Wailua Golf Course history

Kauai’s Wailua Golf Course was established in the fall of 1920 by The Garden Island newspaper editor Charlie Fern, Jim Corstorphine, James Spalding and Dan Arcia, following their survey of a Lihue Plantation Dairy pasture as a possible golf course site.

The site they chose for their new golf course, located in the area presently occupied by the 10th, 11th, and 12th fairways, was large enough for three holes.

Greens were selected on the basis of having a good growth of Bermuda grass and being easily accessible for trimming.

To keep cows off the greens, the men set up two-strand, low-wire fences around them, while grazing cows kept the fairways adequately trimmed.

Curiously, a special course rule was enacted that allowed a golfer to lift his ball without penalty within one club length of fresh cow dung.  

Another peculiarity occurred during the yearly sugar harvesting season, when sugar trains ran on the railroad track that crossed the fairways.

When more golfers began using the course, the Wailua Golf Club was formed. Arcia became the course’s first pro.

Two of the club’s board members were the managers of Lihue Plantation and Makee Sugar Co., which was a great benefit to the fledgling club, since the managers assigned sugar workers to maintain the course and clear and grade new golf holes during their plantation’s off-seasons at no charge to the club.

The number of holes on the course tripled by 1930, when Hawaii golf legend Francis H. I’i Brown expanded the course to nine holes — and the cows were finally off the course.  

Later, in the 1930s, the county began operating the course.

In 1962, Wailua opened as an 18-hole course, with longtime course pro Toyo Shirai taking the lead on reshaping the original 9-hole course and designing the additional front nine.

Shirai, who played in two U.S. Opens, was inducted into the Hawaii Golf Hall of Fame in 1989.