Ka’anapali is the ultimate spot for sunseekers looking to play golf on island time
By Tony Dear • CG Editor
The northwest corner of Maui and the oval of land with 5,788-foot Pu’u Kukui (the highest point in the West Maui Mountains) at its center is surely one of the most popular winter destinations among Pacific Northwest golfers for whom summer is by now but a distant memory and who face another prolonged stretch of cold rain.
Before Hawaii became the 50th state of the Union in August 1959, the archipelago wasn’t much of a golf destination possessing just a few military nine-holers and a couple of rudimentary 18-hole courses. That began to change in 1960, however, when Robert Trent Jones arrived to build a championship-caliber course at the $40 million Ka’anapali Beach resort being built by development and sugar giants American Factors (Amfac) and the Pioneer Mill Company who together were transforming 800 acres on a 2.5-mile stretch of beach.
Jones was the most sought-after designer in the business at the time and built what he described as a ‘big course’ that extended to a formidable 7,215 yards. Jones felt it was a course from which ‘only true champions will emerge’ — a theory that would be put to the test in 1964 when the Canada Cup was staged there. The forerunner to the World Cup of Golf, the Canada Cup saw two-man teams from 20 nations play four rounds of stroke play in which every player’s medal score counted.
Representing the home team was Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer (actually, the U.S. side wasn’t the only ‘home’ team that week as Hawaii was invited to field a team of its own) — a pretty strong pairing that not surprisingly ran away with the title shooting a team score of 554 — which was 22 under par. The two best players in the world (they also finished first and second in the individual competition) each recording the equivalent of -11 was a fair representation of the course’s demands — scoreable, but far from easy.
It’s fair to say Jones’s prediction that only true champions would emerge was fairly accurate.
In 1976, a second layout was added with 14 holes on the east side of the Honoapi’ilani Highway which begins in Kahului and doesn’t quite make a full circle of the West Maui Mountains. The Jack Snyder-designed/Robin Nelson renovated (2005) Ka’anapali Kai Course is shorter and certainly less demanding than its bigger, older brother, but it’s equally as popular sharing the burden of a combined 90,000 rounds a year — a barely conceivable number given Maui’s population (just over 165,000), and the fact the mainland is over 2,000 miles away.
Managed by Indigo Partners, the original course at Ka’anapali, now called Royal Ka’anapali (the nearby town of Lahaina was capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii between 1820 and 1845) has a number of strong holes, on either side of the highway, perhaps the most notable of which is the 474-yard 5th. It dog-legs left slightly with a couple of large fairway bunkers at the hinge and May’s Beach on the right side of the green, making it a beautiful, but very tricky, approach shot. Some, intimidated by the prospect of a long-iron or hybrid with the beach so near, layup and hope to bump-and-run the ball close, while stronger, more confident players might take on the carry over the left fairway bunker and leave a much shorter approach.
Either way, golfers will be able to see the gorgeous sandy beach and the famous Black Rock when they arrive at the green. Formed by an ancient lava flow that divides the Ka’anapali sand into two, Black Rock (Pu’u Keka’a) is a popular cliff-diving spot where Hawaii’s last chief, King Kahekili, often jumped into the ocean, earning the respect of his people.
The 5th is understandably ranked the No. 1 handicap hole, and a par or better will certainly feel good. But it’s one of those holes where a bogey or worse soon gets forgotten, thanks to the beauty of the setting.
On the neighboring Kai Course, which hosted the Golf Channel’s ladies-only “Big Break Ka’anapali” in 2008, the favorite hole just might be the uphill 7th, which stretches to 395 yards and whose tee shot crosses a rock/tree-filled depression. After a couple of solid shots to the diagonally oriented green protected by a couple of huge bunkers, you are treated to a panoramic view of the Pacific and the neighboring islands (Lanai to the left, Molokai to the right). Scan the deep, blue water for a moment and you might see whales breaching, which certainly will delay your arrival on the 8th tee.
The TifEagle Bermuda greens invariably run fast and true at Ka’anapali. It is the site of one of college golf’s most anticipated tournaments each year. The Royal Course first hosted the Ka’anapali Classic Collegiate Invitational in 2014. Since then, a number of future PGA Tour players — Collin Morikawa, Aaron Wise, Sam Burns, Doc Redman — have appeared. This year’s event took place in October with 20 teams from 17 states. The University of Oklahoma shot an impressive three-round total of -41 811 to beat Clemson by 12. (Gonzaga, the only Washington team in the field, finished 17th at 862).
Finding a good place to stay at Ka’anapali shouldn’t be a problem. There are six major hotels within the resort, along with five luxury villa/condominium properties. Dozens of dining options and activities (zip-lining, parasailing, snorkeling, whale-watching, sailing, canoeing, spa, surfing, etc.), in addition to the golf, make a Ka’anapali vacation a memorable trip. And when the daytime temperature averages 79-81 degrees from January to April, one wonders what could possibly go wrong. Even a double-bogey or two in this paradise will barely register.