Mauna Kea Golf Course

The verdict

Mauna Kea is where Hawaiian resort golf was invented, and sixty years on it is still the round on the Big Island with the most gravity. Jones Sr crushed and seeded a lava field that had never grown anything, then routed a big, muscular championship course across it: wide corridors framed in black rock, enormous tilted greens, and the Pacific appearing exactly when the drama needs it. The recent renovation by Robert Trent Jones Jr restored the scale and speed of the original surfaces while modernizing the agronomy, and the course reopened playing as well as it has in decades.

It is not a flat resort stroll. Mauna Kea climbs and falls along the coastal slope, the trade winds work against par all afternoon, and the long par 4s ask for real golf. But the forward tees are generous, the views never stop, and the third hole alone justifies the fee. Among Hawaii's bucket list rounds it stands with the Plantation Course at Kapalua, and it carries more history than anything else in the islands.

The holes worth the trip

The third is the postcard the rest of golf still envies. From the championship tee the carry across the cove is up to 272 yards over surf, black rock and a graveyard of golf balls, with the green angled on the far headland and the wind deciding everything. Played from the sensible decks it is a mid iron with a thousand foot view; played from the back it is one of the great dares in the sport. Jones Sr called holes like this his signature, and nowhere did he sign more boldly.

The course around it earns the rest of the day. The front nine climbs away from the sea through lava framed corridors to greens that tilt with the mountain, and the long par 4s into the trades are as stout as resort golf gets. The eleventh, a long par 3 falling back toward the ocean with the coastline stacked behind it, would be the signature hole anywhere else. The closing run brings the resort's monkeypod trees and the white crescent of Kauna'oa Beach into view, and the eighteenth climbs home to a green beside the hotel that started everything.

Play it in the morning before the wind fills in, take one photograph on the third tee, and then put the phone away. The course deserves your full attention.

Where to stay nearby

The Mauna Kea Beach Hotel is the obvious and correct answer: Rockefeller's 1965 landmark sits on Kauna'oa Beach beside the course, recently refreshed and still one of the great resort hotels in the Pacific. The neighboring Westin Hapuna Beach Resort shares the property and a second course, and the Kohala Coast strip south toward Waikoloa adds the Fairmont Orchid and Mauna Lani Auberge for groups comparing beaches.

A Big Island week pairs naturally with the wider islands: our best golf courses in Hawaii ranking and Hawaii green fees guide map the options, from Princeville Makai on Kauai to Ko Olina on Oahu.

Looking for a base? See our recommended hotels and resorts along the Kohala Coast.