Kiva Dunes Golf Course, Alabama
Teeing off on the final hole, a par four, at Kiva Dunes Golf Course in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
A recent trip to the northwest corner of Florida with my wife and infant son to see our close friends Luke and Allie yielded an interesting decision. Was it worth it to drive over an hour to leave the Sunshine State behind and check another state off the golf list? Luke and I decided the answer was overwhelmingly a yes, and at six in the morning with thermoses full of coffee and hands full of homemade breakfast sandwiches, we headed west to Alabama. Shoutout to Luke for taking on the task with me.
The Alabama golf scene is best known nationally for its regarded Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. The most notable courses along this route are Grand National, Ross Bridge, and Capitol Hill Judge, though there are many more. Pursell Farms is a beautiful golf course that is the quasi-home of countless YouTube golfers. The private golf sector is not too shabby, either. Shoal Creek Club, located in the suburbs of Birmingham, hosted the 1984 and 1990 PGA Championships, and most recently the 2018 U.S. Women’s Open, and is the state’s premier private club. The brand-new Wicker Point Golf Club, located in the eastern part of Alabama, seems destined to join the ranks at the top. The Country Club of Birmingham’s West course is a one-hundred-year-old Donald Ross classic.
Down south a way, and situated ten miles west of Gulf Shores, Alabama, Kiva Dunes Golf Course is a place with many accolades. For years the Jerry Pate design was featured in Golf Digest’s Top 100 Public list, peaking at fifty-eighth on 2003-04’s rendition. Nearly every online outlet lists the 1995 layout among the best public in the state of Alabama.
The first thing that blows you away about Kiva Dunes is the superb hospitality. The staff met us in the parking lot and immediately made us Minnesotans feel at home. They also found us to be crazy given that the temperature was thirty-six degrees when we hit the first tee. Needless to say, Luke and I were the first two golfers on the course.
Kiva Dunes, perhaps the most unique in the Yellowhammer State, is the sort of golf course that can beat you over the head with lightning fast and undulated greens. Many places rely on exorbitant elevation changes and sweeping views to wow golfers, but Kiva Dunes is less concerned with optics and more involved in making sure you’re challenged. The layout doesn’t appear super difficult from the onset, but there’s way more than meets the eye here. Little contours in the fairway affect the bounce of your golf ball, but not in an overly penal fashion. The greens are perched, none more so than the par-five fifteenth, and the surrounding Bermuda grass provides a stout test. When the rough is thicker, approach and chip shots can get a bit tangly.
I played the blue tees, which measured at 6505 yards. Given the cold temperatures, the distance felt right. On a warmer day, I would’ve appreciated a combo tee that alternated between the golds and blues.
The par threes represent the absolute best of Kiva Dunes. They are among the top ten best grouping of par threes I’ve ever played. The third is split by a pond and demands precise distance. I learned this the hard way when I knocked my first tee ball into a westerly wind that never made it past the pond. The eighth is a 155-yard beauty played over a massive sand area, a la Pine Valley. The thirteenth is an uphill 157-yard shot to a massive, undulating green that attempts to filter your ball off the surface toward any number of hazards, including two penal bunkers and a stream that comes into play on four other holes. Seventeen also adds a unique touch, paying homage to the late Pete Dye’s signature use of railroad ties to define a water hazard. My tee ball on Kiva Dunes’ penultimate hole smacked the left side of the green and rolled into the alligator-infested pond for my second water ball of the day. I laughed nervously just a bit when I nearly fell off the six-foot drop looking for my Titleist.
The 412-yard ninth is a spectacular, picturesque par four. The first shot must be played out to the left short of a long, thin water hazard that divides the hole in half. The second can be played safely to the right of the green, but the water looms on the left. Your ball can hit the front of the putting surface and roll to the left and into the pond. The wind had shifted in an easterly fashion by the ninth, and so a six-iron was required for me to make it all the way to the putting surface.
On Kiva Dunes’ property, the blend of seaside greens and blues of visible homes is particularly striking, offering a pleasing contrast that enhances the overall beauty of the layout. Maybe that’s an opinion of a simple Northerner, but the architecture style is so different than what I am used to. One neat feature you won’t often find elsewhere is the camera that continuously records the eighteenth green. Our wives watched us remotely back in Florida as we completed our round and thought the camera was a great touch. Today, on January 22nd, 2025, that same camera is blanketed with a layer of snow, something the area hasn’t seen in over thirty years.
There are a few traits preventing Kiva Dunes from reaching the upper echelon of public golf courses in the United States. First, although you’re surrounded the entire round by the gulf, there are no views of the water. I found this to be a bit bizarre given Kiva Dunes’ prime real estate. Second, a few of the holes, mostly par fours, look and play similarly. It’s easy to get caught up in how good the par threes are when the fours simply don’t match them.
Nevertheless, if you’re in Gulf Shores, Alabama, it’s a no brainer to take on Kiva Dunes. Any direction you drive, you’re at least an hour or two from a superior golf course. I really enjoy teeing it up on tracks that play a lot different than they look online, and Kiva Dunes may as well be the poster child for this brand of golf course. At one hundred dollars in January on the Gulf Coast, it’s Kiva Dunes or bust.