Golf Cart Sunset Tour

 

We have watched the Golf Cart Tour arrive at the overlook opposite the condo complex in which we stay for years and were bemused. Why would you pay to watch the sunset with a bunch of tourists when we could watch the sunset with a drink from our lanai? 

With Greg and Laura we decided we would give then sunset tour a try and it was pretty interesting. The story of the tour is that people, often non-golfers, asked the course if they could rent a cart just to tour the grounds. The management seeing a revenue opportunity created a self guided tour. Later they added a guide just to prevent the tour from degenerating into bumper cars. Some of these old folks can get pretty wild.

The first thing I noticed about the cart was the fancy tech. A GPS enabled system that tells you where you are, how far to the pin, and other useful info suggestions about the hole you are playing (the elevation drop warrants using one club less than the distance might suggest).

The course itself is like a garden and there was plenty to see just driving about.

Princeville's Makai Golf Club is rated as one of the top 100 courses in the world and is spectacular. 

Our tour guide was the course professional which he explained is different from a professional golfer. Nonetheless, after explaining course designer Robert Trent Jones Jr's notion of course art, he asked if we wanted to watch him hit a shot. We were on the hole shown below on which Jones used the sand traps behind the green to represent the three-break surf pattern in the ocean behind the green. He brought out an 8 iron. His first shot was left and long. He found one more ball in his cart, backed up up about 15 yards in the tee box, and put the next shot on the green. Very impressive. My phone was set to click when I took a photo and after watching pros and galleries on television I did not want to take a shot when he addressed the ball.

There was a sunset. I have more colorful photos, but I selected this one because you can see our condo complex in the left side. Having taking the tour, we will not longer act amused when the crazy golf cart tourists arrive at sunset.