Ko'olau Golf Club

It was my first time in Hawaii and I wanted to knock off a bucket list item (playing a round of golf in Hawaii) I chose this place because of its location and price, and I was not let down. The rental sets were great, we were greeted and any questions we had were answered with that island friendliness and they were very informative. There was some construction being done on the course but from what I was told and what it looked like it actually helped out with opening up the fairways. And oh man the views were amazing. If I do ever get a chance to come back I'll make sure to bring my personal set of clubs and have another relaxing round. Mahalo!

Fairways and greens were terrible, greens had more weeds and bear spotts. They were unputable and inconsistent. Fairways were thin and full of weeds, couldn't tell the different between fairways and the rough. Over all conditions terrible shape and lacking maintenance. We have pictures if you would like to see them.

Okay, The bad, the course is in the midst of a long overdue renovation, New Management is committed to make the required improvements due to previous management's years of neglect.

In light of the above, the course is not in pristine condition at the moment.

The Good, Koolau Golf Club provides many great advantages, and has the potential to be the best course on the the island of Oahu. Rates are reasonable and tee times are available, most courses on the island are booked solid and suffer from high rates and pace of play issues, even fivesomes, come on!

Convenient from Waikiki, but a manageable drive from even the North Shore, Koolau Golf Club provides a reasonable and convenient location to work on your game.

The course is challenging, and provides the most amazing views, natural beauty and wildlife; the course is worth it for the views and layout alone, but you also can bank on zipping around in less than 4 hours, so a time benefit too... great if you need to get back to the family.

I would love the chance to replay Koolau when all renovations are complete, management suggests within the next 6-9 months.

I suggest you take advantage while you can, because when the course renovations are complete, with it's amazing views and layout the price will be right where it belongs $200+ and teetimes will be difficult to get. Locals need to support the diamond in the roughe through it's renovations...

I've played this course many times since the late 90's. The location at the base of the Ko'olau mountain range is spectacular and the course layout is terrific carved out of the jungle. But, I've never seen it in worse condition. Looks like it has been neglected. Fairways and greens full of weeds...literally. The owner needs to spend some money to get it back in shape. What a shame.

Everything about this golf club is amazing.... except.

The Golf course condition is horrible. The issue is its in the middle of a rainforest. It would take an army to keep this course in great condition. Every part of it was wet with lots of mud. Hard to find grass on fairways to hit irons. Plugged on most shots. Each green has mud spots. Needs work.

The amount of work there doing to try to get back into shape is promising.

All other parts ok Ko'olau is great ; carts,staff,pro shop, website, gear and of course the views.

Place is like non other. Give it a chance once just for experience. Not worth the ticket price. Find a deal or will be very disappointed.

I will play again, give it a couple years to see improvements.

My wife and I played Ko'olau Golf Course after booking our tee time via golfnow.com. It has been a few years since I last played the course and I had fond memories of it.

The staff in the pro shop was very welcoming, but apologetic. We were told the course was not in the best condition and were comped one set of rental clubs. We were told that their was a 90 degree rule on the front nine and cart path only on the back nine.

In playing the course, we found it to be in horrible condition. The fairways, greens, and tee boxes were very poorly maintained.

The only redeeming part of our Ko'olau experience was breakfast and lunch at Honey's Restaurant.

We are Canadian and payed enough with the exchange for a course that was breathtaking in beauty but the upkeep was horrible.

In all fairness the guy at reception was up front telling us that the course was in poor condition and we had to avoid playing holes 11-17 with a replay on the front 9.

The light rough was for lack of a more knowledgeable term in Hawaiian was crab grass where you could lose the ball by being off the fairway by a few feet.

If you hit it into the rain forest it was usually unfindable but that was to be expected.

Some of the ravines were crazy, you had to carry 300 or so on a couple to be successful-that was expected also and gave us a good laugh.

The pace was great considering on Sunday we saw only 1 other group on occasion ahead of us and no one behind us.

If you wanted picture taking beauty this course was outstanding but if you wanted a quality playable course this was not it.

I would recommend it for fun and the experience but if I lived here I would not return for a replay.

Presently, I hold a 16 handicap index which allows me to hold my own on any course from the forward tees. I live in Tucson, AZ which has over 40 golf courses of various degrees of difficulty and aesthetic value. I have played golf all over the world, many tee times made through Golf Now, and no course has been as poorly maintained as Koolau. Everything was bad: tee boxes, rough minimum one foot tall, fairways over grown, bunkers full of water and vegetation, driving range closed, snack bar closed, five hole shut down due to over growth of vegetation. This was like being in Jurassic Park without the dinosaurs. The only forgiving thing about the entire outing was the folks at Koolau were very friendly and apologetic.

My advice - visit the course before you buy a tee time.

Duane Gooden

I have played the maybe 100 times over the last 15 years I originally played it when it was still a private club I went back to play if this year knowing the conditions were wet but in all of my years playing golf I've never seen conditions like this it's quite evident that the church owns the course now has no intention of doing any maintenance whatsoever there is no grass on the course just mowed weeds most of the Teebox is a growing over the bunkers have no sand and most of the bunkers are overgrown with three and four Ft weeds. The course is it worth five dollars let alone 125 they charge us I was so disappointed I actually threw away everyone of my shirts from this golf course in the trash you're better off paying the $25 cart fee driving around the course and pretend to play virtual golf

Upon arriving to the course we were notified that 5 holes on back nine were closed and not playable. The real truth was that the whole course should have been closed. There was casual water and mud on every shot we hit with the exception of the 9th fairway. This is a clear example of a course taking advantage of a tourist. The worst part about this situation is that this is one of the most beautiful settings I have ever seen for a golf course. Until they fix their drainage issues, I will not play at this course.

