Leopard's Chase Golf Course

The course

The golf at Leopard's Chase Golf Course

The newest and longest course in this group, Leopard's Chase opened in 2007 as part of Tim Cate's Big Cat family at Sunset Beach. It stretches to 7,155 yards at par 72 with a slope of 142, and the reviews leave no doubt about what that means in practice. Water is the recurring complaint and the defining feature, with one reviewer counting it in play on 17 of the 18 holes and others describing lots of water and sand adding up to a very tough round. The word target golf appears in reviews, which is a fair description of a modern layout that asks for committed, specific shots rather than allowing you to steer the ball around trouble.

Greens are Bermuda and reviewers consistently describe them as fast, which compounds the difficulty. Several players rate it the best conditioned course of their trip from tee to green and the strongest of the Big Cat courses, while noting that the clubhouse is the weakest of the three. Others tell a completely different story, reporting greens with no grass and bunkers that had not been dressed in a long time, and at least one visit was disrupted by a closure related to green work. Practice facilities are limited to a driving range and a putting green, which is thin preparation for a course this demanding.

Across 246 reviews the average is 3.71, a mid table figure that hides a wide spread. There are 158 ratings at four or five stars against 45 at one or two, so most players come away positive, but the unhappy fifth is substantial. Reading the comments, two separate issues drive the low scores: difficulty that some golfers simply did not enjoy, and conditioning that has been inconsistent. Notably, several reviewers who found the course very difficult still said they would play it again, which is the clearest signal that the design itself is respected even when the score is not.