This is the fourth in a series. Prior editions of 2012 Topp’s travels:
January – May River
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,50993.msg1162920.html#msg1162920February – Casa de Campo
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,51226.msg1169379.html#msg1169379March – Stanford
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,51548.msg1179219.html#msg1179219 April means spring break for the Topp household. We have travelled somewhere warm every spring break since our children entered school. Historically, these trips have been about spending uncluttered time together and we have learned to scale back our sightseeing in favor of enjoying each other.
Now, however, our children are teenagers. Spending time with the family is a punishment that fits somewhere between the Bataan death march and a mild but tolerable disease. As a result, my son McKinley hatched a plan to lobby for Oahu as our destination. He had several friends that would be visiting there already and Hawaii carries the considerable advantage in his eyes of still being within mobile phone range.
With the threat of a foreign destination hanging over his head, he showed his political skills by first directing his lobbying efforts in my direction. He noticed that the hotel where one of his friends was staying was surrounded by a golf course. I investigated and discovered the hotel, the Kahala, was the course that is roughly encircled by the ocean and the 10th and 18th holes used in the Sony Open Wailea Country Club. He soon had me scheming with him to lobby our way towards consensus that Oahu should be our destination. McKinley rode that momentum towards success.
Having successfully hatched his plan, McKinley then schemed to exploit it for all it was worth and destroyed the traditional purpose of these trips. He checked in from time to time and occasionally ate a meal with us but for the most part he managed to disappear for the entire week. For some reason he preferred the beaches of Waikiki during prime sunbathing hours over the more sedate location of the Kahala. We got quite a surprise on one day of the trip when we went snorkeling and managed to run into McKinley with a girl we had not met and her family.
From my standpoint, McKinley’s scheme provided a significant advantage of allowing me ample free time to investigate the golf options on Oahu. Oahu is much less a golf resort destination than the other Islands. The courses there are a much more traditional mix of private (Waialae, Mid Pacific), traditional type public courses (about 15 of them) with one major resort course sprinkled in (Turtle Bay).
The most unique golf courses on Oahu, however, are its two jungle courses. The best known course is Koolau, which looks to be impossibly difficult featuring repeated long forced carries. http://www.koolaugolfclub.com/. I chose instead to play Royal Hawaiian, (formerly known as Luana Hills) which is a Perry Dye design in a magical location:
http://www.royalhawaiiangolfclub.com/contactRoyal Hawaiian appears to be a struggling enterprise. Its tee sheet was relatively empty, the entrance gate leads to a long drive to the golf course but there is little evidence of any development in the area and a name change can never be a good sign. Nonetheless, the aerial photographs showed promise and I enlisted my wife Claire to ride along in the cart and serve as photographer for the day.
Claire’s photography yielded some unexpected pictures. She claims she became fascinated with the glove in my back pocket yielding these gems:
The course is also an interesting experience. If I were to list features that I dislike in a golf course, Royal Hawaiian might tick more boxes on that list than any I have played:
The slopes are a bit harsh:
The fairways are often significantly tilted islands surrounded by jungles. This view of the 18th looking back provides some sense:
The 13th is a 401 yard par 5(!) from the back tees. The tee shot is a forced layup of 180-190 yards to a down-slope that feeds into a hazard. The second is a full three wood from a severely downhill lie that must get over the brush in the hazard . The tee shot view is obscured for some reason by a gigantic forward tee:
My duck hook off a hidden maintenance cart turned out to be the ideal play.
The third is a blatant signature hole that sits next to the entrance drive:
A tree in the middle of the fairway is not an automatic disaster, but this view looking back on the 457 yard 17th will irritate many:
This chunked iron shot surprised me by rolling down the hill over the green and straight into the jungle:
And finally, if any course is truly cannot be walked, this one fits the description. Here is a video of a small portion of the drive from the 9th green to the tenth tee:
Despite all of these drawbacks, I highly recommend a visit to Royal Hawaiian. This must be one of the most memorable locations for a golf course in the world. It is not often one gets to visit the middle of the jungle on a pacific island. It is even rarer that one gets to play golf in such a spot.
Preconceived notions of “what should be” blinds one to rewarding experiences. I am glad I visited Royal Hawaiian and would gladly visit again:
