(Editor’s note: Although the PGA Tour’s 2026 Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua was canceled, golf in Hawaii is very much alive and well. All week long, Golfweek will highlight some of the state’s incredible courses and views. Here’s Monday’s story about Hualalai.)
LIHUE, Kauai, Hawaii – The Garden Isle draws from around the globe. Golfers seeking a next great adventure are drawn to Kauai, northernmost of the populated Hawaiian islands and home to otherworldly beaches and stunning sunsets, mountains that pierce the clouds and golf courses that encapsulate all the best sights and sounds of the island.
There are nine golf courses on Kauai, five of which make up the Go Golf Kauai collective. The days of island hopping for golf in Hawaii are over. Players can gorge on the sport for a week on Kauai at Princeville Makai, Wailua, Puakea, Poipu Bay and the Ocean Course at Hokuala. Go Golf Kauai is a unified voice promoting the sport on the island, with each course in its lineup sure to deliver lasting memories of a part of the world where a laid-back culture and an easy-going vibe mesh with perfect weather, delicious farm-to-table food and amazing golf.
It’s five courses, five unique experiences, one island, zero stress.
Princeville Makai Golf Club
- Golfweek’s Best ranking: No. 4 among Hawaii’s top public-access courses, No. 33 among all resort courses in the U.S., tied for No. 184 among modern courses in U.S.
- Designer: Robert Trent Jones Jr.
- Opened: 1971.
The North Shore is where it’s at on Kauai.
Princeville Makai is found here. So is the luxurious 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay. One suggestion: Make Makai the final golf outing of your trip. This stunner is ranked highest on the island in the Golfweek’s Best rankings, so why not save the best for last?
Robert Trent Jones Jr.’s first solo design had an extensive renovation in 2009 and 2010 that introduced seashore paspalum grass. In 2024, the course was further improved with bunker drainage, improved turf and improved playability.
“Mr. Jones spends a lot of time here because it was the first course that he built independently from his father (also a famed architect, Robert Trent Jones Sr.),” said Michael Neider, Makai’s general manager since June 2022. “He takes a lot of pride in that fact.”
Scenic and fun, Makai has several amazing holes, including the par-3 third that requires a tee shot off a cliff to a green some 80 feet down.
“I don’t know too many holes in the world where you have the combination of an ocean backdrop, a mountain backdrop, plus such a dramatic elevation change from tee to green,” Neider said.
Makai means “toward the sea,” and the par-4 sixth requires an approach shot to a green that isn’t quite hanging over the ocean’s edge but can certainly seem like it.
“Mr. Jones had a really clever idea,” Neider said. “Between hole six and hole 12, he designed those greens as negative-edge greens, so when you’re playing to the holes, it really feels like behind the green is nothing, and it’s just the ocean. So it kind of distorts your perception a little bit.”
There’s no distorting your perception on the next, the par-3 seventh. It can play as long as 213 yards, and standing on that back tee box feels like you’re on a tiny peninsula aiming at a large green on the other side of a deep chasm of cliff and ocean. Perhaps harrowing for the golfer, this tee box is a popular scenic spot for other activities, too, such as yoga, cocktail parties, even weddings.
If it’s whale-watching season, you might see one of those giant mammals while playing the drivable par-4 14th. You might also see an albatross on the course. No, not a 2 on one of the par 5s but rather the bird, which considers the North Shore a great nesting place between visits to Alaska, some 2,700 miles due north. Sometimes an albatross will swoop in low for a better look at people chasing after a little white ball.
If you can’t find relaxation on the golf course, you’re certain to find it at 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay, the flagship property that many consider the premier destination in Kauai. The original structure was built in 1985, and SH Hotels & Resorts reopened it in March 2023 after a stunning renovation.
The first “Ocean Friendly Hotel” in Hawaii, according to the conservation nonprofit Surfrider Foundation, has a mission of sustainability, from reclaimed materials used in the renovation to the absence of plastic bottles and bags, to the availability of fully electric Audi e-tron SUVs.
