Of all the places in the world of golf that could use a good polishing, I wouldn’t exactly put Hawaii on the top of that list. However, it had been 30 years since original course architects, Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, had gotten their hands in the dirt at Kapalua’s Plantation Course. It was time for a Troon refinement project.
Personally, it had been 12 years since I first set my eyes on the Plantation Course and I remembered only bits and pieces of the golf course. What I do remember is that I brought my little point and shoot camera with me. So I decided to dig up some of my old images and compare. I immediately cringed. Was I blind back then? Why did I have some sort of fired up saturation filter on those images? That comic sans watermark also makes me want to barf. However, it is excellent to see how far my craft has progressed over the years. The rainbow helps.
2007
2019
After a 9 month refinement, the Plantation course re-opened for daily play on Nov 23rd of 2019. 107 acres of fairways, tee boxes and rough were all re grassed with Celebration Bermuda. All 18 greens were grassed with TifEagle Bermuda. According to several local agronomy teams, these grasses are the hottest grasses right now.
New drainage was established throughout the entire course and all of the bunkers were reshaped, re-sanded and updated with capillary concrete. Somehow the project finished up in time for the 2020 PGA Tour’s Sentry Tournament of Champions in January.
As a special treat, we got the chance to chat with Bill Coore & Ben Crenshaw as they offered us insight into the project. The Plantation course was the first design where these two great golf minds came together.
They talked about what it was like to come back to the place that sparked a career trajectory that would go on to build some of the world’s greatest golf courses. They shared their design philosophies on how they consistently embrace the land provided instead of fighting against it. They shared stories about drinking Coronas in pineapple fields. That pineapple field is now the Plantation Course clubhouse. It was a true pleasure to get the details straight from these two legendary golf course architects.
“One of our goals was to recapture the original playing characteristics of the course”
Bill is talking about the prominence of the ground game. Coore and Crenshaw re-established land forms and slightly altered the landscape to provide options for playing the ball along the ground. By utilizing the natural contours of the land, resort players can funnel balls toward the hole and for the best players in the world, it adds an additional element of decision making to the golf course.
Several of the greens were softened with the goal of maintaining interest and opening up new pin locations. The purpose was to increase playability for all skill levels. The grain will still play a major role in reading the greens and according to Bill and Ben they shouldn’t play that much differently. In some cases that was just a matter of recapturing the original size of the green. Greens tend to shrink over time due to maintenance practices. The result is a fun, interesting, and challenging golf course.
“It was a chance to calm them down, but still have a lot of life in them.”
Joining me on this trip to paradise was Brodie and Kelsey Smith. “Yo Smith’s!” is how I like to call em out. Brodie and Kelsey bring the fun with them where they go, so we filmed a YouTube videos to share the good times. You can watch Brodie and I tackle the Plantation course and enjoy a perfect 10 out of 10 rainbow. Kelsey jumps in on the 1’s and 2’s, calling the action like an experienced Gary McCord.
The Ritz-Carlton Kapalus stuns.
Our accommodations for the trip were some of the very best that Hawaii has to offer. Between the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua and the Montage Kapalua Bay, we were stunned, dazzled, and spoiled rotten with high quality lodging. The only real issue was that we eventually had to check out.
The Montage Kapalua Bay dazzles..
There was a record setting rainbow today at @GolfatKapalua and we freaked out. @Brodiesmith21 @KelseyLowrance pic.twitter.com/IuI4BvmwRM
— Patrick Koenig (@PatrickjKoenig) December 4, 2019
A JB Holmes sighting on the golf course yesterday. pic.twitter.com/FjE6D894Yx
— Patrick Koenig (@PatrickjKoenig) December 6, 2019
Now usually at this point during the proceedings, I like to take some time away from golf to do some male modeling. However, I had my Medterra CBD travel buddies with me and they stole the modeling show. CBD has made a big difference in the way that I feel everyday. From my lower back to the way I sleep, Medterra has made a serious change in my life. If you are interested in trying some out for yourself, you can take 15% off of your order with code pkoenig15. But since this male model was born to model, I snuck in a couple of boat poses on the back end.
Boat Pose #1
Life saver pose
Boat Pose #2
The thing about Hawaii is that there are golf courses all over the place and we had no plans to just hit the beach and chill out. We were going to help ourselves to several more servings of Hawaiian golf.
Designed by Arnold Palmer and Francis Duane, the Bay course at Kapalua has hosted over 20 professional tournaments. With winners like Fred Couples, Greg Norman, and Davis Love III, we eagerly jumped right in.
Two golf holes immediately emerged as clear favorites. The 16th hole is a short dogleg left par 4 that brings the golfer out to the water’s edge for the first time. An iron off of the tee will suffice, but a big hitter might opt to draw one around the trees and onto the green. I wimped out with an iron just so I could sit there and smile in the fairway for 2 minutes. The 16th is fun, beautiful, and full of decisions.
The 16th hole on The Bay Course at Kapalua
The 10th hole on the Bay course also caught my eye immediately. With a creek running right down the middle, the golfer gets to make another decision off of the tee. Consistently presenting golfers with these types of options keeps them challenged and engaged. A decision to use a slope to bounce a ball towards it’s intended target is wildly fun to execute. A plan devising an attack from a different angle makes you feel like a 5 star Lieutenant Commander. These features and decision making opportunities raise the element of fun. To me, this is the #1 hallmark of a high quality golf course.
Like a seasoned strategist, I chose to blast my tee ball as far right as humanly possible. After sailing one over the green in two, I casually chipped one in for birdie. Man!! Golf is grand.
With a flight out of Hawaii looming, we had one final round of golf remaining. It was time to go to town on Royal Kaanapali Golf Course. Designed by Robert Trent Jones, Sr. in 1962, Royal Ka’anapali played home to the Ka‘anapali Champions Skins Game from 2008 to 2011.
Brodie decided that he was going to play his own type of “skins” game for our round. The rules were simple, make a birdie, lose a button. As you can tell from the image below, Brodie made it down to the very last button. Would he go fully shirtless?? The YouTube video is coming soon.
Kelsey reacts to the hot golf action
Skins game Brodie is a true force to reckon with.
The problem with all Hawaii visits is that you always have to go home and leave the palm trees behind.