{"id":4424,"date":"2013-04-23T10:34:10","date_gmt":"2013-04-23T17:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jeffwallach.com\/?p=4424"},"modified":"2013-04-23T10:34:10","modified_gmt":"2013-04-23T17:34:10","slug":"wailea-a-triumvirate-of-colorful-artistic-golf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/golf\/courses-and-travel\/4424\/wailea-a-triumvirate-of-colorful-artistic-golf","title":{"rendered":"Wailea: A Triumvirate of Colorful, Artistic Golf"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>\n

Today the Golf Road Warriors took on Wailea’s renowned Gold Course in the morning and the equally fine Emerald Course in the afternoon. \u00a0I played both rounds with fellow warrior Tom Bedell and the first with affable General Manager Charles Head, from the Fairmont Kea Lani Hotel, whom I hadn’t seen since a few years back when we walked 36 holes together at Kingsbarns just outside St. Andrews– another very memorable golf day. \u00a0Head was up to the challenge today, and hits a long tee ball for a General Manager.<\/p>\n

Although I’d played the Wailea courses several times, today was essentially the first time I really “got” them. \u00a0At first, Gold, in particular, strikes a cogent player as a target course, though in fact it has great subtlety for the ground game. \u00a0Which is to say that hitting right at the target is often not the best play you can make. \u00a0Rather, you need to use the landforms to move the ball toward the hole. \u00a0So while I liked the course before, today I came to appreciate just how good it really is– strong and sprawling yet still boasting a sharp intellect and even a sense of humor.<\/p>\n

I also came to understand that putting and short game wizardry are the unseen challenge at Wailea due to the grain of the Bermuda grass on the course. \u00a0While on many previous visits to Hawaii, the Caribbean, Mexico, and other golf locales that employ Bermuda, I often thought that understanding grain was an added but unnecessary dimension of play in these places, today’s rounds made it clear that you cannot ignore grain any more than you can ignore, say, wind, or distance, or which club you’ve pulled out of the bag. \u00a0And to take this one step further, good golf is all about adjusting quickly to local conditions and playing your shots accordingly– so for example taking more club to hit into greens fronted by grainy Bermuda defenses that will rob some of the bump and roll that would otherwise take your shots closer to the pins. \u00a0Nowhere is this more true than around the Bermuda greens of a course as cleverly architected as Wailea’s.<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

If golf course architecture can be said to create living, breathing, photosynthesizing works of art on a large scale, then Wailea Resort is a triptych worthy of, well, a really gigantic museum.\u00a0 The resort is home to three championship courses that are in places as pretty as an impressionist landscape, as inviting as trompe l’oeil, and as challenging as a Picasso.\u00a0 Set beneath the dramatic 10,023-foot Haleakala Volcano, Wailea\u2019s courses are even named for colors right off an artist\u2019s palette: Blue, Emerald, and gold. \u00a0The trade winds blowing over Maui often add a gentle, unseen hazard to golf rounds here.\u00a0 Bunkering also creates some sandy mayhem.<\/p>\n

Wailea\u2019s Old Blue Course (which we will play tomorrow), designed by Arthur Jack Snyder in 1974, is a delightfully resorty track of 6,758 yards lined with lakes, fountains, and tropical foliage such as hibiscus, plumeria, and bougainvillea.\u00a0 It makes for a perfect warm-up round.\u00a0 The very first thing constructed at Wailea, Old blue exudes a classic, well-crafted feel, like a perfectly tuned vintage automobile.\u00a0 The layout serves up an easy romp along wide fairways to large greens protected by coral and sand bunkers.\u00a0 Despite its generally easy-going demeanor, the course has hosted the LPGA Women\u2019s Kemper Open, as well as a popular Japanese celebrity pro-am event.<\/p>\n

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Fairmont GM Charles Head: a 3 handicap in golf, a plus 2 in hospitality.<\/p><\/div>\n

The two remaining layouts in the Wailea triumvirate were designed by renowned golf course architect Robert Trent Jones II.\u00a0 Jones\u2019s pair of designs here are among Hawaii\u2019s most recognized and lauded courses. Gold and Emerald, which both debuted in 1994, are true jewels that lend sparkle to the 1500-acre world-class resort, and have helped it win many awards.<\/p>\n

