Maui Golf & Sports Park
Return to Hawaii
page
80 Maalaea Rd.
Wailuku, HI 96793
(808) 242-7818
Cost: $15 (play all
day) Other Activities: Bumper boats, rock climbing, trampoline
Par: 47
Lanai Course
Difficulty: 7
Creativity: 7
Atmosphere: 5
Unfortunately when we visited this course the Molokai course was closed for re-carpeting and as a result it appeared some of the water features had also been turned off. Instead of paying $15 to play both courses as much as we wanted, we were still charged $15 to play the one course as much as we wanted.
Upon first seeing this course we thought there was a lot of possibility for it given the location, landscaping and massive volcano in the middle. Unfortunately by the time we were three holes in we were already unhappy with the course and it didn’t get much better. It has the combination of a lot of things we generally don’t like in a miniature golf course: rubber headed putters (that weren’t in great shape), rubber, movable starting mats (which we disregarded anyway), non-uniform rock barriers (which don’t create any good bounces) and metal cups. While the carpets did appear to be new on this course they were more the “Astroturf” style than the more traditional miniature golf carpets so they tended to be slower than expected and conceal some of the breaks more than other carpets. Finally, while not totally the course’s fault, there are in a location where on a very windy day like the one we played on, the smell of the local dump is quite prevalent. All of this was stacked against the course before we even got into the play.
While the course was not home-grown and built by a company (Atlantic Golf) they did make some choices which added creativity throughout the course but at the cost of also adding a lot of difficulty. In our opinion this also wasn’t the “good” type of difficulty as the tough holes all played the same way regardless of the way the hints told you to play the hole. So very often all the balls ended up in the same terrible spot despite which path you took. Because there were no bricks to get consistent bounces there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for skill to use angles and speed to overcome the design of the holes. As a result there were very few true ace opportunities so the best method to play this course is “spray and pray” (just hit the ball anywhere and it comes out basically the same). One final note is that they do not have a free game hole/game but given you can play for an unlimited amount of time perhaps it’s not as big a deal.
On the positive side the course was well landscaped and each hole did have a sign that gave Hawaii facts as well as potential “tips” on how to play the hole. There was also music playing throughout the course. Overall this course is definitely not one to rush out and play but if you are on Maui it’s a good way to kill some time, especially if you have children as the course won’t be too bad for them to play.
Reviewed by: Pat, Liz and Duffer
Reviewed in: 2014
Course Pictures (click to enlarge)
For pictures of all
18 holes visit our Flickr
album
Map