Harder Than It Looks
Kids all around the world dream of being on the big stage of the sporting world. Scoring the winning goal in a World Cup, or throwing the winning touchdown pass in the Super Bowl. It’s healthy to have those aspirations. That’s what being a kid is all about: having an unwavering - some might say unrealistic view of what is likely to unfold in their athletic lives. So when I got the opportunity to run the bases at the Oakland Coliseum after an A’s game, I wasn’t thinking about the hundreds of other kids running the bases with me. I was imagining rounding the bases after connecting on a 95 mile-per-hour fastball and blasting it into the third deck. And when I was able to shoot a free throw after a Warrior’s game at the Oracle Arena? No, no, no. It was a tied game with 10 seconds left on the clock in the fourth quarter when I stepped up to that free throw line. “Step aside Steph, I got this.” There hasn’t been one golfer alive who hasn’t had a winning putt for a green jacket or a U.S. Open title. Maybe it took three or four putts after pushing a couple to the right, but you know what I mean.
And although those endeavors are worth working diligently for, do most kids grow up and have the opportunity to hit 400 foot dingers in a professional baseball stadium? Nope. How about the ability to take an actual free throw in an actual NBA game? Not even close. The vast majority don’t even make it to the collegiate level. Can those kids grow up to hit drives and flushed 4 irons from the same fairways and the same tees the pros make their livelihoods off of? Actually, that’s what golf is all about.
I found myself driving up to the bag drop at the Plantation Course at Kapalua, dazed and confused after I had remembered that morning that my father, my brother, and I were going to play one of the longest courses on the PGA Tour rota. I was ready to get eaten alive and wear a smile in the midst of it. We watched Harris English win the Tournament of Champions almost two months prior to our visit, and had such a luxurious view from our comfy couches to say, “Dang, those fairways are massive! What do you say we sling it all the way back to the tips and really test ourselves?” I was surprised when, knowing that he was on average a good 30 yards shorter than me off the tee, my brother actually took me up on that bluff.
The range session was much too short for the battery I was about to face, and getting there was no small feet either. I had been on PGA Tour-level driving ranges before. Was I expecting something like that? Of course. Did it occur to me that a pack of Velociraptors could come sprinting out of the dense jungle bordering the range, looking for a 5 foot 11, 140 pound breakfast? Absolutely. Tucked into its own little corner, the range at the Plantation Course was one of the most sanctuary-like experiences I’ve ever had in golf. Just the sound of exotic birds, the whistle of the wind through the wild, jungle fauna, and my brother next to me chunking drivers and shouting, “Gosh dang it! How am I gonna play from 7,500 yards when I can’t even hit a driver?” Which was actually a good question, one that he and I hadn’t really thought through very well. As we walked up to the first tee and got dragged into a conversation about the weather with the starter (Weather is a classic starter topic. Either that or sticking up to the point of martyrdom for the crazy quirkiness of their course), he asked what tees we were playing from. My dad stated that he was going to play from the gold tees, which measure out to a healthy 6,500 yards. “Hit it long and straight then,” the starter said. I raised my eyebrows in worry, we were playing almost 1,000 yards more golf course. The starter turned to us and asked us the same question, to which my brother replied with the utmost of gusto and the slightest of eyebrow raises and said, “The tips, baby.” He wasn’t amused, probably thinking that we were pulling his leg at first. With a smirk on his face he asked, “Did you check in with the pro shop about this little stunt?”
“Yeah they said we were all good to go. Kind of unfortunate not all the tees are backed up to tournament length, but I guess that just means that the course is gonna be that more gettable today, right?”, my brother replied. I’ll call your disbelief and raise you complete, blind confidence. When I was living in San Diego and ever wanted to play the South Course at Torrey Pines from the “way backs”, I had to go into the pro shop and plead my case to the 16 year-old across the counter, assuring him I wasn’t going to play a five and a half hour round. Did Jack actually check in with the pro shop about playing from the back tees? There was no way. This was definitely a situation where it was better to get hit into by the players behind us rather than have the staff in the pro shop look us up and down like we were at a scouting combine. We got up to the first tee, saw the blue and gold tee markers, and started looking for our tees, the blacks. “Gentlemen, they’re back there”, the starter yelled across the practice green. We looked behind us to find a tiny, godforsaken spit of flat grass about 80 yards further back, which we for some reason never got used to throughout our round. Our tees were always a two to three minute backward hike, and with every step, those chasms of forced carries got larger and longer; the abyss in front of us getting deeper and deeper. But we kept telling ourselves that the fairways were 100 yards wide, just hit it as hard as you can in a relatively straight direction. How hard can that be?
What Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw found in their like-minded, southern swagger was a design partnership that would start an outright revolution. Bill was working for Pete Dye as an associate architect, and was asked multiple times by a business friend to team up with a tour pro in creating his own independent design firm. As Bill was sitting on the idea while overlooking the construction of a course in Texas, two time Master’s champion and Texas native, Ben Crenshaw, decided to stop by. What would follow that meeting became stuff of myths and legends. Sand Hills Golf Club in Mullen, Nebraska was just empty, glacial dunes before the two decided to make it into the 9th greatest course in America, according to Golf Digest, and kickstart a worldwide minimalist movement. Pinehurst No. 2 was a dilapidated U.S. Open site before they started the restoration movement by bringing it back to the professional podium, being currently ranked the 6th best public course in America. There is no doubt that this dynamic duo will be remembered as some of the most influential architects in history. But before all of that, and before all the press and accolades they would receive, they fostered a commission given to them by a pineapple plantation owner in Kaanapali, on the northwest shore of Maui.
