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Kapalua Plantation Course's fabulous finale.
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If your handicap index is anything like mine, we’re likely to have more in common with PGA Tour pros this week than any other time of the year. Like the rest of us, they’re getting back to work after some much needed holiday rest and relaxation. And, more importantly, they’re kicking off their 2007 season tomorrow on a spectacular golf course that we can play on our very own Hawaii golf vacations.
Located on the island of Maui, Kapalua resort’s Plantation Course, a Ben Crenshaw/Bill Coore design that annually hosts the season-opening Mercedes Championships, is a 7,411-yard long layout built on severely tilted terrain that brings numerous canyons and ravines into play. Though the gargantuan fairways seem like inviting targets, the winds and the hills give pause, for the groomed turf often runs off into thick, jungle-like vegetation.
Whether you’re playing the course on a Hawaii golf vacation or watching the tournament on TV (The Golf Channel), you’ll see plenty of mesmerizing, exhilarating and brawny holes, such as the par-five fifth, a heroic, cape-style test that sweeps from left to right around a ravine. And the par-three eighth, which is all carry over a gnarly gorge to a heavily bunkered green, is just one of the holes showcasing postcard views from the tee.
Perhaps the most dramatic holes are the closing pair. Seventeen, which looks out to the Pacific Ocean, descends dramatically to a fairway that must be 90 yards wide and to a green that sits beyond a chasm and slopes sharply from right to left and perilously from front to back. Tee shots also benefit from more than 100 feet in elevation change on the famed 663-yard home hole. During the 2004 tournament, players averaged 391 yards off the tee and Davis Love III uncorked one bind-boggling drive that came to rest 471 yards away. The key is to play the ball down the far right-hand side of the fairway so it follows the natural, right-to-left slope of the terrain.
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