Have Clubs Will Travel (very far if it’s snowing hard enough)
By Tony Dear
The weather is turning from glorious to grisly and it’s not long until you’re staring out of the window hoping for a break in the rain/sleet/snow so you can at least go out in the garden to swing a golf club. It’s time to get out of Dodge. But where will you go?
24.58 of Seattle’s 37.07 inches of annual rainfall cover the Emerald City’s streets between the start of November and the end of March. 7.7 of its 11.7 inches of snow fall in January and December when the average temperature is an ungolfable 35.9˚. Now is the time to head south or south-west for as long as your budget will allow. And thanks to a universal recession you may have heard about, prices from Hawaii to Las Vegas and Phoenix have dropped quickly, like lead-covered stones in some cases, over the last year as airlines, hotels, cruise companies, and golf courses desperately seek to fill their seats, rooms, berths and tee-sheets.
Hawaii
Perhaps the first destination Puget Sounders think of when the sunshine disappears and the nimbostratus start rolling in is Hawaii. Seattle and Tacoma have long been the 50th State’s third largest travel market after Los Angeles and San Francisco and, according to state government statistics, sent 204,172 sun-seekers south-west across the Pacific between January and August this year.
With all those rain shadows hiding behind volcanoes, the climate on each of the islands and on various parts of each island varies quite a bit. According to the Hawaiian Visitors and Convention Bureau, however, the official average sea-level temperature in January is 78.6˚. And January precipitation is roughly half that of Seattle.
With numbers like that, any of the six populated islands - islands with golf courses - will do although Maui is probably at the top of the pile with a profusion of quality layouts on its west and south-west coasts. The standard method of travel is with Alaska and/or Hawaiian Airlines. The cheapest seats come with a two-hour stopover in Honolulu but for a little extra Hawaiian will get you there non-stop.
After arriving at Kahului Airport on the island’s north coast, you’re only a few minutes from the Dunes at Maui Lani, designed by Robin Nelson who has spent much of his career in Hawaii. The island’s newest course, the Dunes is said to have a ‘Scottish feel’ which is a bit of a stretch given the 20˚-30˚ difference in temperatures, absence of fescue turf, and occasional man-made water hazard, but it is as close to the genuine article as you’ll get here.
But why would you come here for links golf? You’re on Maui for views of the mountains, beaches and whales breaching in the blue Pacific. You certainly get all that at your next stop, Kahili Golf Course on the Honoapiilani Highway, assuming you have time for it. Another Nelson design, Kahili opened as Sandalwood in 1991 and benefitted enormously from a major upgrade a couple of years ago. Kahili is positioned on the slopes of the West Maui Mountains but looks east towards 10,023ft Haleakala, a shield volcano that forms over 75% of the entire island.
The Dunes and Kahili are grand openers (or closers, or one opener, one closer…you get the idea) to a Maui vacation which continues with a stay at one of the island’s four great resorts; Kapalua, Wailea, Makena and Ka’anapali.
22,000-acre Kapalua on the northwest coast is home to three courses; the Arnold Palmer & Francis Duane-designed Bay Course which opened in 1975; the Village, also laid out by Palmer and Duane and which winds inland through stands of Cook Pines with some severe changes in elevation; and the Plantation which Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore created in 1991 and which hosts the SBS Championship (formerly Mercedes Benz Championship) at the start of every PGA Tour season.
Ka’anapali, three miles south of Kapalua on the Honoapiilani Highway, possesses two fine tracks; Royal Ka’anapali, a Robert Trent Jones Senior original which opened in 1962, and Ka’anapali Kai which began life as an executive course a few yeas after ‘Royal’ opened but which Jack Snyder expanded in 1976. It was revamped again in 2005, this time by Robin Nelson, who renovated a few holes to make the most of views across the water to Lanai and Molokai and introduced forward tees to enable the less than experienced golfer to get round.