You can't tell what is fairway and what is rough and what is weeds. Weeds everywhere!! I lost two balls hit down the middle of the fairway which has been taken over by infestation of weeds and wet mud. I understand they have received quite a bit of rain in the past few months and can't get mowers on a lot of the course, but management shouldn't be allowing golfers to play on these course conditions. The day I played they received little rain in the previous week. If you hit your ball in the fairway, you will have to find a tuff of grass to place your ball on to hit it as their is weeds and mud everywhere. Be careful walking down any type of slope (green side embankment) as it is slick mud. I have played hundreds if not into the thousands of courses and this is the first time I have walked off a course in the middle of a round due to course conditions. Letting people play on this will only worsen course conditions as well. Half the greens were patchy with barren spots...the other half were like playing on Shag carpet. I played out of two greenside bunkers...the sand was like cement in both. Other bunkers I passed didn't even have sand in them. It's truly too bad that this course has went downhill as it is a great layout with great views. I played this course 6 years ago and it was in totally different shape. The staff were friendly. If I owned a goat, I wouldn't let it graze at Ko'olau. Extremely disappointed.

This was perhaps the 2nd most disheartening golf experience in my life. Friends have raved about this course and I was really looking forward to a great experience. Instead we were met with utter disappointment. The course has not been maintained at all. The grass is completely gone from the fairways. You cant even give yourself a decent lie using lift clean and place. The local flora has taken over the fairways and many sand traps. The back tee boxes are overgrown and just part of the jungle now. The greens are simply compacted clay with some patches of what might have once been grass. I guess we were fortunate that there were flags in the cups. The course has just been flat out neglected and should not be open.

The views are spectacular. If you are in the area I would highly recommend that you take a hike through the course but just leave your clubs at home.

This course has a three star rating on Golf Now. It ought to be removed from the Golf Now listing. It is in terrible condition. The fairways are not fairways, but rather unmown weeds. The bunkers are hard packed sand and mud. The greens are pockmarked and often are bare ground with no grass. It is absolutely disgraceful what the current owners and management have allowed this once magnificent course to become. I will not play there again unless and until there is a major renovation of the course and resources are committed to maintain it. Golf Now let me down on this one.

Due to constant rain since early September, the front nine was wet but playable; however the back, except for 11 and 18, was a quagmire. Workers told us they could not get their mowers from the cart paths to fairways and the rough because the equipment would slide and be inoperable and/or too dangerous to operate. Balls hit into the fairways plugged on impact, couldn't be found in the knee high grass. All greens were wet, very slow. Beautiful course,, wait until it's dry to play.

There are two parts here. This is an extremely difficult course when its in good shape. when the can't mow due to weather its impossible.

They did say at the clubhouse and the starters(I prepaid no refunds for cancel ) the back 9 was not in great shape as it had rained real bad and they hadn't been able to mow. That was an understatement. It was difficult to find balls in the fairway (lost 2) and just off the green by even a couple yards(lost 3). In addition to the balls lost for being off line off the tee. The US Open rough has nothing on these conditions. Rough over a foot.(lost 10) I did find 5 though too... Greens were a little bare and thin but rolled OK.

Some of the carts need new tires, one of our group got a flat as the tires was worn through. Bunkers very thin, hard pan.

Current conditions I would say even the hot deal price is overpaying. $30 to $50 is all its worth at this time. I would play it again in a heartbeat once its bad to good condition. The clubhouse is real nice, the staff friendly and courteous. The scenery is great up against the mountains.

We played Ko'olau on a beautiful sunny morning, and there was only one other group on the course (that should have told us something was amiss). The staff was very friendly and explained that the back nine was probably too wet to play, so we could play the front nine again. (More about this later.) We proceeded to the practice area walking through weeds and grass 1' - 2' high and hit balls that disappeared into weeds on the range. At this point we should have stopped and asked for a refund, but we proceeded to the first tee anyway. The course was in HORRIBLE shape. Fairways were very weedy and as deep as the first cut of rough on most other courses. The rough was choked with weeds.....impossible to find a ball out of the fairway. Greens were so-so at best. It was obvious that the course had not been mowed in a long, long time. Bridges and signage were in disrepair; tee boxes were weedy and muddy. We ended up leaving after six holes. (Now back to the wetness issue....) This course is in the rainy part of Oahu so wetness is an ongoing issue. However, it was clear that they had neither the staff or the appropriate equipment to manage and maintain the course. Simply put this is THE worst course I've ever played. The only saving grace was the scenery which was lush and tropical. Ko'olau may have been a nice course in the past, but it certainly isn't now. DO NOT waste your time or money.

Course layout is very challengable. However the condition is not to say. Too mudy.

The pro-shop failed to mention, entire back 9 was horribly flooded! It appears the way this course's back 9 sit on mountain side, it's flooded 90% of year. Very disappointed they didn't tell us that yet charged so much.

Course was very wet and not mowed. Never seen it like this. Not draining well. Cart paths only and fairways slippery and sloppy. White and red tees same on almost every hole. Balls plugged in fairway all day. Let it dry out before returning.

I loved this course the last time I played. Not so much this time. The views and layout are still awesome. We expected wet conditions but not marshland. The Front nine was a little wet but still in good condition but the most of the Back nine was nearly unplayable. Fairways were so soggy and overgrown it was difficult to find the ball or a spot without casual water. If you missed the green, the ball either plugged or disappeared into casual water. I would still recommend the course but would definitely make sure about conditions with the starter.