Arnold Palmer's 1975 design features the iconic 17th hole playing over the ocean, with whale-watching opportunities from the fairways in winter.
The Bay Course at Kapalua predates its more celebrated sibling, the Plantation Course, by 16 years. Arnold Palmer and Francis Duane designed it in 1975, and the routing takes a fundamentally different approach to the same stretch of northwest Maui coastline. Where the Plantation plays across elevated ridgelines with sweeping panoramas, the Bay Course stays closer to sea level and engages the ocean more directly, routing along the shoreline rather than above it.
The defining moment comes at the 17th, a par 3 that plays directly over Oneloa Bay. The tee shot carries across open ocean to a green on the far side of the inlet, with nothing but water and rock between the ball and the putting surface. The distance is manageable at approximately 200 yards, but the visual intimidation of a full ocean carry, combined with the wind that channels through the bay, creates a hole that lingers in memory long after the round is over. During the whale season from December through April, humpback whales are visible from the tee box, surfacing and breaching in the waters below. It is a distinction that no other par 3 in American golf can claim.
The rest of the course plays through a more traditional tropical resort landscape, with Norfolk Island pines, plumeria trees, and native plantings lining fairways that are generous by Hawaiian standards. At 6,600 yards from the back tees, the Bay Course is not long, and the 138 slope reflects the challenge of the terrain and the wind rather than the yardage. The greens are well proportioned and reasonably receptive, making the course accessible to a wide range of handicaps while still providing enough strategic interest to engage the accomplished player.
The Bay Course's proximity to the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua and the Napili Kai Beach Resort makes it the convenient complement to a Plantation Course round. Many visiting golfers play the Plantation as the bucket-list experience and the Bay Course as the second day's round, and the two courses together provide a complete picture of Kapalua golf across two eras, two architects, and two relationships with the coastline.
Green fees of $259 to $279 place the Bay Course below the Plantation but above the Wailea courses, which is a fair reflection of the relative experience. The ocean-crossing 17th is the single most dramatic hole on either course, and for some visitors, that one hole justifies the round on its own terms.
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