It’s comedic how The Plantation Course works. Players are likely to hit some of the longest drives of their lives, on the widest fairways, and hit approach shots into some of the largest greens anywhere in Hawaii, let alone the world. The average size green on tour is 6,600 square feet, with the Plantation course’s average coming in at over 10,000 square feet. But for some frustratingly mystical reason, the average player will most likely get nowhere close to shooting their course handicap. What makes it so difficult?
There are multiple reasons other than the obvious testament to distance. One is the wind. The course is routed high above the ocean with barely any tree coverage. The gusts coming in from Japan to the northwest make almost a funnel effect with Molokai, the smaller island just to the north of Kapalua and one that is predominantly seen throughout the routing, and the north western tip of Maui. There were plenty of times where I would be standing over a putt and then suddenly stepping off after a 25 mile-an-hour gust knocked my ball off its stable axis. I remember watching Ian Poulter on the 11th green, an unbelievably picturesque par 3, stepping off of a four foot putt five times over an agonizing span of 3 minutes. On top of dealing with the wind, players have to deal with grain. Bermudagrass, the species used for a lot of the courses built in tropical regions, is the species that covers the Plantation Course from tee to green. It is true that every grass has grain, and yes, it is true that grain always has some effect on the ball. But very rarely does one play on grass with grain strong enough to brake uphill. That’s right, uphill. In California, we are blessed with grass who’s natural character does not require players to look at those kinds of difficult factors. Players aren’t only trying to read the tricky and subtle contours of the greens, they are also trying to take grain into account when at venues like Kapalua. What if you have a 60 foot putt from one side of the green to the other? Better just close your eyes and pray that the grain doesn’t grab and twist your ball 20 feet offline. And those 5-footers get even more complicated. One has to hit those putts solidly and harder than usual, there’s no dying the ball into the cup at Kapalua. If it doesn’t have enough pace on it, that putt will be grabbed by the grain and twisted wherever it wills.
The tee shot off the first hole was the most important. Jack had made a spectacle out of playing the “back backs” as he called them, and neither of us were interested in slicing or duck hooking our way into embarrassment. Luckily, we connected and both hit some of the longest drives of the day. David McKlay Kidd, the genius behind courses like Bandon Dunes, Gamble Sands, and Mammoth Dunes once said that golf course design is “all about the reveal”. The first at the Plantation Course unexpectedly caught us off guard with its obvious beauty. The holes are framed in such a way so that on downhill shots, you almost feel as though you're hitting into the ocean, the cobalt blue waves as a backdrop. And it would only grow exponentially from there. Unfortunately, those of us who watch the Sentry Tournament of Champions don't usually get to see the par-5 5th and par-4 6th due to broadcasting priorities, two of the holes that Jack and I loved dearly and remembered the most, both using the beautiful yet penal chasm on its edge, as well as the par-3 8th, one of the best par threes in Hawaii. The connection between the long par-4 7th and the tricky par-5 9th comes in the form of an amphitheater of artfully crafted bunkers above a green that looked as though it was always there. It looks discovered and unmanipulated, a rarity for golf architecture in Hawaii where the production of new courses in the late 20th century followed late 20th century style: plain bunkers and flat, small greens with man made ponds situated beside them. Another architect could have easily been chosen to build the Plantation Course, and the same formula for making any other course would have been put in place on this property. That was the early 90s. Would it have been as good as what Bill and Ben put together? It would have taken lightning in a bottle for me to think so.
Playing The Plantation Course is a thorough adventure. The potential hero shots are to be discovered all over the course. Flirting with those deep, jungle-filled chasms is a common thought in the back of a player’s mind, and also adds to the overall beauty of the property. And with the recently completed bunker renovation, there is not a hole out there that isn’t good looking. Although it was a sight for sore eyes, Jack and I were more focused on just reaching the fairway. The back tees for the “short” par-4 12th is directly behind the 11th green, and if one wants to actually make it to the shortgrass, a 230 yard drive is expected. It’s pocket change for PGA Tour pros, but for us meager mortals it was a hefty test of riding that line between making sure the ball goes straight, and swinging out of our socks. We constantly found ourselves with four and five irons into dual tiered greens. Some people look at that and don’t find fun, but I believe that although it seems grueling, the fun is what you make of it. I’ll never watch the Tournament of Champions the same way ever again. Jack and I will view our round there as a fantastic experiment. The comparison in skill between us normal hacks and someone who equates a good week of play as food on the table was always shrouded by the “luxurious view from our comfy couches” as I mentioned previously. Fans of every sport criticize bad outcomes. Comments such as “Why did you throw the ball, Russell? You had Beastmode there just waiting for the handoff?” were thrown around, referring to the 2015 Super Bowl, and even “Come on, Dustin. That’s a gimme”, a popular one after Dustin Johnson sailed a four footer past the hole at Chambers Bay for Jordan Spieth to win the U.S. Open. Every golfer who was the best on their high school team or has had some nonsensical amount of money on a match has probably thought they “related” to such a climactic moment. They’re fooling themselves. The pressure is bone crushing. Those moments fly by on the television, yet are the accumulation of years and years of blood, sweat, and tears, and no one in their right mind will ever be able to relate with the greatest athletes in the world. But the golfer can get close, it’s one of the great aspects of our sport. There’s no possible way that Jack or I could’ve scored within the same stratosphere as a professional who plays from the tips. But we tried, and not a lot of people can say that for themselves. And to be honest, we probably had more fun than the pros who find themselves grinding over every shot just to make the cut, let alone a paycheck.
So the next time you watch the Tournament of Champions, think of getting up off that comfy couch and taking a visit to Kapalua to test your own game against that of the pros. Take Jack and I as your guinea pigs. It’s a lot harder and a lot more fun than it looks.