Puakea Golf Course
Lihue Hawaii

Imagine yourself walking up to the tee with a view of the sparkling Pacific Ocean and majestic Mount Haupu towering over you. This isn't a dream.... this is Puakea Golf Course. Robin Nelson, Hawaii’s most prolific golf course architect, designed the course to play around deep ravines and streams fed by fresh mountain rain water. With the inspirational terrain and calming mountain range backdrop, you'll find Puakea Golf Course to play differently under a variety of weather conditions of wind and water. Nelson’s masterful architecture clearly conveys the routes one should take to achieve textbook pars. He hints enticingly at ways to achieve challenging birdies, but that gamble can quickly turn into bogey or worse.

For nearly 7 years, Puakea was a glorious oddity – a 10-hole truncation thanks to Hurricane Iniki. She halted course development in mid-stream and wreaked havoc on the local economy, which forced the golf course to change hands before completion. In 2003, the new ownership chose to complete this unfinished diamond and gave acclaimed golf course architect Robin Nelson a mulligan for the remaining eight holes. That was the best news imaginable because, even in its incompleteness, Sports Illustrated thought enough of Puakea to name it one of the best 9 -hole golf courses in the United States.

When all 18 holes were opened in July 2003, Nelson was finally able to realize his vision for Puakea. The result is Hawaii’s newest, 18-hole championship course – a gorgeous and gratifying golf layout for which the delay was well worth the wait.