Hawaiian Punch: Golf on Kauai

On one of my first trips to Kauai, an island so verdant its nickname is the Garden Isle, I watched Tiger Woods handily defeat a field of seasoned competitors at the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, then found myself working out beside him and Charles Barkley in the Grand Hyatt’s weight room later that day. I quit after an hour; Tigerhadn’t even broken a sweat.

On my most recent trip to the island, I saw something that impressed me even more: good golf courses and resorts made even better by millions of dollars worth of renovations.

Nearly everywhere you turn on Kauai, the smallest, least populated and relaxed of the major Hawaiian Islands, you can’t help but notice something new. The Grand Hyatt finally has a spa it can brag about, called Anara, with outdoor treatment rooms and plush surroundings that easily make it the best on the island.

And a few weeks ago, Starwood

debuted their fully renovated St. Regis Princeville Kauai hotel, a luxury property cut into the cliffside of Hanalei Bay on the island’s North shore. Gone are the Asian inflections, the green marble floors and the formal furnishings, which were too stuffy for Kauai’s small-town, old-Hawaiian feel. In their place are mahogany and Koa woods, overstuffed couches, and a Jean George Vongerichten restaurant.

Princeville Resort’s two golf courses, called Prince and Makai, are Robert Trent Jones Jr. designs. Late this month, RTJ II will complete his Makai makeover, having rebuilt all the greens then carpeting them with salt-tolerant paspalum grass, which is better suited than Bermuda to the island’s peculiar winter weather pattern of chilly nights and warmer days. The Jones team also added a fourth set of tee boxes, opening views to the Pacific that had been hidden for years by overgrown trees and brush. Now the landing zones are wide and resort-friendly, positioning all the potential trouble – bunkers, ridges, fairway wrinkles – in plain sight.

The Prince course, on the other hand, continues to improve with age. It remains the most difficult layout on the island, a routing through jungle, across chasms, and along jaw-dropping vistas. It’s maddeningly difficult, a $200 round that will steal both your pride and at least a sleeve of golf balls.

“You know what you’re up against when you see it, and you get nervous,” is how Jones Jr. described it to me by telephone. While I wouldn’t dream of missing the thrill of Prince, most golfers prefer the laid-back ease of neighboring Makai, a 27-hole complex laid out as three loops of nine.

Makai “needed a more modern look,” says Alex Nakajima with Troon Golf, which manages Makai. (The St. Regis people own and manage the Prince Course.) The RTJ II team lengthened the course nearly 400 yards – to 7,277 yards. The bunkers now sit more upright, their plumeria-shaped borders filled with white sand to make them appear more intimidating from the tees.

But what surprised me most on Kauai was the extensive renovation of the Kauai Marriott and its Kauai Lagoons golf course.

The hotel’s guest rooms now have a stylized, big-city feel, sporting marble vanities, rainfall showerheads and a bold color scheme.

On the Jack Nicklaus-designed Kauai Lagoons, 18 of its original 36 holes are closed for a much-needed facelift as Marriott upgrades the property to a Ritz-Carlton Golf Club. The remaining 18 holes, cobbled together to form a rejiggered chain, are sensational. Marriott purchased Lagoons from the GolfBC Group in 2007, which operated the course as a daily fee facility. When the project is completed in 2011 – after resculpting and rerouting a few of the holes and eliminating others – director of golf Scott Ashworth says Kauai Lagoons will operate a series of three nines, each sporting new paspalum greens.

Not to be out-renovated, RTJ II’s other Kauai course, Poipu Bay, on the sunny side of the island, will close next April for a few months to also convert to paspalum. You can rip a drive nearly anywhere on the course yet still score if you’re creative with your irons and wedges. If you’re not, well, at least the final stretch plays along the edge of the Pacific.

Apart from the resort courses, there are a couple of other can’t-miss golf gems on the island.

Puakea Golf Course, an inland, 18-hole layout near Kauai Lagoons and owned by AOL founder Steve Case, is a local favorite. Case hired noted Hawaiian golf course designer Robin Nelson to complete what was once just a truncated 10 holes of great public golf. The back nine unspools along the base of Mount Waialeale, a lush tangle of jungle and rumples in whose valley much of “Jurassic Park” was filmed. The fairways tumble over mounds as big as elephants, all of which lead to greens that require you to putt along rainbow parabolas.

The locals’ favorite, though, seems to be Wailua Municipal, which has hosted three U.S. Amateur Public Links championships (1975, 1985, 1996). If you’re looking for a money game that plays along the Ocean (six holes), pencil in Wailua – and its $60-70 green fees.

Of course, Kauai is more than a Fantasy Island of golf. It’s certainly not as untamed as “Jurassic Park” would lead you to believe, though the island is overrun with chickens and roosters – a result of their unplanned liberation from captivity by Hurricane Iniki in 1992 but, nevertheless, descendents of T. Rex and his kin.

The rural feel of Kauai is the source of much of its charm, unlike on neighboring Maui or Oahu, which can seem overrun with traffic and condos. Much of the heart-shaped island is inaccessible, pockmarked with deep canyons, mountainous cliffs and rainforests. The areas that are accessible remain impenetrably protected by a web of local regulations.

Kauai’s year-round temperate climate and sleepy towns mean you can blend in with the Hawaiians wearing nothing more formal than shorts and sandals. Stroll into Duane’s Ono Char-Burger for the island’s best burgers, or plop down at the Formica counter inside Hamura Saimin for Kauai’s best lunch. Everyone will treat you like ohana, the Hawaiian word for family.

“If you’re going to pick an island, why not pick Kauai?” Mr. Jones asked rhetorically during our conversation. “It’s got diversity, variety – and four really good courses.”

I wonder which two of his four courses he’s leaving out?

The author’s visit was partially subsidized by the Kauai Vistors Bureau.