Pearl Country Club is on Oahu overlooking Pearl Harbor. The back nine climbs up a hill overlooking the harbor, and is quite pretty. It was a nice round in that we were on vacation in Hawaii and playing golf, and the course is nice, but isn’t particularly special.

We arrived about 15 minutes before our 6:30am tee time, and the fellow in the pro shop chose to take 10 minutes to lecture us about showing up earlier and complain that he would be hard pressed to get us out by our tee time instead of going ahead and checking us in.

The fairways were tree lined and came into play if you strayed off the fairway very far, but recovery shots were generally possible. The greens were a little shaggy, but the speed was acceptable.

When we got to the front nine (we started on the back), we ran into a traffic jam. I guess they didn’t really account for the people who were making the turn from the back nine when they were sending people out on the front. Or perhaps we finished faster than expected – I’m not sure how courses manage that but this was the worst mess of this sort I’ve run across.

The course itself is mature and has some fun and challenging holes, but was lacking in upkeep and character. The staff was surly in the shop and the marshals did little to speed up the pace of play, which bogged down badly with 4 groups on a single hole at one point.

We had fun (because we were determined to), but won’t be making a special effort to play Pearl Country Club again.