I was really looking forward to playing Poipu Bay, especially after hitting the ball pretty well with an 84 at Pearl CC and a 78 at Puakea. Unfortunately, by driver left me for the first 16 holes at Poipu Bay and I really struggled with my irons the entire day – I pretty much made a mess of the round outside of a couple of nice saves.

The staff was hit and miss, the marshall on the course was very polite considering we were legitimately 5 minutes slow for each 9 and the starter was very nice, but the pro shop and the rest of the staff didn’t impress me much. There was an aloofness – sort of a “you are lucky to play here” air about them that I remember from the Wailea staff on Maui.

The starter told me that playing the blue tees would put the fairway bunkers in play for me, and was he ever right. The sand was really soft, and though I was in about 10-12 bunkers I didn’t hit a decent bunker shot until hole 17. Definitely would have helped to hit a couple of bunker shots before heading out on the course.

The greens were a lot slower than I expected, and there was some standing water and mud in low spots. Overall though, the course was in pretty good shape.

Holes 14-18 of the back nine are just spectacular – even though I was hacking it up pretty badly, I still enjoyed the view and the beauty of these holes immensely.

I’d like to take another shot at this course – a couple of good drives would have made a world of difference.