The resort’s 252 rooms include 51 suites with views of Hanalei Bay, and pre- or post-round meals can be enjoyed at one of seven sustainable food options. There’s also a 10,000-square-foot fitness center and a spa featuring cryotherapy, a hyperbaric chamber, infrared saunas, cold plunge baths and a salt pod flotation chamber.
Wailua Municipal Golf Course
- Golfweek’s Best ranking: No. 14 among Hawaii’s top public-access courses.
- Designer: Toyo Shirai.
- Opened: As a nine-hole course in the 1930s, with a second nine added in 1961.
This is a muni? Are you kidding?
Wailua is a welcoming star of the island, and being a muni, it’s the most affordable. Wailua can play nearly 7,000 yards from the tips with elevation changes, lakes, fast greens and ocean views.
“Wailua Golf Course is probably one of the most popular golf courses on the island,” said Daniel Urwiler, director of golf operations and maintenance for the Department of Parks and Recreation in the County of Kauai.
Rates for locals are $18 during the week and $23 on weekends, and there’s a $1 green fee any day of the week for local juniors 17 and under. Any disabled veteran can play for free. For the rest of us, it’s $80 weekdays and $100 on weekends, making it the best deal in Kauai.
Wailua has all the trappings of a muni: a quaint clubhouse, an old-school locker room with wooden lockers and a small starter shed. The course has also hosted three USGA events: the 1975, 1985 and 1996 U.S. Amateur Public Links Championships.
The course’s first nine takes you south along the coast, with Nos. 1 and 2 running along the beach with trees bending inland from the wind. Like most courses on the island, Wailua has seashore paspalum grass. The greens are fantastic.
“Seashore can be mowed lower than dwarf Bermuda grasses, and with a little massaging can produce a smooth, quick and consistent ball roll,” Urwiler said.
The first nine holes built in the 1930s were all that was available for three decades until a second nine, designed by Toyo Shirai, opened in 1961. Shirai played in two U.S. Opens and is credited with starting the junior golf program on Kauai.
One thing you’ll see not just at Wailua but all over is wild chickens. Another is the Cook pines, named after James Cook, an English explorer from the 1800s. These massive trees are a non-native species with trunks that were used as tall masts on sailing ships. And no, you’re not seeing things: A Cook pine always leans towards the equator.
The hole everyone talks about at Wailua is the par-3 17th. That’s the Instagram-famous one. There are two tee boxes, at 173 and 112 yards. The farther tee box is more elevated and offers a better angle for photography. Be ready for strong ocean breezes here, which make an iron shot over bunkers to the green a true test of marksmanship.
“Wailua Golf Course is a real gem,” Urwiler said. “It’s a feather in the cap of the island residents.”
Puakea Golf Club
- Designer: Robin Nelson.
- Opened: 1997 as 10 holes; final eight holes in 2003.
While several Kauai courses brag about their ocean views, it’s the stunning mountain vistas that make Puakea special. You can almost hear the soundtrack to “Jurassic Park,” and movie buffs might recognize the backdrop of the Makana and Makaleha mountain ranges from many of the scenes in the dinosaur movie franchise.
“Everybody comes to Kauai for the ocean, the blue ocean,” said T.J. Esaki-Kua, director of golf at Puakea, “but I like the dramatic mountain backdrops on most of our course. And the location is hard to beat.”
Puakea’s layout is tough to beat, too. This Robin Nelson design has several holes that make the round memorable.
“I think the most talked about hole is No. 6, the drastically downhill par 3 where you have to hit over a pond there, and then of course with a huge mountain backdrop. It’s just a pretty dramatic hole, and I think people like that,” Esaki-Kua said.
Standing on the elevated tee box, staring down at the green, the yardage calls for perhaps a mid-iron, but the shot must carry what was once a sugar cane irrigation lake.
Most of the course features rolling hills and fun, fast greens. It’s accessible, priced right and features a great hangout that’s popular with locals, the Puakea Grill, where executive chef Kristin Yanagawa serves up island favorites with a personal touch. A common sight is a table full of area residents, many not even there for the golf, enjoying a rice-based loco moco or an ahi poke bowl and chatting the day away.
