Back
Lion's Paw at Ocean Ridge Plantation
Rating Snapshot
About
Lion's Paw Golf Links is an open, hilly course that treats the golfer to spectacular views of a beautiful creek valley and its adjoining wetlands. A wild and untamed layout, Lion's Paw features deep sugar white sand bunkers and MiniVerde greens.
A stunning 23,000 square foot clubhouse serves both Lion's Paw and Panther's Run golf courses and offers residents and visitors the perfect place to ready themselves for the upcoming challenge on the links. Designed with a safari theme, the clubhouse includes a full-service pro shop, a snack bar and Tamers Restaurant and Lounge, an elegant dining room serving breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Lion's Paw has been described as Willard Byrd's finest work. Part wild, part rustic and quiet, this magnificent course presents a lion's share of adventure and breathtaking scenery.
| Tee | Par | Length | Rating | Slope |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blue | 72 | 7003 yards | 74.0 | 132 |
| White | 72 | 6457 yards | 71.3 | 128 |
| Gold | 72 | 5872 yards | 67.5 | 118 |
| Gold (W) | 72 | 5872 yards | 71.0 | 126 |
| Red (W) | 72 | 5363 yards | 69.0 | 121 |
| Hole | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Out | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | In | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blue M: 73.5/137 | 417 | 517 | 204 | 428 | 415 | 228 | 402 | 520 | 386 | 3517 | 400 | 202 | 383 | 527 | 418 | 445 | 384 | 185 | 542 | 3486 | 7003 |
| White M: 71.0/131 | 387 | 477 | 178 | 385 | 399 | 175 | 364 | 495 | 352 | 3212 | 375 | 188 | 372 | 493 | 396 | 408 | 353 | 154 | 506 | 3245 | 6457 |
| White/Gold M: 69.2/126 | 351 | 477 | 128 | 385 | 366 | 136 | 364 | 495 | 352 | 3054 | 375 | 172 | 322 | 493 | 393 | 382 | 353 | 131 | 506 | 3127 | 6181 |
| Gold M: 67.3/115 W: 72.7/133 | 351 | 433 | 128 | 361 | 366 | 136 | 332 | 478 | 336 | 2921 | 349 | 172 | 322 | 431 | 393 | 382 | 319 | 131 | 457 | 2956 | 5877 |
| Red M: 64.2/108 W: 68.8/124 | 335 | 416 | 108 | 326 | 353 | 125 | 303 | 455 | 305 | 2726 | 307 | 110 | 300 | 413 | 321 | 366 | 286 | 121 | 406 | 2630 | 5356 |
| Handicap | 1 | 15 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 17 | 9 | 13 | 11 | 2 | 8 | 10 | 14 | 4 | 6 | 16 | 18 | 12 | |||
| Par | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 36 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 36 | 72 |
| Handicap (W) | 1 | 15 | 5 | 3 | 7 | 17 | 9 | 13 | 11 | 2 | 18 | 8 | 12 | 10 | 4 | 16 | 6 | 14 |
Hot Deals at Lions Paw
1-4
Course Details
Rentals/Services
Practice/Instruction
Policies
Food & Beverage
Bar, Grill, RestaurantAccolades
-
Golf Advisor: Top 25 Most Improved U.S. Golf Courses (2021 #16)
Reviews
Reviewer Photos
-
Photo submitted by u835220769 on 07/17/2026
-
Photo submitted by u950416169 on 05/16/2026
-
Photo submitted by u950416169 on 05/16/2026
-
Photo submitted by u950416169 on 05/16/2026
-
Photo submitted by logancriss on 04/13/2026
-
Photo submitted by logancriss on 04/13/2026
-
Photo submitted by logancriss on 04/13/2026
-
72 year-old with good swing form! Photo submitted by PKStamm2418 on 01/18/2026
-
Carlos was a great welcoming committee Photo submitted by james9852821 on 10/14/2025
-
Photo submitted by u000007843074 on 06/13/2025
-
Photo submitted by u000007843074 on 06/13/2025
-
Photo submitted by u000007843074 on 06/13/2025
-
Photo submitted by Richard1399167 on 05/16/2021
Nice layout but drought is killing fairways
Enjoy my day on the course. Staff is super friendly and helpful. Greens rolled nice. Fairways are gone do to drought. They were working on traps.
