The Best Golf Hole I Enjoyed Last Year

It’s easy to get lost in dogleg right and left holes or crazy bunkering when you’re playing a round of golf, but sometimes we come across a hole unexpectedly that it makes us pause for a while before teeing it up.

And that moment happened during my last round of 2015 in Kauai on The Ocean Course at Hokuala Golf Course (formally known as Kauai Lagoons). There is a magnificent par 3 on the back 9 that stretches and descends along the Pacific Ocean. Hole #14 may be one of my most favorite holes I’ve played on. It gave me a similar feeling to when I stood on the tee of the famed hole #3 at Mauna Kea on the Big Island. Both are challenging par 3's with ocean water waiting to swallow up your ball.

What made this very difficult was that the distance (210 yards) and short green length (though wide enough) really gave you a postage stamp target to get a GIR. The two times I played this hole, I was convinced I pured both shots and I saw both land dead center on the green. But then when I finally arrived onto the green, both balls had rolled off into the early yards of the rough. Oh I forgot to mention the two tiered green. When I played hole #14, the pin was located on the top tier of the green — see picture below from the oncoming side — so it was really a postage stamp target with the ocean guarding the front and left side, a bunker to the right, and landing anything short on the green would roll right onto the lower tier. I thought we were supposed to enjoy this magnificent hole?

You won’t find many more holes in this world that has the magnficence and challenge of hole #14 at The Ocean Course at Hokuala.