one round of golf when you can hack your way to astronomical scores on 5 different courses. The Kiawah Island Golf Resort offers five championship courses for tourists seeking a complete golf vacation.

Here's a look at each of the five:

Cougar Point
12 Kiawah Beach Dr.
www.kiawahresort.com/golf/cougar-point/

The South Carolina Golf Course Owner's Association rated Cougar Point "golf course of the year," which means you can miss easy putts, chip the ball over the green, and knock iron shots into the woods on a championship caliber course while your friends languish on the muni course back home.

Course designer Gary Player gave it a strategic layout, which means your "wait two seconds at the tee and whack the ball as hard as I can" strategy will land you in the woods and well into triple digits. Built along the Kiawah River, the course's beautiful scenery will make you feel guilty for engaging in a 2.5 minute swearing rampage after knocking back-to-back tee shots into the river.

Turtle Point
12 Kiawah Beach Dr.
www.kiawahresort.com/golf/turtle-point/

Accomplish ed golfers prefer Turtle Point because of its traditional design. Hackers prefer Turtle Point so they can brag about golfing on a course designed by Jack Nicklaus, who created the course to "make the player use his mind ahead of his muscles." Not being very strong, I felt this course suited my game, until I lost my mind on the second hole after slicing three tee shots into a water hazard.

Turtle Point has hosted the Carolina's Amateur , the Carolina's PGA, the South Carolina Amateur, the 1990 PGA Cup Matches, and a skins game between me, my uncle Tim, his son, and some stranger who mysteriously regained his putting stroke on 13 and touched us all up for a couple hundred bucks.

Ocean Course
1000 Ocean Course Dr
www.kiawahresort.com/golf/the-ocean-course/

Frighte n aquatic life with errant tee shots from one of the Ocean Course's 10 seaside holes and 8 others that offer a clear view of the ocean. The course has hosted several world-class tournaments, including the 1991 Ryder Cup, the 1997 World Cup of Golf, the 2007 Senior PGA championship, and will host the 2012 PGA Championship. In other words, go easy on the boasting and don't be the guy everybody makes fun of for hitting from the professional tees even though you're a 42-handicap.

The resort's website brags "no other golf course in the world outside of the United Kingdom is affected as much by the wind." This is reassuring as your approach shot

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