Here comes the sun. Hawaii is a toasty golf destination that is sure to shake your wintertime blues.
Hawaii
Average January Daytime High: 80 degrees
Kapalua Resort (Plantation)
Kapalua, Maui; $269-$329
golfatkapalua.com
Home to the PGA Tour’s Sentry Tournament of Champions every January, this 1991 Bill Coore/Ben Crenshaw creation dishes out roomy landing areas draped atop a wildly rolling tract that once yielded pineapples. To win the title, past champs Tiger Woods, Dustin Johnson and Ernie Els have had to conquer the downhill-plunging, 508-yard, par-4 17th and the 663-yard, par-5 18th, each with jungle-strewn canyons to their left and Pacific Ocean panoramas beyond. Coore and Crenshaw will undertake a complete renovation immediately after the 2019 Sentry TOC concludes.
Hualalai at the Four Seasons Resort
Kailua-Kona, Big Island; $195-$295
fourseasons.com/hualalai
Home to the PGA Champions Tour’s Mitsubishi event, the Four Seasons Hualalai course is one of Jack Nicklaus’s most player-friendly designs—especially on the minimally contoured greens. Highlights include the jaw-dropping par-3 17th, with its putting surface jabbed into black lava rock and backdropped by the Pacific.
Manele Golf Course
Lana’I City, Lana’I; $350-$425
fourseasons.com/lanai
Jack Nicklaus’s 26-year-old hillside spread is renowned for its unforgettable 202-yard, par-3 12th (photo, right), with nothing between tee and green except vertical cliff faces and the crashing surf of Hulopoe Bay 150 feet below. The remainder of the layout measures up nicely, with holes zigzagging high above the Pacific Ocean among ancient black-lava outcroppings.
