Kauai Written By: Art Stricklin

KAUAI, Hawaii – Recently the Timbers Kauai Resort received national acclaim for opening a unique resort bubble, allowing 2020 and early 2021 travelers to avoid the mandatory quartertine on the Garden Isle, provided they stay in 450 leafy garden kingdoms inside the resort boundaries.

But with the mandatory quartertine soon fading away on the island and all of Hawaii opening up, providing you can qualify with a negative COVID test, the entire lush island feels more like a gently padded territory rather than a barren, confined space. Because while it’s impossible to quantify the best Hawaiian island, can anyone really pick the best movie candy or Disney Character? There are plenty of travelers who will certainly tell you Kauai is very near the top of any list you can find.

Hollywood certainly agrees having filmed classic movies from South Pacific (Goggle it kids) to the original Jurassic Park movie and many versions after that. Leafy, dense, mountainous and spectacular are reasons enough that the film crews and many of the most Aloha savvy travelers are flocking here.

“Kauai is what everybody in the states think Hawaii looks like all the time, while Honolulu could be Miami Beach.” said famed golf architect Robert Trent Jones, Jr, who should know a thing about these parts, having designed a majority of the courses on the islands and living here a great part of the year.

“Natural, lush, following the natural contours of the land and beautiful everywhere you look.”

Add historic and luxury and that pretty well sums it up when it comes to golf on Kauai. Probably the most recognized course to U.S. travelers is the Poipu Bay golf course next to the Grand Hyatt on the Southern Tip of the island. That’s because Poipu Bay Golf Club, another Trent Jones design, is the former longtime site of the PGA of America’s Grand Slam of Golf.

The par 72 course, designed by Jones, Jr., is next to the 500-room Kaua’i Grand Hyatt Resort and Spa where Tiger Woods and the rest of the PGA Grand Slam competitors used to stay each November from 1994 to 2006. The best holes are those alongside the ocean, Numbers 14-17 where the wind can be a real factor either helping or hurting any shot. It’s the site of many memorable shots by golf’s greatest and where Woods once almost ran out of golf balls, hitting it into the ocean. He had to send a staffer hustling into the pro shop to buy more ammo, something any golfer can relate to.

Poipu Beach, next to the Hyatt, was recently voted America’s Number One Beach by one national expert, aka Dr. Beach. The Hyatt Spa is world famous and the on-site Tidepools restaurant, where Woods and Phil Mickelson once had a legendary GrandSlam power dinner together, is not to be missed. The original Hawaii home of the Grand Slam of Golf was on the Jack Nicklaus designed championship course, then known as 36-hole Kauai Lagoon, now called the Ocean Course at Hokuala, part of the upscale Timbers Resort.

Not surprisingly with its new name, the Ocean Course at Hokuala, now 18 outstanding holes, boasts one of the longest stretches of oceanfront holes in all of Hawaii, 12-17. The highly scenic course winds its way through papaya and guava groves to dramatic seaside cliffs. A 2016 renovation added sparkling white sand to all the bunkers, framing holes to be even more spectacular, if such a thing is possible.

“In fact, for your next movie trivia night, the ocean walls on the back nine holes on the Ocean Course were used for the typhoon scenes in Jurassic Park partly using footage from an actual hurricane which hit the island.”

“The (Timbers Kauai) bubble has actually been a boon for our golf course,” said Kellie Hines, one of two female head pros in Hawaii, a 6th generation native of the island.

“The locals can come and play here and the resort guests inside the bubble have access.”

The Ocean Course comes complete with a full practice center, driving range and short game area along with a large clubhouse and well-stocked pro shop. Also included inside the resort is a 33-acre lagoon which has kayaks, paddle boards, and canoeing available for use, 16 miles of hiking and biking trails with bikes for all ages provided by the hotel, along with a 16.5 acre working farm, multiple infinity edged resort pools and hot tubs and an Oceanside farm to table restaurant.

When all those activities inside Timbers Resort bubble exhaust you, there are multiple story apartment units or huge oceanside town-homes you can rent perched on the edge of the golf course, overlooking the course, the ever-churning ocean waters and lighthouse in the distance.

Another large and well-known Trent Jones design is master planned Princeville Resort, which contains the Princeville Makai course, the first solo design by RTJ Jones, Jr., after working for his equally famous father. RTJ, Jones, Sr. It contains 27 holes – the 18-hole Makai Course and the 9-hole Woods Course – with jaw dropping scenery against surrounding mountains which were used for the epic movie South Pacific.

The Makai course was completely renovated in 2009, introducing new Seashore Paspalum, a saltwater that tolerates turf grass on all fairways and greens. Princeville Makai features surreal vistas of Bali Hai (part of the South Pacific movie) and Hanalei Bay, including the signature par-3, 7th hole that offers a 213-yard shot over scenic cliffs, and brilliant white sand bunkers with the ocean as an ever-churning backdrop. The adjacent 9 holes, known as Woods Course, features natural Hawaii hardwoods instead of the ocean scenery.

“That’s the word I would use the majority of the golf in Kauai, natural,” said Jones. “There is a lot of great golf in Hawaii, I think we all know that, but some of it is certainly man-made, including the courses I’ve done on other islands. The course here are more natural, fit into the scenery and lie naturally in the land.”

The nearby Prince course, which was annually ranked the No. 1 in all of Hawaii, certainly has an interesting history after being carved out of dense forest by Jones in 1971. It’s currently closed and has been for a couple of years but is tended by a small ground keeping staff among continual rumors that it will be opened soon by new owners as part of a high-end real estate project.

“I’ve been hearing they will start construction on the real estate this spring and the golf course will be open in a year, I certainly hope so,” Jones said.

Architect Robin Nelson designed the par 72 Puakea course another wowzer layout built along massive ravines and lush tropical undulating terrain, with the backdrop being used for the Jurassic Park movie series. It’s the newest public course on the island and framed by sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean, historic Mt. Ha'upu, and the lush tropical landscape.

While sometimes overlooked when focused on its flashier neighbors, Wailua Golf Course offers classic, golden-era seaside golf holes only a mere few steps from the Pacific Ocean and is an excellent, walkable layout on Kauai. First built as a 9-hole golf course in the 1930’s, and expanded to 18 holes in 1961, Wailua has hosted 3 USGA Public Links Championships, the only USGA championships held on the island.

Regarded as one of the top municipal courses in the country, Wailua was designed by Toyo Shirai and is highlighted by great mountain views along the Coconut Coast, and multiple ocean holes - all of which combine for a value friendly golf experience at Wailua.

Paddled paradise, delayed by the global pandemic, but certainly not denied, Kauai is one great golf adventure for a new year.

For more Kauai golf information, including exact spring opening dates for mainland visitors, you can go to www.gogolfkauai.com or www.gohawaii.com