Jones himself talks like an artist (or poet, which he also is) when describing his golf courses\u2014almost as if they are paintings or musical compositions. \u201cAll great courses express a mood or rhythm that inspires anticipation mixed with nostalgia in players when they reflect upon the course,\u201d Jones says.\u00a0 \u201cThe best courses are those where nature has provided the canvas and my job is to discover her secrets and reveal them, as opposed to imposing a philosophy.\u00a0 Golf is a nature walk through a garden, which in every culture is an extremely important place of sanctuary and restoration and re-creation.\u201d\u00a0 And nowhere is that more true than at Wailea.<\/p>\n

The two Jones courses at Wailea might be differentiated by describing Gold as the more masculine due to its length of over 7,000 yards, profuse bunkering, and a generally muscular feel.\u00a0 Emerald is more feminine, with more color, and a softer, more flowery feel. Golf for Women magazine agreed, listing it among the most women friendly courses in America.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Stretching to 6,825 yards, Emerald exhibits many facets, including a sensuousness created by a lush tropical landscape full of plumeria, wilwili, birds of paradise, firecracker plants, and kiawe and monjety pod trees. \u00a0Adorable mongooses can occasionally be seen darting in and out of the underbrush and the variety of birds is startling. \u00a0The course is flexible and forgiving, with four to six tee boxes on every hole and few forced carries. Great holes include number six, a 456-yard par four with a green that falls sharply into grass bunkers, leaving a tricky approach.\u00a0 Number eleven, the longest hole on the course, plays directly into the wind.\u00a0 The tenth and seventeenth holes share a double green fronted by a lake<\/p>\n

But despite the glimmer of Emerald, Wailea\u2019s Gold course is the 24-karat option for serious players.\u00a0 This 7,078-yard thinking-man\u2019s track blends classic design with rugged natural topography, including 200-ft elevation changes, low lava rock walls (that were preserved during construction), tall native grasses, ample bunkering, and enough strategically placed doglegs to pull a sled.\u00a0On the driveable 287-yard par four sixth, a lava ravine separates tee from fairway. Just don\u2019t let it separate you from your golf ball. Number seven, an uphill double-dogleg of 590 yards, requires negotiating strategically placed bunkers and a prevailing crosswind on the way to an undulating green.\u00a0 The eighth hole offers views of the distant crescent island of Molokini.\u00a0 Tee box and fairway are divided by dark lava walls and the green is ringed by coconut trees and bright white bunkering.<\/p>\n

The back nine consists of a series of memorable holes made even more famous by the Wendy\u2019s Champions Senior Skins Game, which finished here in dramatic fashion.\u00a0 Past winners have included Palmer, Watson, Nicklaus, and Trevino.\u00a0 Virtually every hole offers expansive views of the Pacific.\u00a0 While a birdie on the finishing hole may not win you $510,000 (Ray Floyd\u2019s and Dana Quigley\u2019s take when they collected 10 skins in the first-ever team event in 2004), you\u2019ll certainly win the admiration of your playing partner\u2014and you just can\u2019t put a price on that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The superlative\u00a0Wailea Resort<\/strong>\u00a0can go mano a mano a mano with nearly any golf property on the planet with its three stunning golf courses.\u00a0 The 1,500-acre oasis offers a handful of toney beachfront hotels (including the current most excellent digs of the Golf Road Warriors at the Fairmont Kea Lani), spas, and restaurants.\u00a0 Try a meal at award-winning\u00a0Ko Restaurant at the Fairmont, \u00a0then work off that extra dessert by snorkeling, sea kayaking, sailing, or with a power nap.\u00a0 A 1.5-mile paved beachfront walkway links Wailea\u2019s hotels, five white-sand beaches, and other amenities, creating a wonderful sense of community.<\/p>\n

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Today the Golf Road Warriors took on Wailea’s renowned Gold Course in the morning and the equally fine Emerald Course… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[813701,820905,821574,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grw-hawaii","category-venues-maui","category-wailea-golf-resort","category-courses-and-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/04\/Wailea-Emerald-18_Thayer_5729_8x5.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4424"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4451,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4424\/revisions\/4451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}