Kapalua Plantation

« **Reply #25 on:** January 12, 2003, 08:19:40 PM »

For the average non-professional golfer this course would be tough. For the above-average non-professional golfer this course would be a challenge. For a PGA golfer.....this course is a joke. 31 under par??? And if the wind blew......what would the score be??? 26 under??? 25 under?? Time to drag in the fairways at the Plantation Course........

« **Reply #26 on:** January 12, 2003, 08:24:06 PM »

Do the pros use any shuttles between holes...if they can walk it and shoot so low...why is it considered unwalkable..

« **Reply #27 on:** January 12, 2003, 08:29:24 PM »

Bob Farrell said:

"Aside from the views, which are spectacular, I kept looking for the windmills, clowns mouths, and lighthouses to putt through. I can't believe the pros enjoy playing this course."

I've never been to Kapalua but just watched the last round. Bob's description is one I cannot remotely understand.

« **Reply #28 on:** January 12, 2003, 08:31:52 PM »

IMHO, the reason everyone went so low, besides lack of wind, was due to the rock hard fairways and soft greens. I can't believe how far some of those balls rolled after catching a nice bounce. But when firing shots into the greens they got the ball to stick.

On another note...I love to see it when those guys come up short on an uphill punch shot approach. The ball rolls back to their feet. I saw Charles Howell III take three shots to get it right.

« **Reply #29 on:** January 12, 2003, 08:41:51 PM »

I'm sure they shuttle through the canyon between 5 and 6(probably a 600 yard walk),between the tee and green at 8(imagine the 10th at Bel-Air without the bridge),And between 9 and 10.The course otherwise has short green to tee walks.I've played Plantation at least 20 times.Maybe twice was it as calm as the last four days.I think it's six shots harder in normal trades.Also ,the amount under is skewed by the 73 par.In normal winds,5,9,and 14 are all a stroke harder.Plus,look who has won on this course.Like the Old Course it rewards all kinds of shots.It would be in my top 10 if you didn't have to ride.

« **Reply #30 on:** January 13, 2003, 06:52:57 AM »

RPurd,

I disagree that it is "time to drag in the fairways at the Plantation Course........"

In order to make the course play harder for the pros (if that was ever to become an objective), I would suggest expanding the fairways to the edges of the vegetation. On holes like 6 and 12, the rough only serves to stop the tee ball from rolling toward/into the trouble. Go wall to wall fairway and the pro golfer has to think twice before blasting drivers away on such holes, as one early bounce in the wrong direction could mean death.

We will most definitely have a GCA.com outing there one of these years - what a great course to take the time to get to know.

Cheers,

« **Reply #31 on:** January 13, 2003, 07:06:12 AM »

The Plantation course makes the Mercedes event one of, if not the most exciting event on the PGA Tour in my eyes.

In the tradition of the classic links and Augusta National, it's a course that let's golfers play golf. It's wide open, there's a lot of short grass, contour, and requisite wind. Great stuff.

As I mentioned on another thread, what's disheartening is the distance the the pros are driving the ball. A couple 400 yard drives from Els? Wow! He's playing chip shots into every hole... even the 550 yard plus par 5s. Slope and firmness of turf aside, 400 yards is long. Nicklaus wasn't driving it that far in ideal conditions during his prime, was he? I don't think so.

For the sake of comparison, imagine the Mercedes event circa 1990, when the pros were still playing persimmon and thus hitting a little less far off the tee. Now that would be fun to watch!

« **Reply #32 on:** January 13, 2003, 07:18:47 AM »

Sounds like another great outing site....cartball and excuses....

« **Reply #33 on:** January 13, 2003, 07:53:06 AM »

The term "cartball" is the biggest excuse of them all. It is an excuse to ignore the golf shots required by the golf holes. If you want to walk, then walk. If walking is too much for you, don't blame others who are able to walk long distances. And stop whining about others who want to ride. Live and let live.

« **Reply #34 on:** January 13, 2003, 08:56:07 AM »

Grumpy,

I've got to drive 2hrs to a funeral so I have to make this quick...This site and the people on it have a responsibility to give something back to the game that has given them so much and asked nothing in return...That means when we have an outing we need to walk or for those unable to walk we should at least support a course that promotes walking....This is a big ole country with lots of dollars and some imagination and if in the 16,000 available courses available we can't find one that was designed, built and managed as the game should be played....we should find somewhere else...Its like me playing texas holdem in the bowels of a cheesy riverboat in southern Indiana...Its fun but its not the Horse Shoe....Kapalua is fun and it may be the best design possible for a given piece of land....but there are no free passes to greatness....As much as I would like to play the course..I'm not gonna lug my clubs and my sorry ass 14 hours on a plane to sit another 5 in a stinking cart...as a matter of fact the thought of reaching peak speed on the downhill run on the 18th only to have the governor to kick in...has all the thrill of seeing a fat Samoan buy cheeswiz with foodstamps at the local Piggly Wiggly while I wait to load up on more Chapstick.

