Like most par 4s at Coosaw Creek, what the 9th lacks in length -- it is just 358 yards from the back tees -- it makes up for in challenge, especially off the tee.

Coosaw Creek, North Charleston, SC

    The semi-private Coosaw Creek is an excellent course for those of us who don't hit the ball as far as we used to but can still manage our way around 18 challenging holes.  In other words, if you drive the ball no more than 230, you can play from the tips with the longer hitters and still feel you have a chance to put up a competitive score.  The big boys, on the other hand, might find themselves grabbing for three and five woods on some of the par 4s and 5s.
    Coosaw Creek plays to a reasonable 6,593 yards from the tips with a rating of 72.7 and slope of 140.  The slope rating gives you a fair idea of how tough the Arthur Hills track can be if you don't follow a simple game plan - middle of fairways, middle of greens.  The sloping greens provide many dicey pin positions in front of, to the sides of or behind undulations.  Although the greens were fast, I left more putts short than long.
    The golf course winds its way through a community of mostly well-tended brick homes about 30 minutes or so from Charleston, SC.  Landscaping in the community is consistently professional, and although virtually all holes are lined with homes, the flora that separated course from backyards was ample enough to provide breathing room.  Coosaw is just 10 minutes from Charleston's main airport and on a hot but calm day, we seemed to be directly in the path of takeoffs.  Those looking for nothing louder than the chirps of crickets might not be comfortable living at Coosaw, but having lived near or in cities all my life, it didn't bother me.
    The sound of a big old jet airliner might be a small price to pay for a facility as well tended as Coosaw Creek.  The course was in very nice condition, the fairways well clipped and the greens quite slick and smooth.  The clubhouse is of modest size but with the requisite modern accoutrements -- locker room with polished wood and brass storage lockers, as well as dining and bar areas that were sleek and comfortable.  Service in the food facility and the pro shop was professional and friendly.  The practice range, which is barely long enough to contain 275 yard drives, is a short ride from the clubhouse with enough stations to accommodate everyone on a busy day (which this was not).  The nice, but modest-sized, putting green is just behind the clubhouse, a short drive from the 1st and 10th tee boxes.

    It was a great Open Championship that ended with Padraig Harrington besting Sergio Garcia in four extra holes.  The golf course won today, as did the game itself when it demonstrated, as it has so many times before, that course management is as important as striking the ball.  There was no better example than Andres Romero, the Argentine who looked for all the world as the winner with just two holes to go, before deciding that a good lash at the ball with a 2-iron from a horrible lie under excruciating pressure was a better alternative than taking his medicine, pitching out to the fairway, and hoping to make par, or bogey at worst.  He must have missed the endless van de Velde videos.
    Still, it was all great stuff...except for the U.S. television coverage.  Golf is not the most exciting game to watch on the tube, no matter how much those of us who play the game appreciate the artistry of those who do it for a living.  Golf is played on a large natural canvas that even a 60-inch high def screen has trouble capturing.  But the answer is not to pump up the volume on the personalities and ignore the play.  Tiger Woods started at a deficit today, yet as it became clear to everyone that he was slipping farther away and that this would not be his day, ABC's producers burdened us with meaningless Tiger shots time and again.  Meanwhile, it was clear to everyone on the course, and those of us watching the scoreboard on TV, that the veteran Harrington, four strokes clear of Woods, was inching up the leader board and was way more important to the drama.  ABC's Tiger worship reached its crescendo when he was midway through the back nine and eight strokes behind the leader (Romero, who was in the gorse) with eight excellent players to climb over, and one of the ABC announcers started playing what-if to make us idiots think Tiger was still in it.  Yikes!
    I have a suggestion for ABC.  Paul Azinger has little to do in the anchor's booth, stuck uncomfortably between the savvy and clever Nick Faldo and the smarmy and aimless air-filler Mike Tirico, who is still trying to figure out the nuances of the game.  Our advice is to send Azinger to the producer's tent and have him direct coverage out on the course.  He would have smelled on the front nine that Tiger was dead and Harrington had game.  More Harrington would have given us all a greater appreciation of just what it takes to win a major (not lose one).  There was plenty of drama at the end of today's tournament, but ABC robbed it of much of the build-up. 

    It's getting to the point that we almost wish Tiger would miss a cut every now and then in a major.  Every interview with him post loss follows the same pattern of inane questions and patient responses.  Next year, we might just head to Europe in July so that we can watch the BBC coverage.  It has to be better, although we invite our British readers to report on the Beeb's own handling of Tigermania in the comments area below.

At 224 from the tips, the 11th at Coosaw Creek requires length and accuracy. 

    I am a big fan of Arthur Hills' designed courses.  Everyone of the half dozen or so that I have played stress course management skills.  On a Hills course, it is always best to be on the proper side of the fairway before approaching his sloped greens.  Rarely is it a good thing to be anywhere but below the hole on the greens.
    I was looking forward to a round yesterday at his Coosaw Creek course, a semi-private layout set inside the gated community of the same name in Summerville, SC. The course plays just 6,500 yards from the tips, but the slope is a robust 140, with a course rating of 72.7.  Despite some bad swings that left me in impossible positions (some of them wet ones), I thought Coosaw a wonderful design.  I probably should have saved the back tees, though, for a slightly cooler day; temperatures reached the high 90s with no breeze, making me hot under the collar and just about everywhere else.
Coosaw Creek is just 10 minutes from Charleston International Airport and close to I-26, which runs between Charleston and Columbia, SC.  Look for a review of Coosaw Creek in the next few days in this space, and a more extended consideration of the course and the community in HomeOnTheCourse, our bi-monthly newsletter.