Tsunamis and Sutorius’

A single entry blog about the Sutorius' wild adventure to Maui.

March 8th - 15th, 2011

While I have been to Hawaii twice before, I had not played any golf on either trip. Heresy, I know. However, in fairness, neither trip took place during my days as a Guru, and both trips were with non-golfing family members. Interestingly, and perhaps not so coincidentally, neither trip was, what I would call, my ideal vacation. In fact, I wasn’t really so sure that I even wanted to go to Hawaii again, which made golf in Hawaii a bit of a challenge.

My wife Shawnie, and I decided, though, that it was time to take a trip. Our girls were a little older; capable of taking care of themselves and each other to the point that we didn’t think they would be an overwhelming burden on whomever we left them with. And, it had been a lot of years since Shawnie and I had gone a vacation as a couple, with no one else along for the ride. Now, I must point out that we had taken plenty of vacations in the past few years, they have just all been with the convenience of children in mind. We have gone on family trips, and then we have each gone separately on trips, as well. Mine, of course, are always golf trips. So, in many ways, this arrangement has worked quite well. For the kids; as they have either come with us both, or been left with one or the other parent. For me; as my trips are packed with mass amounts of golf. And, for Shawnie; as she could fill her trips with whatever it is that she likes to do?? Our last two couple-only vacations, many years ago, were both cruises, and we strongly considered doing that again. However, in the end, Hawaii won out for a handful of reasons, and we booked airfare for Maui.

We were planning to spend 6 days on Maui, and I decided that 5 rounds of golf during that time would be a good number of rounds without pushing my luck. So, I scouted out the options and scheduled myself to play two rounds at Wailea, two rounds on Lanai, and a round at the famous Plantation Course at Kapalua.

The first two rounds went extremely smoothly. As mentioned they were scheduled at Wailea, which is actually the site of three courses – the Blue, the Emerald, and the Gold. Shawnie’s input was that the Blue should have more appropriately been called the Sapphire. That would have never occurred to me, on my own, but I think she is right. In protest, I decided to only play the Emerald and the Gold (also they were the best two courses, by all accounts). Shawnie decided to go with me rather than to spend the day alone in the Kaanapali area, where our condo was located. In 16 years of marriage, this would only be the 3rd or 4th time she had ever ridden along with me while I golfed. As it turned out, 36 holes of riding was probably a little too much, given her limited exposure.

The day in Wailea, though, was great (at least I think it was). I started on the Emerald course, whose signature feature has to be the never-ending views of the Pacific throughout the round. It was a very picturesque day. Shawnie really wished that she had brought a separate camera, so that she could capture, to her heart’s content, beautiful images that did not have bunkers, fairways, greens, and flags in them. I found that I also wished that she had brought her own camera so that when I went back to catalogue images, I did not have to sort through shots of coconut clusters, flowered bushes, lovely landscaping, and the occasional mongoose. What do they say about beauty and the eye of the beholder? Obviously, we were beholding different things.

Wailea (Emerald) 10th and 17th

The Gold course has the most tradition-rich past of the three courses at Wailea as the Champions Skins Game was held there from 2001- 2007. Expectedly, it was the tougher of the two courses that I played. Unexpectedly, I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as the Emerald course. Labeled by some as the “thinking player’s course,” I found myself thinking only that it was a little shy on drama and ocean vistas given its location. Not that it was bad. It was actually very good, it just didn’t thrill me after having played the more picturesque Emerald course.

Wailea Gold 18th

The next two rounds of the trip were scheduled to be played a couple of days later on the Island of Lanai. I had stumbled across the fact that Lanai was most accessible from Maui, while I was inputting courses into Nikki, my gps unit, a couple of weeks before leaving on our trip. When I put in the city of Lahaina on Maui, the two course on Lanai came up rather quickly and were listed as less than 20 miles away. I immediately recognized them because they have two of the great course names in all of golf: The Challenge at Manele, and The Experience at Koele. How great are those?! And, from everything I had ever seen or read, the golf experience lived up to the sensational names. I quickly learned that a ferry went back and forth between Lahaina and Lanai several times each day, and immediately made plans to spend a day on Lanai, with plans to play both courses.

Shawnie had agreed to again spend the day riding along with me while I played hours and hours of golf – though this time she brought a book. We knew that the trip to Lanai would be a unique and scenic trip, and we hoped to see some whales on the ferry while en route. So, we decided to go to bed early on Thursday, March 10th, and to get up on Friday around 5:15 a.m., so that we would be on-time for the 6:45 a.m. ferry. Right before turning off the TV and turning in for the night, Shawnie happened to channel surf past CNN where we saw reports of a massive earthquake in Japan.

At about 2 a.m. I got a text from our family in Idaho warning that a tsunami was headed our way. I got another one from my buddy Ross at about 4 a.m. Both times, I concluded that nothing would happen before we were scheduled to wake up at 5:15 and went back to sleep. I was wrong. Tsunamis travel faster than I would have guessed – at about 500 mph! Maui, and the other islands had been hit a couple hours before I finally pulled myself out of bed. Fortunately, we were not right on the beach and had not needed to evacuate (in fact, we had slept through tsunami warning sirens, police helicopters, and a mass beach evacuation). Unfortunately, it was immediately obvious that we were not going to take a ferry to Lanai for a day of golf.

