Kaanapali Golf Course (Kai)

Overview: The Kai Course at Kāʻanapali runs across the lower West Maui landscape with views toward the Pacific and the mountains above Lahaina. Its par-70, 6,400-yard routing combines broad resort fairways with wind-exposed approaches and a few tighter positional holes. The course’s setting between ocean and foothills is central to how it plays.

History: The course began as an executive layout and was later redesigned by Robin Nelson and Arthur Jack Snyder into the current longer routing. The Kāʻanapali property’s land history also reaches back to a sugar plantation and to the area’s earlier role as a royal retreat, facts recorded by the operator.

Did You Know? Kāʻanapali’s golf land was once part of a sugar plantation. That history helps explain the open lower valley setting, while the mountains behind the course mark the transition from cultivated coastal plain to West Maui’s steeper terrain.