We recently played the Plantation Course at Kapalua which hosts the Tournament of Champions in January, the PGA Tour’s first event of the year.  For those Golf Channel addicts who are golf deprived in January it is a ritual for us to take in the vicarious thrill of watching the 30 winners of last year’s tour events play this magnificent course in Maui.

                      The protagonists-Moe is the taller one by virtue of the curb.

Owned by the Ritz-Carlton this place pulls out all the stops when it comes to presentation.

The hallway of champions is owned by Aussie Stuart Appleby who has a three-peat in this event.

Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw designed this majestic course with it’s breathtaking vistas above Kapalua Bay.

Click on any photo to see an enhanced view of the image

You get looks like this on Number 7 tumbling down toward Kapalua Bay  with the remote island of Molokai in the background.

Some holes are beyond description like this view of the back side of the replica Mucha Picchu burial mound that feeds down to the 6th green.

Kathy was up for the challenge across the environmental abyss on the par 3 8th where she hit it to 4 feet and made birdie.

To say the elevation changes here are severe is an understatement.  Where else do  you see guard rails running up the side of the fairway.

The wind always blows big time.  But as you can see here on the par 4 12th the golf gods smiled on both of our approach shots and we made birdie-par as a result.

As you would imagine in such a place there are some modest homes overlooking the course.  This little bungalow on the high ground above #16 even has it’s own practice green in the back yard.

Number 18 is an iconic finishing hole with a 150 foot drop from tee to green.

Dusk settles on this piece of paradise.

Aloha,

Moe and Kathy Dweck
October, 2011

(Click here to see my full review of the Kapalua Plantation Course)

If your golf club wants to be cutting edge you need one of these.  Just imagine a pleasant Wednesday evening walk of the back nine with your golden retriever.

(Photo by John Mayhugh at the West Sussex Golf Club in England)

A Golfer’s Scrapbook

Thomas Dunne (www.out-and-back.net)

National Fourball 1970 (golfartgallery.com)

From the collection on the walls of the Laurel Valley Golf Club you will find this classic shot of Arnie and Jack as pards in the National Four Ball in 1970.  Get the feeling these guys were intense competitors even as partners?  Arnie’s fingerprints are all over this club-it was his summer hangout through most of his career.

U.S. Ryder Cup Team 1975 (rydercup.com)

This is a period piece for sure-U.S. Ryder Cup Team from the 1975 competition at Laurel Valley Golf Club.  The team includes Jack, Hale Irwin, Lee Trevino, Arnie, Bob Murphy, Raymond Floyd, Billy Casper, Tom Weiskopf, and a very young Johnny Miller.  There is so much tradition just oozing around this place.

Click on photos to get an enlarged view of the image

Arnie and The Guys

And who can resist the photo opp with The King that is adjacent to the first tee box.

(Click here to see full review of the Laurel Valley Golf Club)

September, 2011

(Photo By Everett Collection/Rex Features)

This image of the epic match in the film between Goldfinger (Gert Frobe) and James Bond (Sean Connery) remains stamped from my teenage memory as one of the first mentions of golf in popular media.  Mr. Bond catches Goldfinger cheating at the game and turns the tables of him with a clever use of the rules of golf.

Bond: “This is a Slazenger 7.”

Bond shows Goldfinger his own golf ball.

Bond: “Here’s my Penfold Hearts. You must have played the wrong ball somewhere on the 18th fairway. We are playing strict rules, so I’m afraid you lose the hole and the match.”

It is interesting to learn from Sean Connery’s memoirs that his life-long passion for golf began as a result of this filming.

“I  never had a hankering to play golf, despite growing up in Scotland just down the road from Bruntsfield Links, which is one of the oldest golf courses in the world. It wasn’t until I was taught enough golf to look as though I could outwit the accomplished golfer Gert Frobe in Goldfinger that I got the bug. I began to take lessons on a course near Pinewood film studios and was immediately hooked on the game. Soon it would nearly take over my life. ”

Oliver Brown

August 2008

(www.telegraph.co.uk)

A recent video of U.S. Open Champion Rory McIlroy’s personal practice facility. Just shows that at this level preparation is everything.  Love the fact that he can tweak his greens to match the speed of what he is going to be playing in the next major.

(Click here to see video of Rory’s practice facility)

July, 2011

As Renton Laws says in this short video, plodding around the east coast of Ireland you are likely to stumble on a diamond in the rough called “The European Club”-Pat Ruddy’s personal contribution to the rich trove of links courses on the Emerald Isle.  As an accomplished international course architect, Pat is unique in more ways than you can imagine. His playful personality make his courses creative, challenging, and downright fun.  Just check out the scorecard at the European Club-20 holes and a slightly larger box next to your total score for “What my score should have been”.

(Click here to see the Hidden Links Golf Tour European Club video)

You can read Moe’s full review of this Pat Ruddy gem in the Road Trips section under Ireland.

(Click here to see Moe’s review of The European Club)

This picture is from the third hole on the course we played in Danali, Alaska. It was taken at midnight. Yes, midnight. Don’t believe me? Check the clock…