Speaking of walking...how much longer will pall bearers actually carry a casket...why not one more electronic device to rob even the dead of the dignity of the effort of friends...why has the beauty of a good job resulting in a little sweat been so disgarded by this society...carry your clubs like you would carry a dead friend...your head held high in respect for something you love.

« **Reply #35 on:** January 13, 2003, 09:12:45 AM »

Like Jeff Mingay, I, too, found it disheartening how far the pros were driving the ball at the Plantation course. It seemed clear to me that valleys that were meant to be obstacles to be overcome by the average player have simply become downhill runways for the big hitting pros, adding 70-100 yards to their tee shots. What appears to be a fun, challenging and perhaps even great course has been outstripped by technology.

What will the owners' response be? Further lengthen the course if the wind doesn't come up again next year? Make #18 play at 750 yards? My wife and I watched the tournament together, and even she was trying to come up with some solution to the distance problem. She figures the PGA Tour is so beholden to the equipment manufacturers for advertising dollars that the tour will never step in to try to limit distance. I'm afraid she's right -- and ultimately more and more viewers are going to be turned off to the PGA tour product because outstanding courses like The Plantation really will begin to come across on TV as miniature golf courses with clown noses and windmills.

« **Reply #36 on:** January 13, 2003, 09:43:09 AM »

Rick --

Competition Ball.

Instigated not by the PGA Tour, but by one or more of the following: R&A, USGA, ANGC.

If those three bodies are too beholden to the manufacturers to act for the good of the game (including the game as it's played by professionals), the cause is hopeless.

The Tour, I think, would follow suit -- not only because the Tour couldn't stand to be seen as violating the rules of golf, but because Ian Baker-Finch is wrong: The Tour has everything to worry about, in a financial sense, if the incessant march of technology turns every tournament into the Bob Hope Desert Classic.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think people who like to watch golf like to watch golf because it's more or less (increasingly less) like the game they themselves play. The game they themselves play is defined by one word: struggle. If the technology has taken the pro game to the point where, even on a course such as the Plantation, there's no struggle, I think people who like to watch golf will sooner or later find a better way to spend their time.

« **Reply #37 on:** January 13, 2003, 09:48:58 AM »

JakaB--if you don't want to play Kapalua, don't. Who's holding a gun to your head? Don't lug your clubs anywhere you don't want to. I am sure you are the purest of the pure when it comes to golf. But just because you rip on someone who plays the game differently doesn't make you right--just grumpy. Your posts regularly make a mockery of all things held in high esteem, but occassionally you call upon some idea you have of an allegiance to "giving back to a game that has asked nothing in return". Why should anyone give a hoot about your ideals about golf when you mock everyone else's regularly? Your really sound like a Pharisee when you start waving the patriotic golf flag. Why not let people spend their golfing dollars anyway they want without expressing your snobbishness about the game? It seems like a small-minded thing to try to ruin other people's good, clean fun. And your funhouse, ought not to be built of glass.

I call elitest, holier-than-thou, overly judgemental, full of yourself, Pharisee imitating, grumpy speech not speech at all. It is whining and it is the intellectual equivalent of someone who thinks his and only his taste in wine is the only taste worth caring about. Well, some people aren't going to like your wine and they aren't going to like your whine.

Disparaging a golf course and golfers who play it as "cartball" and "cartballers" is something you have a RIGHT to do, but it doesn't make you RIGHT.

What I don't get is why you and Dan King even care what other people do with their free time. Is worrying about the leisure time activities of people you don't know a libertarian thing? If so, I had that philosophy confused with one that promotes freedom.

« **Reply #38 on:** January 13, 2003, 09:58:50 AM »

Firm and Fast. No, not the title to the adult film world's interpretation of that drag racing movie, but the conditions so many here have asked for. You know the old saying - be careful what you wish for...

Kapalua had firm fairways. It sits on a mountain, so the ball rolls. And rolls and rolls and rolls at times.

The brilliance of the design is that it is an eminently playable course despite a too-severe site. How severe? I've been told the Kapalua people didn't think it was developable for anything.