Good layout, fairways suffering from drought
Drought has hurt fairways bad. Greens are in good shape and they are working on bunkers. Enjoyed my round. Staff was super friendly.
Lions Paw Ocean Isle
With little to no rain in the past 3-6 months, the greens were in great condition very soft. The fairways and tee boxes were suffering significantly from the lack of rain.
Overall worth a revisit
The greens were long and fuzzy to handle the drought but in good shape. Many of the ponds were dry. The course was in better shape than some but it varied from hole to hole. Overall a nice course. A bit of a hold up at the beginning. They didn’t put us into carts until time to go so the 30 minutes we got there early weren’t usable at the range.
Greens are coming back nicely!
The course is dry especially since there has been very little r. The greens are coming back nicely though! The staff is very accommodating!
Great course
Played back when it was being developed playing 9 holes on Lions Paw and 9 holes on Panthers Run. Have noticed and wanted to play again every year coming down from Goldsboro and decided it was time. Got paired with a good group of other guys and had an amazing time. It is always good to meet new people.
Awesome deal !
With the weather being hot and dry, the fairways were very dry, which helped my driver distance! The greens are coming back strong! Awesome value!
Lions paw
Overall good experience considering the extreme drought conditions.
Awesome course! Greens were in the process of being repaired.
The course is super fun. I'm going back tomorrow. The greens were in so so shape. Currently being repaired. Looked like a machine had a fluid leak on a couple of greens resulting in dead spots. Management is working hard at restoring the greens to tip top shape.
Nice course
The course overall was in good condition. There greens were very slow, and few greens were in rough shape. Played 18 in just over 4 hours, there was a group of 6 in front of us that didn’t really hold us up. Staff was super friendly and very helpful.
Extremely Dry conditions
The tees, fairways, and rough were void of grass. Around the greens and greens were ok but several greens had large dead spots on them. I understand there has not been a lot of rain lately but the course should be watering and it appears they have given up.
Didn't get to play Lions Paw
Reserved Lions Paw course even after a lot of poor reviews due to green aeration.. upon checking in asked if we still wanted to play this course and informed us the greens are in poor condition. They suggested playing Panthers Run, so we did. I think these CAT courses have seen better days. Front nine of Panthers Run seemed to not have any irrigation system as conditions were extremely dry. Even the weeds, which are plenty were dieing. Back nine was a little better and I saw irrigation sprinkler heads. The bunkers had grass growing in some and the sand is more like dirt with small rocks in it. These courses require some serious $$ invested in them.
Beautiful
Beautiful course. The greens were about a week from being awesome. Staff there have always been super friendly, helpful and funny. One of my all time favorite places to play.
Thank you for the nice Four Star review of Lion's Paw. We appreciate your patronage and feedback. We agree our staff is the best! Be sure to check out the other three big Cat courses. Thanks again!
I do not recommend this course at all at this time. It needs to be shut down..
The conditions of the greens of all the greens were horrible. Evergreen on the course has sections that are burnt out. Looks like it has track marks where somebody had used the cart and kill the grass and if you found a section that had any type of grass it was entirely too long. It was like putting on carpet.. I can’t believe they are still taking people‘s money to play this course the photos I attached were just some of the good greens. There was a lot more that was worse than these.
Thank you for taking the time to review your visit to Lion's Paw. We truly appreciate your patronage and your feedback. We sincerely apologize for the unsatisfactory conditions you described. Our area has been in the grip of a severe drought for the past few months and our course has a very limited water supply that we have had to manage very carefully. We also had an unfortunate mechanical issue on some of the Lion's Paw greens a while back and their recovery has been severely impacted by the extreme drought conditions. It has been our policy for the last several weeks to make all guests aware of the current issue with the Lion's Paw greens and to offer them other options or, if they still choose to play Lion's Paw, to play at a discounted rate. If these options were not offered to you when you made your tee time or checked in, I deeply apologize and ask that you please reach out to me at blong@oceanridge.com and I will work with you any way possible to make amends for this oversight. Thank you again and we hope you will visit us again soon and play one of the other Big Cats courses or try Lion's Paw when the greens are completely healed up, which will be soon if we get some decent rainfall.
Best bang for your buck
This is my second time playing this course.
I'm a rookie and shot low 100's. Depending on beer count.
Course offered challenge with beautiful scenery. So holes were easy to give me enough confidence while keeping me humble! Staff is amazing, friendly and helpful. Can't wait until I move here permanently and make this my go to course!