Snyder, who first trained as a superintendent under his father at Oakmont Golf Course in Pennsylvania, worked mainly in New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada and also Hawaii where he had established his reputation at Wailea’s wonderful Old Blue Course which, 37 years after opening, is still one of Hawaii’s most popular tee-times. On Maui’s south-west coast, the incredible Wailea Resort boasts six world-class hotels and, as well as the Blue, the lovely Emerald and challenging Gold Courses, both of which are the handiwork of Robert Trent Jones Jr.
A little further south is Makena whose North Course many visitors rate as their favorite on the island. The South, though a little less entertaining than its neighbor, is still a great resort course nonetheless but, alas, currently closed for maintenance and renovation by Trent Jones Jr.
There’s a lot of great golf in a small space on Maui, and Kauai on the western end of the Hawaiian chain, comes close to matching its great course/surface area ratio.
The oldest and perhaps most beautiful of the islands, Kauai is also known as the Garden Isle and bookended at its top and bottom (can you have bookends at the top and bottom?) by two of the most insanely luxurious resorts you can imagine; Princeville to the north and the Grand Hyatt at Poipu Bay to the South. Princeville, which recently became a St. Regis Resort - one of just 18 in the world - was voted by readers of Golf World as the 11th best golf resort in America this year. Its Trent Jones Jr.-designed Prince Course was ranked 67th in the US by Golf Digest, while the 27-hole Makai Course, another Jones Jr. design, is undergoing extensive remodeling with Seashore Paspalum replacing Bermuda 328 on the greens and bunkers being remodeled.
Moving clockwise around the island in the direction of Poipu, we first come to a pretty decent municipal at Wailua which, if you’re looking to save some dollars ($60 for non-residents compared with $200 at the Prince Course), is just as good a place as any to set up shop for a few days before splashing the cash at a big-name resort course on your final day before you head home. Wailua, which became an 18-holer in 1961, has a couple of hard holes by the ocean, and though not nearly as well maintained as its Kauai brethren, still gives a pretty good approximation of what you’d expect to find in Hawaii.
Moving down the Kuhio Freeway towards Lihue and the island’s airport, you soon find two courses that make playing golf in Hawaii such a seminal experience; the Kiele Course at Kauai Lagoons and Puakea.
Acquired by the GolfBC Group in 2003 and sold to Marriott Vacation Club International in August 2007, Kiele at Kauai Lagoons is, like the Makai, being given a facelift that will eventually give it more oceanfront holes than any course in Hawaii. The current, playable 18 is made up of 12 holes from the original Kiele Course and six from the old Mokihana Course. When all the work is completed, there will be 27 Jack Nicklaus-designed holes consisting of 11 new and 16 renovated holes. There will also be a new practice facility as well as a new clubhouse. As with most major building projects just now, the timeline for the work has not been determined, though it is likely to extend into 2011. The Director of Golf is Scott Ashworth, who grew up in Spokane but attended the University of Washington, and came to Lihue via the UW driving range, McCormick Woods, Ko’Olina on Oahu, a course in Florida, and Ka’anapali on Maui where he oversaw the renovations Robin Nelson made to the South Course. “Then about two years ago, I found out Marriott was taking over at Kauai Lagoons, ” says Ashworth. “I was ready for a new challenge with all the work and renovation that was going to be happening here. Since I already knew all the Marriott guys, it was a natural fit and they hired me in August of 2007. I’m still excited about the future here at Kauai Lagoons. It’s a spectacular resort that just got hit at the wrong time with the economy.”
Ah, yes, the economy, the one that caused visitor numbers from Seattle to drop 35.2% in November last year, compared with the same month a year before, and 35.3% in December despite the fact Alaska Airlines began its non-stop service from Seattle to Lihue in October 2007.
