A Round in Paradise

Recently, I got married (hold for applause). Thank you, thank you. It was one of the most magical days of my life and probably the most fun I’ve ever had. But getting to that day, not so much. Planning a wedding is, as the kids say, cheeks. Endless checklists, infinite zoom calls, pages and pages of forms and google docs and seating charts and on and on…it all makes the day itself feel like it’ll never come. Throughout the process, though, my (now) wife and I just kept repeating our mantra: after the wedding we get to go on our honeymoon and do whatever the hell we want. You already know where this is going: honeymoon golf!

From the beginning, we knew we wanted to go somewhere incredibly chill. No racing through Europe, no bullet training through Japan. We were done planning and done stressing. Which is why we chose Hawaii, and more specifically, Kauai. The Garden Island offered everything we wanted–beautiful beaches, lush greenery, delicious food, and a flight under 7 hours!

The first half of the trip we spent on the south side of the island, sipping smoothies by the beach, hiking (almost to our deaths) in Waimea Canyon, and eating Puka Dogs (trust me, they taste better than they photograph). Pretty hard to beat...until the second half of the trip when we headed to the north side of the island and the town of Princeville.

Imagine the White Lotus before it got weird. A spectacular suite, romantic dinners overlooking Hanalei Bay, swimming with Parrotfish, Yellow Tang, and some very relaxed sea turtles, a couples massage my feet have still not stopped thanking me for; it was all just what the doctor ordered. But I knew my honeymoon wouldn’t feel complete until I got out onto a golf course. And what a golf course I got onto!

Princeville Makai Golf Club boasts Robert Trent Jones Jr.’s first ever solo design and offers six ocean front holes that look great in photos but in person…you just kind of stop and say “oh…wow…” in hushed awe. It’s been named one of Golf Digest’s top 100 greatest public courses in America. This is the kind of place you dream about, the kind of place you see in a magazine while waiting for the dentist and the images are so beautiful they almost get you through a root canal. There was only one problem: I hadn’t played golf in almost a month, and I hadn’t played any good golf in what felt like forever!

Just to back up and give a little context before I dive in: since I started playing golf in 2020, I’ve played lots of interesting courses. Great public courses, countless muni beauties, and even a few private clubs that were a cut above. What I hadn’t done is traveled and golfed. The farthest from home I’d ever played was in Palm Springs on my blessed/cursed bachelor party. Needless to say, I was a little bit out of my element, 2,000 miles into the Pacific Ocean.

I did, however, bring a secret weapon that I almost never break out: a really good attitude mixed with low expectations. I was teeing it up on a course I’d never played (and may never play again), with rental clubs, after a month of stress, and a week of laying on beaches. As you may have predicted, I didn’t exactly shatter the course record. I missed short putts, I thinned irons over greens, I flared tee shots into the Pacific Ocean, and I loved every second of it. I know it’s possible to have a bad time in a place like this-

-But why would you? You’re literally in paradise! Isn’t this what it’s all about? Isn’t this why many of us fell in love with the game? To spend time outside, surrounded by natural beauty, playing a game that shows how humans and Mother Nature can combine to create sport in unforgettable locations.

The course was immaculately maintained, with lush fairways, pristine greens, and interesting design choices that made you think. It also had so many jaw dropping views that my phone almost ran out of battery from all the photos and videos I was taking. There was even a nice lady who drove around the course and offered you fresh slices of pineapple!

I think I shot somewhere around 90 during my heavenly loop, one of my worst scores of the year. Sure, I would have loved to play my best golf here, but in hindsight, there’s something kind of special about playing like shit when you’re somewhere so breathtaking. The fact that I left my game on the North American continent meant I had the time and the mental bandwidth to really take in where I was.

Any golfer knows how easy it is to call yourself all the nasty names in the book after three putting. I’ve done it more times than I can count. But when I did it (more times than I would like to admit) at Princeville Makai Golf Club, all I had to do was look towards the rolling surf hundreds of feet below the green or stare at the lush mountain peaks dotted with water falls and suddenly that double bogie wasn’t so infuriating.

In any round of golf, there are those shots you really wish you could have back. During my round in Kauai, I had quite a few, specifically the two signature par 3’s over water…both of which I donated to the depths. But I had a couple shots that I can look back on and smile. I’d love to tell you about just one of them:

The par 5 18^th is a sweeping crescent that crosses a lake and heads down a hill before you’re faced with a choice of laying up or playing a risky shot to a narrow green and setting yourself up for an eagle putt. By this point, I’d played enough bad golf that normally I’d be ready to get off the course. This day, though, I just wanted to hit one more shot to remember the round by.

One of my partners, Nico, had played the course before and pointed out a target I should aim at. I lined up my drive and absolutely piped one down the left side of the fairway, right at my target. It crossed the lake with distance to spare and disappeared down the hill. Nico proclaimed that I would be in perfect position. It was my best drive of the day by far and I couldn’t stop grinning…until I got down the hill and my ball was nowhere to be seen.

Nico drove up and hit me with a phrase that will haunt me to my grave, “Ah, man. I forgot there was a second lake down here…” Oh, well! Another ball donated, but what a place to make a few donations.