Located on the beautiful island of Maui stands one of the world’s most unique golf courses.
The small town of Kapalua on the west side of Maui is home to some of the world’s best golf courses. Kapalua’s two 18 hole courses, the bay course and the plantation. In this review, I will be reflecting on my personal experience watching the PGA Tour event held there and playing at the championship style Plantation course.
The plantation course is located on the north end of Kapalua halfway up the hillside towards the west Maui mountains. The views all around the plantation course are breathtaking and will leave you with long lasting memories to last a lifetime.
The design was a collaboration by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. The plantation course has a mix of traits that stem from old style links courses. The course is built on a huge scale accommodating all the undulation around the course. My advice to anyone who plans on playing, I highly recommend taking a cart. The walk around the course is an intense nine mile hike up and down the west Maui mountains.
The Plantation course is a very popular spot in the golf world and is home to a PGA Tour venue. Arguably one of the world’s most prestigious events, The Sentry, is the start of the PGA Tour’s calendar year. In the first week of January, The Sentry is a field composed of the most successful golfers in the previous PGA Tour year. In order to qualify for this event, you have to be a PGA Tour winner or in the top 50 of the FedEx cup rankings in the previous season.
Spectating The Sentry is an amazing experience. The tickets are easy and affordable, getting you into one of the most sought after PGA events to watch. Usually it’s very difficult to watch the players you want, getting up close to see every shot can be impossible. From all the PGA events I’ve watched, The Sentry is by far the best. The little amount of spectators the event brings in, going out to watch is a dream with no long lines and crowds of people.
Playing the Plantation is an experience from the moment you drive up Plantation Club Road towards the club house you get a visual of holes 1,2,3, and 9. I played the Plantation the week before the event with all the grandstands up and the course being in its best condition. For the course itself, the Plantation is one of the best manicured courses I’ve ever played from fairways to roughs.
One minor critique I have on the course condition was the greens. Although they were relatively fast, they weren’t what I had suspected them to be at a week before the PGA tour event.
Putting on this course is tough and deceiving. Before you go and play the Plantation course, you need to know that everything breaks toward the ocean. I believe it just takes time and practice to master these greens and get the breaks down.
Aside from that, the rest of the course is really all right in front of you. The layout is wide open making it an enjoyable course tee to green. A unique piece to playing the Plantation is the ocean views all around the course. No matter what hole you are on, you can hear the waves crashing from afar, white caps rolling into shore.
It’s a fun golf course. It’s just kind of laid-back and feels like a relaxed type of vibe, but at the same time, there’s going to be a winner crowned at the end of the week. — Justin Thomas
The plantation is atop my favorite golf courses for the rich history on the professional level to the picturesque views all around the course. Playing this course is a treat and I highly recommend it. Amazing views looking out to the pacific ocean no matter where you are on the course to how well manicured it is makes it a bucket list course.