Thank you for the awesome Five Star review of Lion's Paw. We truly appreciate your patronage and feedback. Our staff is truly amazing and work hard daily to provide a fun and memorable golf experience. Be sure to check out the other three Big Cat courses. Thanks again!
Mother's day
Everything was great with staff and course layout, as always. The reason for a 3 rating is because the greens were absolutely horrible. If the grass wasn't 2-3X longer than it should be, the hard pan circular patterns on all of them might not have been too bad. You had to almost chip a ball from one side of the green to the other because you couldn't putt it hard enough, unless of course you hit a patch of hard pan then it would take off. If they were working on the greens it would have been nice to know before heading out. But no one said a word. There was no one on the course for some reason on a beautiful sunday afternoon, but we were assuming the greens issue was probably it.
Too many options
Every green on course was unputtable. No one mentioned this when checking in. Tee boxes and fairways haven't been watered in a month.
Never tee off when registered because they more worried about when they're leaving so they juggle tee times to fit their schedule and not golfers. Would have been nice to make a few 8ft. birdie putts if greens were decent. Add to list of never play again.
Thank you for taking the time to review your visit to Lion's Paw. We truly appreciate your patronage and your feedback. We deeply apologize for the unsatisfactory conditions you described. Our area has been under extreme drought conditions for the past two and a half months and our course has a very limited water supply to work with. Our only source of water is from the ponds on the course and they are only filled by rain. There is no underground source of supplemental water available on this property. (We have tried to find some, believe me) We also experienced a very unfortunate mechanical issue that impacted several greens on Lion's Paw and the healing of these areas has been hampered greatly by the extreme drought conditions. It has been our policy for the last several weeks to inform all players of this issue when booking and to offer them various options, including switching to one of the other Big Cats courses, which are in much better condition right now. Any guest that chooses to play Lion's Paw at that point has been offered a discounted rate to play. If this was not the case with your group, I sincerely apologize and ask that you reach out to me directly at blong@oceanridge.com and I will work with anyway I can to help make amends for that oversight. We apologize again and hope to hear from you, if your group was not offered these options. Thanks again.
Greens are a mess
The greens are in terrible shape.. Each green had rut marks it looked like some one did donuts on the greens. Absolute worse greens I have ever putted on in my entite life. Absolutely awful!
Thank you for taking the time to review your visit to Lion's Paw. We truly appreciate your patronage and your feedback and we sincerely apologize for the conditions you described in your review. Our area has been under the effects of an extreme drought for the past two and a half months and, unfortunately, our course has a very limited water supply to work with. Our only source of water is from the ponds on the course and they are only filled by rain. There is no underground source of water available on this property. We also experienced a very unfortunate mechanical issue that impacted several greens on Lion's Paw and the healing of these areas has been hampered greatly by the extreme drought conditions. It has been our policy for the last several weeks to inform all players of this issue when booking and to offer them various options, including switching to one of the other Big Cats courses, which are in much better condition right now. Any guest that chooses to play Lion's Paw at that point has been offered a discounted rate to play. If this was not the case with your group, I sincerely apologize and ask that you reach out to me directly at blong@oceanridge.com and I will work with anyway I can to help make amends for that oversight. We apologize again and hope to hear from you, if your group was not offered these options. Thanks again.
Course needs TLC
Almost all of the courses in this area need water. Greens were dry and bumpy
Thank you for taking the time to review Lion's Paw. We do appreciate both your patronage and feedback. The current drought is affecting a lot of local courses in the area. We feel a good rain will improve conditions dramatically and we hope you visit again soon. Thanks again
Talamore Golf Resort Stay & Play Package
Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club Stay & Play Package
Mid Pines Inn & Golf Club Stay & Play Package
Charleston Golf Experience Stay & Play Package
Thank you for taking the time to review your visit to Panther's Run. We truly appreciate your patronage and your feedback. We sincerely apologize you did not catch us at our best on this visit, as the severe drought our area has been under the past several months has made course conditions much more dry and off color than usual for this time of year. With no access to natural water supplies available to us, we are totally dependent on Mother Nature to keep our ponds supplied with water for our irrigation system. There is a chance of rain this week so we are hopeful this drought, which is the worst in 40 years in our area, will break soon and allow course conditions to be restored to a more desired level. We apologize again and hope you will visit us again in the future and see our continued progress.