A few miles downslope, Ke’olu is a private Tom Weiskopf course that is part of the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai. "The key draw for us is the overall scope of the resort and the value for the money," said John Freitas, director of golf and club member services. "In addition to the Weiskopf course and the private clubhouse, membership also includes use of the Jack Nicklaus resort course, sports club and spa, and the Canoe Club, which features a variety of beach and ocean activities. We also have a residential concierge, which provides all the services of a hotel concierge."
The golf course is blessed with some of the most dramatic lava formations on the Kona coast. Weiskopf made great use of them, turning lava spires into target lines and building the ninth green beside a giant collapsed lava tube. It’s a good members’ course in that there are some blind shots and lots of visual trickery requiring local knowledge.
Ke’olu translates to "gentle breeze" and secondarily as "a pleasant place to be." That’s certainly the case at the clubhouse, a series of elegantly understated pods that blend with the terrain. It often feels just as much like an art museum, starting with a pair of tall hand-carved doors that graced a castle in Bali two hundred years ago.
Sharing a property line with Hualalai is Kuki’o, where a 375-lot residential area runs from the ocean up to six hundred feet in elevation. Kuki’o features a beach club and spa, and a casual family atmosphere prevails —coats and ties are rarely seen at dinner.
The course at Kuki’o, designed by Tom Fazio, now vies with Mauna Kea, Kapalua’s Plantation course and the Prince course at Princeville to be the top course in Hawaii. The layout is breathtaking: Fazio routed holes through little valleys, sometimes playing from lava promontory to grotto. The par-five sixteenth is especially dramatic, with a volcanic cone rising nearly two hundred feet on the right.
On the south side of Kailua-Kona is Hokuli’a. Jack Nicklaus had completed the golf course by 2004, when a series of lawsuits shut down further construction. The legal problems arose because the land was zoned for agriculture; through an agreement reached last year, all lots must now include an ag component. I saw one home where the owner harvested sixty-eight pounds of coffee beans and actually produced a private-label brew for his family and friends.
Hokuli’a covers two and a half miles of rocky coastline—no sandy beaches here—and rises to 1,250 feet in elevation, with 650 planned homesites. The Nicklaus course—his twelfth for developer Lyle Anderson—plays up and down hillsides and along the shore, as well as by a number of ancient archaeological sites. Nicklaus made great sight-line use of towering Pu’u Ohau. The turf is championship Bermuda, which on greens displays less grain than other Bermuda strains do.
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