Kapalua’s Plantation Course back from the brink

The Maui mainstay survived a drought this summer and reopened in November to offer glorious play

By Jim Bebbington

With direct daily flights from Denver, the Kapalua resort on the Hawaiian island of Maui and its premier Plantation Course have been a popular winter and holiday destination for Colorado golfers and their families.

Then this fall photos emerged this fall of the Plantation Course covered in brown, dormant grass. Maui was in the midst of a dry year and The Kapalua golf course was in a dispute with the company that provides its irrigation water and the course quickly browned over without daily watering. Two greens – No. 1 and No. 8 – died out completely and had to be reseeded.

The conditions led to the PGA Tour in September cancelling it’s annual Sentry Open, which was supposed to be played the first weekend of January as the opening tournament for its 2026 season. And that in turn accelerated a discussion by the PGA Tour to drop a Hawaii stops altogether as the Tour considers a reduced schedule for 2027 and beyond.

So it can come as a surprise to visitors today as they cruise up the welcoming driveway to find the Plantation Course lush, green and – again – a fascinating experience for golf.

The course opened in 1990, one of the first by a then-new design team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. Coore and Crenshaw have gone on to be one of the most sought-after designers of the past 30 years, and their work includes the recently built Rodeo Dunes first course northeast of Denver.

But the Plantation Course remains a challenging test that uses its mountain-foothill location to offer steep variety for many of the shots and nearly unending ocean views.

Colorado AvidGolfer visited this week and if a visitor did not know there had been a problem with the course conditions three months ago, they would not know now. The course has returned to a lush and challenging experience. Course operators say the time which the course was closed this fall because of the lack of water even helped in some way to give the rest of the course a ‘rest’ from regular play.

What happened?

West Maui is home to Lahaina, the former whaling village that was severely damaged in a 2023 fire which gutted much of its historic downtown, and the Kapalua resort community and its Plantation Course.

Water for drinking, fire prevention and irrigation for agriculture and landscapes like golf courses comes from several sources for the region. One of the largest is a water collection system owned by the Maui Land and Pineapple Company, which manages 22,000 acres of current and former pineapple farms on the slopes near the coast.

In early 2025 the region saw a steep decline in its rainfall, with gauges near the coast reporting a 50 percent drop in rainfall for the year. Maui Land and Pineapple also reported that its water system, parts of which date back nearly 100 years, was fully operational this summer, a characterization that the Plantation Course owners have disputed in dueling lawsuits.

The region in the spring was placed under a water restriction just as the summer heat and dry season began. Water was prioritized for fire prevention and drinking, and agricultural uses were limited.

“We are really experiencing what happens when there isn’t enough rainfall for all the users,” Race Randle, the CEO of the Maui Pineapple and Land Co., told local media in an hour-long interview on the situation.

Plantation Course owners negotiated through the year with MLP to continue to receive water to irrigate their two courses, the upslope Plantation Course where the Sentry Tournament is held, and the Arnold-Palmer designed Bay Course, which winds throughout the Kapalua Resort’s residential neighborhoods near the oceanfront.

The Plantation Course operators have placed much of their case before the public on a website, KapaluaWater.Org and Maui Land has countered on its own site, MauiLand.Com. The Plantation Course owners contend MLP by late summer had recovered and had water to provide for irrigation, but was withholding it until the company agreed to higher rates and to withdraw objections to MLP adding land to its portfolio for development. Maui Land has stated its infrastructure is back sufficient to move water but the lack of rainfall has prevented it from supplying enough. The two companies have sued each other and partly as a result of the suits MLP began releasing water for irrigation in August, but at a lesser level than before.

Plantation Course operators opted to devote all of its irrigation water to the Plantation Course, leaving the Bay Course maintained open space, but not available for play. Company officials say the Bay Course may be renovated but may not be reopened for several years.

In September, as the Plantation Course turned brown during a summer drought without irrigation, the PGA Tour announced it was cancelling the season-opening tournament, The Sentry, which was scheduled for the first weekend in January.

By that time some irrigation water had begun flowing, but the course stayed closed for two more months while crews worked to replace two greens and revive the rest of the grass. The Plantation Course reopened in late November, and is available for public play again.

More information on the Plantation Course

Colorado AvidGolfer Magazine is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it, publishing eight issues annually and proudly delivering daily content via coloradoavidgolfer.com.

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