But let it be writen there, under "Courses That Change the Way We Think About Golf," the new Links at Kuilima. It's a short list:
The big question mark at the top is for the nameless layout that a few enthusiasts mowed in grassy in Manoa Valley in the 1880s. Then there's Moanalua Country Club, which opened in 1898 and contends with the San Francisco Golf Club for the mantle of oldest golf club west of the Rockies.
Wailua on Kauai, which has hosted two U.S. Publinx championships, was created by plantation bosses after the turn of the century and began a boom in plantation and municipal courses, Hawaii's first course construction boom. Mauna Kea, which opened in 1964, was the result of Lawrence Rockefeller and Robert Trent Jones Sr.'s utterly revolutionary idea to build a golf course through arid lava and over 200 yards of churning ocean bay.
Next comes Jack Nicklaus' Kiele at the Kauai Lagoons, which opened in 1988 and started the current boom that has added 20 new courses to the 50th State. Kiele was the first challenger to Mauna Kea for "Best Course in Hawaii," but not the last.
And now we have the Links, which will be remembered as the first Hawaii course to be built through a nature preserve. Several new courses have been built with eco-touches, but few as thoroughly or dramatically as the Links. In addition to the usual signs with the hole's yardage, you'll see signs that show and describe several kinds of water birds that you're likely to see. They include the Hawaiian duck, stilt and gallinule, each of which is on the federal endangered species list.
"To see all of these birds, endangered and otherwise, in the wild really makes it a special golf experience," says Sig Kramer of Kramer and Associates in Honolulu, who created the signs and carries a 14 handicap.
"And they (designers Arnold Palmer and Ed Seay and director of golf Gary Brown) actually increased the wetlands area. Nobody ever does that. Usually they encroach on nature."
"If you look around, you'll see a lot of environmental sensitivity," says Brown.
In building the course, Palmer and Seay had to work closely with an alphabet soup of state and federal agencies: Environmental Proection Agency, Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and state Department of Land and Natural Resources among them.
The golf course and its wetlands is certainly an improvement on what had been an overgrown swamp choked with mangroves and debris with a cracked and abandoned asphalt runway on the side.
The front nine is wide-open with few trees and a definite links feel to it, especially when mist drifts inland from the nearby sea. You first encounter Punahoolapa Marsh on the the sixth hole and will play over, around and along its watery tentacles on every remaining hole. The back nine plunges out of wide open spaces into ironwoods, tall and feathery, that reverberate with the sound of a well-struck shot, as well as the ker-punk of a ball chili-dipped into the marsh.
As if all that natural water wasn't enough, Palmer and Seay added a big lake that comes into play on the par-5 third and par-3 fourth holes. The par-5 18th is one of the great closing holes in Hawaii, with water lurking right, left and in front of the green. Like the 18th at Kiele, Ko Olina and Kapalua Village, it's the sort of finisher you start worrying about on the first tee. And the ninth hole is rated even tougher. Pressers beware.
You can play the Links at Kuilima because of its historic and environmental charms, but the best reason to play the Links is that it's a terrific golf course and a thoroughly pleasant place to spend a few hours.
A choice of five tee boxes can make the course as playable or as difficult as you want. The Links is currently sharing the clubhouse and practice facility at the nearby Turtle Bay Hilton while a new clubhouse is being built.
PAR: 72
YARDAGE: Black tees 7,199. Blue 6795. Gold: 6,225. White 5,574. Red 4851
SLOPE HANDICAP RATING: 141; 138; 133; 126; 120.
GREENS FEES: Hawaii residents $55; hotel guests $75; outside guests $125.
RESERVATIONS AND INFORMATION: 293-8811.
Director of Golf: Gary Brown
Head Professional: Jody Shaw
Superintendent: Mike Honma
Architects: Arnold Palmer and Ed Seay
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