Despite those rather depressing figures, the Director of Golf at Puakea, Paul Ito, another UW grad who worked at McCormick Woods early in his career, still sees a goodly number of Seattle golfers in his pro shop. “Actually, I’d estimate 15%-20% of our visitors are from Seattle,” he says. One of the most popular courses on Kauai, Puakea was designed by you-know-who (no, not Jones Jr, but Robin Nelson) and located adjacent to the property on which Steven Spielberg filmed parts of Jurassic Park.
A third golfer from Seattle, actually Bellevue, employed on Kauai is Matt Torrey, the Head Professional at Kiahuna, a mile from the Grand Hyatt on the island’s south coast.
Designed by Nel…sorry, Jones Jr. Kiahuna was the first course on the island to seed its greens with salt-tolerant Paspalum, a move that has not only saved it a lot of water but also guaranteed it some of the greenest and smoothest putting surfaces (virtually no grain) in the state. Visitors to Kiahuna got a great deal on green fees this summer paying the usual $95 for their first round but being charged the Kamaaina (locals) rate of $65 for the rest of their stay.
A round at Poipu Bay is somewhat more expensive at $220 ($150 for guests of the Grand Hyatt) but so full of drama and excitement, especially on the back nine, it may be worth a little extra spend. The venue for the PGA Grand Slam of Golf from 1994 to 2006 during which Tiger Woods won seven times, Poipu has Jones Jr.’s name above the door and was opened in 1991. It too will replace it Bermuda grass greens with Paspalum this coming April when the course will close for six months.
Also on Hawaii’s list of treasures are a handful of courses on the Big Island, namely Mauna Kea, the North and South Courses at Mauna Lani, the Beach and King’s Courses at Waikoloa and Hapuna; a pair of eye-poppers on the tiny island of Lanai - Jack Nicklaus’s Challenge at Manele which overlooks Hulopo’e Bay, and the Experience at Koele whose front nine Greg Norman cut from a koa, pine and eucalyptus forest and which features the impossibly dramatic 390-yard 17th with its 200ft drop from the tee; and, on Oahu, a number of memorable courses such as Makaha, Ko’Olina which has long been regarded as one of the hardest courses in the US, the extravagant Pete Dye-designed Luana Hills and Arnold Palmer’s course at the Turtle Bay Resort on the far northwest coast which has hosted the LPGA Tour’s SBS Championship and Champions Tour’s Turtle Bay Championship.
Hawaii, you really have got to love it.
Phoenix/Scottsdale
You’re probably also rather fond of Scottsdale, AZ, despite the absence of a large, blue ocean crashing against the rocks below you and the sight of humpback whales breaching in said ocean.
Scottsdale and Phoenix make up for their lack ocean views with some equally cool desert scenery and a mind-boggling number of courses - roughly 250 in the Greater Phoenix area. The accommodations, dining, nightlife and extra curricular activities are pretty good too, although the Valley of the Sun can’t quite compete with Hawaii for Platinum, Gold or Silver-rated resorts in Golf Magazine’s biennial rankings.
Seattleites, who make up Scottsdale’s tenth largest market, come here not only for all that golf but also the weather, of course. In January, the thermometer needle points towards 70 most days and between November and March the area will receive very close to one quarter the amount of rain that Seattle gets.
Scottsdale is the main attraction in the Valley, but you’re just as likely to find yourself wandering off into any of Phoenix’s other suburbs; Tempe, Mesa, Apache Junction, Chandler, Glendale, Peoria, Avondale, Goodyear and Fountain Hills, all of which possess those quintessential target golf courses with patches of emerald green (typically a total of 90 acres) meandering through the sandy, rocky, cactus-covered wasteland.
