Nanea Golf Club

Our clients, Charles Schwab and George Roberts, demanded a challenging course in the style of their favorite courses in the U.K. and Ireland. Set on the slopes of Mount Hualalai, the course incorporates strategies inherent in any fine links course. Add to that firm Paspalum turf grown atop sand and stiff sea breezes, and Nanea plays like a links course, too.

On the heels of Bandon Dunes, I was intruqued to see what talents and skills I might have on a barren lava strewn mountainside rather than Coastal Sand Dunes perfectly suited to golf.

Nanea was my retort to those that enviously postulated that anyone could have designed Bandon Dunes.

This was the first course in North America to use Paspalum from tee to green, across the entire course. Jimmy Kidd pioneered the use of this grass in the Middle East years earlier and Nanea offered the perfect opportunity to unveil the benefits of this grass to the drought-ridden parts of North America.