The short holes play uphill and the long holes play downhill. Hill is actually the wrong word. Toss in tradewinds that blow down the mountain and the course works. Most of the time. It didn't really work with no wind, but planning for that is like planning for lakes freezing over in Oklahoma. With no wind, the course yielded the likely result. Same thing happens overseas at the British Open when conditions are benign.

Which is it? Do you like firm and fast conditions or not? Can't have it both ways. The roll you are talking about is the result of firm ground coupled with a mountain.

Next year the wind blows and our winner is back to 14 under.

I like Kapalua and do consider it a great course. I can see how some don't. Just make sure you've played it before you decide as the things we saw on TV were giving a very skewed view. 95-98% of all golfers could not have gotten past the elbow on #18 in two.

« **Reply #39 on:** January 13, 2003, 10:47:49 AM »

Let's keep in mind that Ernie Els won by 7 strokes (he was an outlier) and the way he was playing he would have won ANY tournament on ANY course against ANYONE. His performance this weekend was "unconscious", and not one that should be used to lambast a course design -- similar to Tiger's performance in the 2000 US Open.

Perhaps we should look at how the course -- under very benign weather conditions -- did keep the scores of other longballers (such as Charles Howell) in reasonable check.

« **Reply #40 on:** January 13, 2003, 11:53:37 AM »

JakaB:

Did you see all those things that "Grumpy old man" said about you? He even questioned your Libertarianism (are you one of those like Dan King is?).

Well, I don't know if any of what he said about you gets under your skin or not but I noticed he said you were actually practicing snobbishness!

HOOOOHAAA! I just know THAT has to get under your skin. You may see yourself in many ways, as others might but I get the feeling that an elitist snob wasn't one of them.

HOOOHAAA!

What next?

« **Reply #41 on:** January 13, 2003, 12:09:29 PM »

John C,
I disagree, firm and fast has to include the greens. Firm and fast fairways with soft greens, creates perhaps the ideal scoring set-up.

I think the PGA Tour sets up the Mercedes as easy as possible. It is the tournament of champions and they want their guys to look good.

Personally, I think Ran is right. Firm and fast fairways with no rough, that would hold back the drivers, yet yield calls of unfairness from the pro's.

How does one win?

« **Reply #42 on:** January 13, 2003, 12:17:53 PM »

It could be that some of the holes should have had a lower par, if defending par is what you are after. What would happen to the final scores if the par 5's have been par 4's? If the pros can get to a green in two with mid to short irons, then just make them par 4's and call it good, for those worried about the low scores. The total strokes is the same, but the under par aspect is changed. Simple right?

« **Reply #43 on:** January 13, 2003, 12:21:35 PM »

TEPaul--I would drop dead if anything I wrote got under JakaB's skin. But if it did and I do die, I would only request that JakaB have to carry my body like a golf bag across the Plantation course (all 18 holes) before dumping me in the ocean.

« **Reply #44 on:** January 13, 2003, 12:22:30 PM »

I wouldn't use this course as a yardstick for how far the pros are hitting it. The distance you get from roll is almost unimaginable - especially on 17 and 18.

« **Reply #45 on:** January 13, 2003, 12:25:01 PM »

Very firm and fast "through the green" conditions are great but don't forget that all important requirement of the "ideal maintenance meld" for really good players on a course like Kapalua---very firm green surfaces (don't have to be lightening fast--just firm). That way you put much more pressure on the tour pros to sometimes steer clear of their old stand-by--the normal old aerial approach.

Either they would have to go to an aerial appoach that really had something on the ball or else to some other option or compromise option.

« **Reply #46 on:** January 13, 2003, 12:30:30 PM »

Grumpy Old Man:

If you do die I will personally see to it that JakaB does carry your body around kapalua for all 18 holes. Would you mind if we dress your dead body up in one of those multi-pocketed getups so he can get at least ten clubs and some golf balls on you too?

« **Reply #47 on:** January 13, 2003, 01:00:23 PM »

Ran, Please don't tell these folks anything about Kapalua. Send 'em all to Palm Desert and Hilton Head. See you in Lancaster next summer. Joe

« **Reply #48 on:** January 13, 2003, 01:14:59 PM »

TEPaul,

It's a deal. But remember, he doesn't get a cart or a caddy.

« **Reply #49 on:** January 13, 2003, 02:56:22 PM »

Ran, I agree that the Plantation course is unique, but it does remind me of another course - Tryall, in Jamaica. The courses are clearly different, but strangely they remind me of one another.

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Dan Kelly

Grumpy Old Man

John_Conley

Bruceski

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