Lanai Harbor

Never to be defeated, however, when there is golf to be played, I was able to reschedule the rounds and the ferry, and we found ourselves headed to Lanai two days later – albeit on a much smaller ferry – one that was capable of loading and unloading at a temporary dock in Lanai Harbor, as the primary dock had been damaged by the tsunami.

The first round of the day was at The Experience at Koele. This Greg Norman/ Ted Robinson design is located several miles inland, and at an elevation of nearly 2000 feet above sea level, is unique among all the golf offerings in the Hawaiian Island chain. Its terrain, vegetation, vistas, and appearance do not fit the Hawaiian stereotype. It is a lush environment with huge trees, constant elevation changes, attractive water features, and no attempts to highlight the ocean as a backdrop. It actually reminded me most of the lush Laurel Valley in Ligonier, PA or one of the green, pristine private clubs in the Northern Idaho panhandle. Needless to say, it was beautiful. It was also a joy to play and instantly found a place on my personal Top 100. While I loved it, it really made me eager to play the slightly more heralded, and photogenic Challenge at Manele.

The Experience at Koele 17th hole

Both 18-hole courses on the island (as well as a large portion of the island itself) are owned by the luxury resort company Castle & Cooke and are managed by Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. Each course has an adjoining luxury hotel property, and there is a shuttle service that traverses between the courses and the properties all throughout the day. We took the shuttle to Koele in the morning, to Manele for the afternoon round, and back to the harbor at the end of the day.

The Challenge at Manele is a heroic design by Jack Nicklaus and features five holes that run along the top of black rock cliffs, a couple of hundred feet above the Pacific Ocean. Every other hole on the course also features endless views of the ocean, and of Maui in the distance, as they are routed in a terrace-like system, back and forth across the rising hills of Lanai. The par 3 12th hole, and the par 4 17th are simply world-class in the realm of seaside golf drama. Both require heroic tee shots over the pounding surf below to the safety of either a green on #12, or a fairway on #17. Fortunately, these two holes are just the most picturesque and dramatic of an otherwise very solid golf course. I enjoyed it so much, that we drove the entire course a second time, taking time to replay the best holes, and to take pictures after picture, adding to the large amount that we had already taken on the first loop.

Shawnie at The Challenge at Manele 12th hole

Mike at The Challenge at Manele 17th hole

When we finally returned to the harbor, the sun was nearly set. We were hungry, and anxious for a romantic sunset cruise back to Maui. Regrettably, the ferry schedule had been increasingly delayed throughout the day as the ferry company tried to make up for the previous two days of down time with a inferior vessel. So, we waited for nearly an hour, and finally returned to Maui in the dark. We didn’t see any whales.

My final round was a 6:50 a.m. tee time at The Plantation Course at Kapalua the following day. Like every other golf addict, I have been watching the inaugural PGA event that is hosted at the course for years – what used to be the Mercedes, and now is the Hyundai Championship. And, like every other golf event, I felt like I had seen the last two holes of the course, a lot, but had trouble coming up with the design features of any other 16 holes. I knew, though, that if the first 16 were of a comparable quality to the final two, it was going to be a terrific course. I was not disappointed. In truth, it ended up being one of my all-time favorites, landing squarely in my personal Top 30.

Kapalua (Plantation) 11th hole

I was fortunate to be paired with a great guy named Bob, from Tucson. Though married with children, Bob was on a golf trip, by himself, to Maui. My kind of guy. Bob had played The Plantation Course eight times previously and was a wealth of information throughout the round. The Plantation Course was by far the most dramatic Coore/Crenshaw design that I have experienced. In fact, I am surprised that they took the job considering the piece of property that was available to them. Known as minimalists, there was no way that they could simply “find” holes here. The combination, however, of an aggressive terrain and the typically conservative architects resulted in a masterpiece. Maybe future golf owners should seek similar contrasts for their proposed courses. Rather than signing up Tom Fazio or Jim Engh for an extreme piece of property, maybe Tom Doak or Gil Hanse would produce a magnum opus. Anyway, I loved it, from start to finish.

Kapalua (Plantation) 14th hole

Well, that’s a wrap: 5 rounds on a 6-day trip with my wife to Maui and Lanai. For multiple reasons, including the golf, this trip to Hawaii was an entirely new experience – one that now has me eager to go back. I just hope that it isn’t another episode of Tsunamis and Sutorius’.

There were a lot of other details on our trip to Maui, but who wants to hear about those? This is a golf blog, after all.

• The ocean as the best overall backdrop in the creation of a golf course – Not Hype
• The power, speed, and magnitude of a tsunami – Not Hype
• The notion that Coore/Crenshaw are minimalist, short on drama – Hype
• My concerns that golf and a trip with my wife couldn’t coexist – Hype (whew!)