Tag Archives: Kapalua

Posted in travel

As Suspected, I’m Better at Cruising than Golfing

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by Bob Sparrow

Pride of America Golf Ahoy ship route

I left you last as we were just boarding Norwegian Cruise Line’s ‘Pride of America’ on Saturday afternoon in Honolulu.  If I’m being honest, it’s not the best ship we’ve ever been on, in fact, it might have been the worst – it’s fairly dated, with small cabins and marginal entertainment and food.  We’ve sailed on Norwegian before and have been very happy with the ship, but this one is a little tired.  But that is made up for with the fabulous golf courses we will be playing over the next week and the fact that this ship does have the ‘unlimited drink package’, which in Hawaii, is a very valuable thing.  Where else would you even try a Rebellious Fish, a Funky Monk, or a Sparkling Garden?  Yep, I tried them all!

Interesting fact about Honolulu: Waikiki Beach is almost entirely manmade.

Sunday: We spend the night, apparently going in circles as Maui is only a short distance away, so when we wake up on Sunday morning, we are docked at Kahului Harbor, by the airport.  Our driver meets us at the ship and we travel past the devastated-by-fire remains of Lahaina (so heartbreaking), on our way to the Plantation Course at Kapalua.  As many of you know, the Plantation Course is where the PGA opens their season every year in January and it is a very difficult course, with lots of elevation.  It seems I was really focusing on the beautiful views that day rather than golf, as I continued to litter the grounds with a number of my golf balls; at least I know they have a beautiful final resting place.

Monday: Our ship stayed in Maui and our driver picks us up at the ship in the morning and takes us to the other end of the island to the Emerald Course at Wailea.  It was another beautiful day, on another beautiful, and more friendly, golf course.  No balls put to rest on this day.  After the mandatory ‘after-the-round-cocktail’ our driver picks us up and returns us to the ship.  We have dinner reservations at Cagney’s Steak House on board and have a very nice meal.  Entertainment was a little light, as we saw a comedian, who was sometimes funny.

Mauni Lani

Interesting fact about Maui: Maui is home to the largest dormant volcano in the world – Mt. Haleakalā

Tuesday/Wednesday: We wake up this morning on the Hilo side of the Big Island, so with a day of rest from golf, and nothing we haven’t seen or want to see in Hilo, we hang out on the ship.  That evening, the ship sails around to the other side of the island to the Kona side, where we get off in the morning and play golf at Mauna Lani, a beautiful oceanfront golf course that is magnificent!  Jack & JJ Budd, who are vacationing with their grandkids on the Big Island, meet us prior to our tee time.  Another beautiful day as we are amazed by the homes on this magnificent golf course.

Back on the boat and we make the evening voyage from the Big Island to Kauai.

Interesting fact about The Big Island: Mauna Kea Volcano is the tallest mountain in the world from the sea floor at 33,000 feet (Mt. Everest, the tallest mountain on land is 29,032 feet)

Linda & me with Tracy Sanborn

Thursday/Friday: We awake the next morning in Nawilwili Bay on the island of Kauai, where we disembark and are met by our driver, who takes us to Poipu Bay Golf Course.  The course and day are beautiful, but very windy, so golf takes a back seat to great views and putting some balls in their beautiful final resting place.  We stay docked in Kauai for the evening and play Kohalani Ocean Course, with many holes right along the coast line.  Yes, I put some balls to rest here, but they didn’t mind, it is a beautiful, tropical golf course.  A bonus was that we were met after the round of golf by my cousin, Tracy Sanborn, who I hadn’t see in over 50 years (her mom and my dad were siblings); she just happened to be staying at her timeshare in Princeville with her son, daughter-in-law and their 6-month-old baby boy.  Great to see them!

Interesting fact about Kauai: Kauai is the wettest place on earth, Mt. Waialeale receives an average of 450 inches of rain a year!

Friday morning we are back in Honolulu, where we disembark, head to the airport for our flight home, full of golf aches and pains, and some extra baggage at the belt level from that ‘unlimited drink’ package, but also filled with lots of great memories.

 

Posted in opinion

Golf :-) #%&@!

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by Bob Sparrow

golf hateI love golf.  I think it is the greatest game ever invented.  It requires both unique mental and physical skills, it combines camaraderie and competition and it’s one of the only sports you can play while smoking a cigar and drinking a beer.  Personally, I’ve had the pleasure of playing some magnificent courses from Kapalua, Hawaii to Kiawah, South Carolina.

I hate golf.  It is exasperating, demeaning and expensive.  It brings out the worst in us, it impugns our self-worth and facilitates, no encourages, cheating.  Personally, my first bad experience with golf was when my high school golf coach said after a round, “The best two balls you hit all day were on #7 when you stepped on a rake.”

Kapalua

Kapalua, Maui, Hawaii

If you play the game, you know exactly what I’m talking about; if you don’t, there’s no way to explain the fascination of hitting and chasing a little white sphere around a cow pasture.  To try to put it in perspective for both camps, I would say that golf can be defined as 4½ hours of a series of calamities interrupted by an occasional miracle, or as John Feinstein put it, ‘a good walk spoiled’.

The subject probably needs a little fuller vetting, so let’s tee it up.

golf origin

Scots skipping work to play golf

Golf had an ignominious beginning, (what a surprise) dating as far back as 1261, when the Dutch cursed while they played a game with a ball and a club.  But the modern game of golf is considered a Scottish invention where the first documented mention of golf was in Edinburgh in 1457 when King James II banned golf in an attempt to encourage archery practice, which was being neglected. So even back then, men were sneaking out of work to play golf.

Some say it was named golf because all the other four-letter words were taken, but the word for ‘club’ ‘striking’ or ‘cuffing’ – lord knows I’ve ‘cuffed’ the ball many a time, has an interesting etymology.  The word started out spelled as ‘gowfe’ which led to ‘gouff’, which led to ‘gowf’, which led to golf, which led to club throwing, sandbagging, and in the 70s, white men dressing like black pimps. Personally, I think the word will ultimately evolve into ‘goof’. And it’s probably not a coincidence that golf spelled backwards is flog. Some say the name golf came from initials that meant Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden, but that is just an ugly rumor probably started by a man whose wife could beat him at the game.

And why, you ask is golf made up of 18 holes, not 10 or 20 or an even dozen?  The story goes something like this:

KiawahIsland

Kiawah Island, South Carolina

During a discussion among the club’s membership board at St. Andrews, Scotland in 1858, one of the members pointed out that it takes exactly 18 shots to polish off a fifth of Scotch. By limiting himself to only one shot of Scotch per hole, the Scot figured a round of golf was finished when the Scotch ran out.

A great story, but unfortunately not true. Early courses were 5-7 holes, played two or three times. It wasn’t until 1764 that golfers at St. Andrews decided to combine the first four short holes into two to produce a round of 18 holes, although it was still a 10-hole course with 8 holes being played twice. However, it would be over 100 years before 18 holes became the standard for golf frustration.

In my opinion the best explanation of the origin of, and exasperation with, the game of golf comes from the late, great Robin Williams; even if you’ve seen this before or not a fan of golf, I think you’ll enjoy this short video.  Spoiler Alert: there are a few f-bombs in the video, OK quite a few, so get the children out of the room before listening.

They say that golf is a game you can play for a lifetime, but what they don’t say is that you’re going to get worse every year until you finally can’t straighten up after you make your last putt.

But until then . . . “Fore!”