“The owner of the grill is well known on the island,” Esaki-Kua said. “She’s so popular, and the restaurant is so popular.”
So is the golf course, which has certainly found a sweet spot on the island.
Poipu Bay
- Golfweek’s Best ranking: Tied for No. 9 among Hawaii’s top public-access courses, tied for No. 113 among all resort courses in the U.S.
- Designer: Robert Trent Jones Jr.
- Opened: 1991.
When you think of golf on Kauai, there’s a good chance you’re thinking of Poipu Bay, once home to the Grand Slam of Golf with Tiger Woods roaming the grounds. The next door Grand Hyatt Resort & Spa, as well as the Poipu Bay clubhous,e proudly display countless memories of the event, won by Woods seven times.
With scenic holes along the ocean and a strong closing stretch, the course features plenty of width to counter the gusts on this windy side of the island.
“I think that most people might say that every hole is into the wind,” quipped Chad Dusenberry, the director of golf at Poipu Bay.
Born and raised in Hawaii, Dusenberry served in the U.S. Air Force before making his way back to Kauai, where he found his calling on the golf course. He noted that the Robert Trent Jones Jr. design splits the course into threes, with six holes playing into the wind, six against and six with tricky cross winds. And as anyone who’s played in gusty conditions can attest, a stiff breeze makes for tricky putting.
“Our greens, we’re not going to speed them up too much because of the wind conditions,” Dusenberry said. “We’re not going to make them too fast.”
The par-5 14th hole plays 537 yards uphill from the back tees with the wind frequently in your face, but there’s a reward after reaching the green at the highest point on the layout: a wonderful view of the course and the agricultural countryside, including CJM Country Stables, a working ranch with dozens of horses clomping across the red soil.
“The best thing about our golf course is there’s no buildings around,” Dusenberry said. “Even though we have a resort right next door, you feel like you’re away from everything. You get the natural beauty, you get Mt. Haupu, you get the ocean right next door. So I think for us, it’s kind of the views you expect when you come to Hawaii.”
These views aren’t just for golfers. The 15th and 16th holes play downhill along the 3.8-mile Maha’ulepu Heritage Trail, which runs along a ridgeline atop cliffs that tumble into the ocean.
Ocean Course at Hokuala
- Golfweek’s Best ranking: No. 8 among Hawaii’s top public-access courses, tied for No. 113 among resort courses in the U.S.
- Designer: Jack Nicklaus.
- Opened: 1988, with renovations in 2011 and 2016.
The fifth and final leg of this Go Golf Kauai adventure is the Ocean Course at Hokuala, one of four courses in Hawaii designed by Jack Nicklaus and the lone Nicklaus layout on Kauai.
The inland front nine features three par 5s and the much-talked-about par-3 fifth. The green is about 210 yards from the tips, with the 170-yard tees better suited for most players. Between tee and green is a deep valley full of foliage. The route to the green is down to the bottom of this narrow valley, the trees so thick the sun is blocked out, before winding back up the other side. It’s only once you reach the other side that you realize this green offers more landing area than it appears to have from the tee box.
The ocean holes at the Ocean Course come along on the back nine. If you weren’t having fun yet, you will be now, as the blue water first comes into view on the longest par 4 on the course, the 474-yard 13th. The par-3 14th requires a tee ball that must not stray left toward the cliff’s edge. After the long par-4 15th comes the drivable par-4 16th, where you can play toward the right side of the fairway and a hillside that should kick your ball back to the left. If you get a hold of your drive, you’ll watch it bound forward, then disappear down a slope towards the green.
From that spot, you can see the Ninini Point Lighthouse, which was built in 1906 and purchased by the U.S. government from the Lihue Plantation Company in 1917 for $8. More than 100 years later, it’s part of the charm of the golf course.
Many of the nonstop flights back to the mainland are red-eyes, allowing for one final round of golf before the sun sets on your last day. Chances are before you even leave the Garden Isle, memories are likely to come flooding back.
The ocean views. The majestic mountains. The amazing food. The perfect temperatures. And miles and miles of amazing golf.
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