I managed to sneak off to the Big Island a couple of months back, for four days and three nights with family and friends living there. What I thought would be a quiet weekend getaway some turned into a golfing trip. I arrived in Hilo on an early flight. A “calabash cousin” of mine living in the lush Puna District picked me up with two surfboards strapped to his roof, so I gathered we were in for a surf. “Yeah, man,” he beamed, “We’ll go for a surf and catch a twilight round up at Volcano.”

 

I’d heard of the Kilauea Volcano Golf and Country Club course up there, and had even spent some time in the area touring the nearby Volcanoes National Park (the golf course is just before the entrance to the park on the Hilo side), but I had never seen the course. After a fine surf at a spot along the jagged Hilo Coast, we gathered the necessary provisions for a round of golf on an active volcano with a first tee at an elevation of over 4000 feet: sunscreen, umbrellas, plenty of water and beer. The beer may not have been necessary, but I was on vacation.

 

We got a discount kama’aina rate of $19 (wow!) at 2:30pm, and arrived to find the course all but empty. There were a few seniors finishing a late morning round, but the course was otherwise all ours. An empty several hundred acres of some of the most beautiful tropical forest in the world is a dramatic backdrop for a casual round of golf. It also makes for a whole lot of opportunities to lose golf balls.  

 

We needed all of our provisions, as conditions at that elevation in that part of the Big Island can change quickly. It was blazingly sunny for most of our round, an afternoon punctuated by one brief but heavy downpour. There was no one behind us, so we took our time taking pictures of the breathtaking views and wild turkeys, native Nene Geese (the State Bird, incidentally) and the exotic tropical birds singing to us from the trees. We only got in 14 holes before the sun dove behind the volcano, but it was some of the most gratifying golf I’ve ever played.   

 

 

I met up with a dear old friend the next day, and we decided on an impromptu round at the Hilo Municipal Golf Course. Being a Saturday, there was a minor throng milling about the clubhouse, either waiting for their start time or musing on the round they’d just completed. It was an obviously proletarian group, with many single players getting away from work, family or whatever for a quiet, solitary round of golf.

 

We paid very reasonable green fees and even sprung a few extra bucks for a cart (gotta put the beer somewhere!). My friend and I were paired with two singles, a Big Island native who has been living on O’ahu for years and a Japanese national who had been coming to Hilo on business for more than twenty years. We got along famously, alternately praising and chiding one another’s performances.

 

There are no sand traps on the course, which makes it perhaps a little more enjoyable for a high-handicapper like me, but there are plenty of trees which, if you ask me, are capable of uprooting and jumping into your shot in the blink of an eye.

As the Hilo side of the Big Island is windward, it receives steady rain. It makes for a soft and green course that I’m sure is as pleasurable to walk as it is to ride. The sky threatened to downpour while we were out there, but mercifully only drizzled on us with a lovely mist and painted a vivid double rainbow.

 

The leeward side of the Big Island (Kona, Waikoloa) is home to some of the most famous and opulent golf courses anywhere in the world, but there are clearly some lesser-known courses on the island that offer similar beauty and challenge that even a writer/musician can afford.