There are so many great public-access courses to choose from down here, your ten favorite layouts might differ considerably from your buddy’s, but a handful of really special venues do creep onto most visitors’ lists. The Boulders, Troon North, Sunridge Canyon, Gold Canyon, Desert Canyon, Ocotillo, Talking Stick and We-Ko-Pa invariably crop up in conversation and are always spoken of in glowing terms. Of all the courses that feature on golfers’ must-play lists, however, We-Ko-Pa is probably the mustiest must-play of them all. Located on land owned by the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation a few miles east of Fountain Hills, both the Scott Miller-designed Cholla Course and Crenshaw/Coore-designed Saguaro Course play through the unsullied Sonoran Desert, with fantastic views across the Tonto National Forest where not a single faux-stucco vacation home comes into play.
While We-Ko-Pa’s open aspect makes it truly memorable, it would be wrong to suggest those courses with homes bordering the fairways are all bad. How could you ever say that about Troon North for example, Legend Trail, Sunridge Canyon, Las Sendas or Eagle Mountain?
Green fees can get a little out-of-hand in the winter months when tens of thousands of folk escape the bleak conditions back home in Canada, the Northwest, Midwest and Northeast, so look for twilight rates and web specials. And don’t ignore a couple of municipal tracks; Papago in Phoenix and Dobson Ranch in Mesa, which may not look all that compared with the immaculate Troon North for example, but which are certainly worth a game. Papago is actually one of the country’s best city-owned courses and hosted the LPGA Tour’s J Golf Phoenix LPGA International in March when Karrie Webb won her 36th tour event. The classic William Bell Jr. design profited greatly from a 2008 remodel by architect Billy Fuller who spent $6million of the Parks Department’s money adding tees, building new bunkers and putting in an irrigation system. The upgrades continued earlier this year when several dozen native desert trees were added.
You might also consider Tucson which can’t compete with Phoenix’s mass of courses but which has its share of great golf - Omni Tucson National home of the highly acclaimed Catalina and Sonoran Courses, Loews Ventana Canyon with its two Tom Fazio courses, Tom Wesikopf’s Golf Club at Vistoso and 27-hole La Paloma Cc.
We strongly suggest you also take a day, at least, to visit Sedona, 100 miles north of Phoenix, and the exceptional Sedona Golf Resort designed by Scottsdale-based architect Gary Panks and featuring amazing views of the surrounding red rocks.
Allegiant Air flies direct to Phoenix from Bellingham and Pasco, while Alaska, United and US Airways also serve Sky Harbor Intl. non-stop from Seattle.
Las Vegas
Even for the most hopelessly obsessed fanatic, Las Vegas is not really about the golf. Sure, a handful of the city’s near 50 courses are justifiably ranked among the nation’s best, but the person who comes here just to tee it up is missing the point.
Perhaps more than anywhere, Vegas has slashed vacation deals with rooms in the top hotels going for as little as $29. A quick look on Luxor’s web site reveals a Pyramid Deluxe room goes for $50 a night just now and that’s without all the haggling and negotiating seasoned travelers do to push it down even lower.
As for the golf, Travelgolf.com’s 2007 exposé of the poor conditions at courses owned by Walters Golf (Desert Pines, Bali Hai, Royal Links) did the city’s reputation no favors, but the issue has faded from most golfers’ conscience lately and though Walters, a former poker great who also made a fortune on sports betting, is still clearly bent on selling the land in order to put up condos, the courses survive for the time being. And, if recent reviews on tripadvisor.com and other sites are anything to go by conditions have improved greatly. “We spent $3million at Desert Pines getting it back in shape,” says Alex Canetti, a Walters Golf employee. “The greens were totally rebuilt and seeded with bent grass. They roll really well now. I’m aware of the bad reviews from two years ago, but when I arrived here last year, the course was beginning to improve and now it’s in superb condition. I’m not at all surprised by all the positive reviews.”
Walters’s courses each have a theme; Desert Pines has a look of the Carolinas apparently although it’s not entirely clear which one, Royal Links has 18 replicas of holes found at Open Championship courses (some better than others but the end result is certainly entertaining), and Bali Hai at the southern end of the Strip, resembles something you might find on a south-Pacific island with seven acres of water hazards, 2,500 stands of palm trees, white sand transition zones with black lava rock outcroppings and over 100,000 tropical plants. Recently ranked 47th best public course in Golf World’s Readers’ Choice Awards, Bali Hai measures just over 7,000 yards from the back tees and was designed by Lee Schmidt and Brian Curley in 2000.
Other courses a whole lot more enjoyable to play than rain-soaked, mud-covered, Jackson Park in 40˚ weather include Angel Park, Bear’s Best, the two great Tom Fazio courses at Primm Valley south of Las Vegas on I-15 and just over the California/Nevada state line, three Pete Dye-designed courses at the Paiute Golf Resort ten miles northwest of town on Hwy 95, the ever-popular Painted Desert and Bert Stamps’s Las Vegas National, which opened as Sahara Country Club in 1961.
And if you happen to be a multi-billionaire high-roller then forget all the above and just head straight for Shadow Creek which Golf Digest ranks as the 41st best course in the country. Actually, you don’t have to be mega-rich to play here. Just stay at an MGM Mirage property (Luxor, MGM Grand, New York New York, etc) and come up with the $500 green fee (one good roll of the dice) and one of American golf’s greatest experiences can be yours. If you’ve played Shadow Creek, try the similarly lavish, Rees Jones-designed Cascata, 30 miles east of the Strip and owned by Harrah’s.
If you’ve played them both, then golf in Vegas has nothing left to offer you. But it’s not as if there’s nothing else to do.
Palm Springs
With Americans cutting back on non-essential spending, and with its reputation for being something of a haven for the glamorous and wealthy, Palm Springs has been featuring in fewer and fewer golfers’ vacation plans lately. But California’s Coachella Valley will always have its devotees.
With regular non-stop flights from Bellingham on Allegiant and from SeaTac on Alaska, it’s easy to get to and the lure of over 115 courses, most of them exceptionally-conditioned, is too much for many to resist. Plus the Valley’s nine cities (Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Coachella, Rancho Mirage, Indio, La Quinta, Indian Wells, Cathedral City, and Desert Hot Springs) are a degree or two warmer than Scottsdale in the winter, get even less rain - 2.5 inches compared with 5.03 - between November and March, and enjoy 350 days of sunlight a year.
Of the dozens of public-access courses worth flying here for, Marriott’s Shadow Ridge in Palm Desert - No.41 among resort courses in Golf World’s Readers’ Choice Awards and designed by Nick Faldo - and the wonderful Indian Wells Golf Resort (No. 47 on GW’s list) whose two courses were designed by Britain’s Clive Clark and Oregon’s John Fought, are at the top of the pile. A notch lower down perhaps but still worth the journey south are 36-hole Tahquitz Creek with beautiful views of the San Jacinto Mountains; the Arnold Palmer-designed Classic Club which hosted the Bob Hope Classic from 2006 to 2008 and which boasts a 63,000 sqft clubhouse; Ted Robinson’s excellent Palm and Valley Courses at the JW Marriott Desert Springs Golf Resort where the ‘King of Waterscapes’ went typically berserk with a dozer and hose; the Firecliff and Mountain View Courses at Desert Willow; and the incredible La Quinta Resort and Club which has two of its own top-ranked courses, the Pete Dye-designed Mountain and Dunes Courses and which offers guests access to PGA West’s three public courses - Nicklaus Tournament, Greg Norman, and Stadium, an extremely demanding (150 Slope) Pete Dye masterpiece built at a time (1986) when the designer obviously had a problem with golfers, especially those looking to match par.
Useful Web Sites
www.alaskaair.com
www.hawaiianair.com
www.allegiantair.com
www.gohawaii.com
www.golfhawaii.com
www.troongolfaz.com
www.scottsdale.com/golf
www.lasvegasgolfcourses.com
www.lasvegasgolf.com
www.waltersgolf.com
www.palmsprings.com/golf
www.palmspringsteetimes.com
