Kona Country Club — Restaurant in Hawaii

Three things stood out to me that warrant the 3 Stars: the Pro Shop, the Practice Range, and the Price.

As a visitor to the Island, I expect to pay more for golf, but the ongoing trend of jacking up the rates at inferior courses has got to stop. With Fees, the 8:36 AM tee time on a Monday was $200 ($197.90), and tack on another $73 for the rental set, which I’m okay with, but Kona Country Club is far from a $200 course.

Spending that much on a Tee Time, I was expecting much more, and maybe that’s my fault. The Pro Shop was tiny and had a minimal selection of merchandise. I’m always good for a hat, at least, but I couldn’t find anything that said to me you need to buy this. Not wanting to leave empty-handed, I did end up grabbing a polo before I left.

The Practice Range was very disappointing. It’s a short range, so they don’t allow drivers to be struck, which is fine, but again, $200, and you can’t even get a complete warm-up in. The chipping and putting areas were closed for aerification, but from what I saw, they looked nice.

That’s the bad, I don’t like being negative, but I don’t think it’s right to charge what they are and have muni golf amenities.

The course, on the other hand, was a blast to play. It’s a wide-open layout without a lot of trouble. The scenic views aren’t as good as I had hoped for being on the island's coast, but a few holes give you some good ocean/rock views.

The conditions of the course were excellent. The greens were soft and responsive but rolled very true. The bunkers were what we all wish every bunker was like. Great sand that was fun to hit out of.

Hats off to the outside services staff; they were awesome. From the starter to the beverage cart, everyone had smiles and was a pleasure to deal with.

There’s a lot of golf on the Big Island, but unfortunately, most are private or for resort guests. There was a few other I wanted to try out, but the prices are just insane. $550 and up.

If you want to have a fun day out on the course and you’re not worried about the price point, tee it up and have a great time. But in my opinion, the rate is WAY overpriced and not worth the experience. It’s a...

Course was great but staff were brutal. Did not see the beverage cart until the 8th hole and when we called the number on the golf carts for beverage service we were told that we would have to drive to the clubhouse to pick them up because there was a cart girl on the course. When we said we had not seen her they hung up the phone. A second person in our group tried to call the number 10 minutes later and got the same response. When we did see her- she told us it would be the last time- meaning we see her once in 18 holes. They were also completely unorganized at the pro shop and due to this we did not tee off until closer to 2 PM when we had a 1:20 and 1:30 tee time. A group of 5 cut in front of us on the first hole and this also added to a delay in our game and due to this we were unable to complete 18. We had called the marshal using the feature on the carts and never seen someone. Back shop staff had a horrendous attitude towards to us as well and our group did not feel he respected us. We paid an expensive price for rental clubs and received a senior mens set to replace ladies and were given left handed clubs when we were all right. He also kicked us off at the course on the 14th hole at 5:25 PM with about another hour left of sun.

Will not be coming back to this golf course and will...

Pretty course. Horrible staff. Had a mid day tee time and they were 45 minutes behind. Not a big deal. Our group wasn’t experienced players but was scrambling and moving as quickly as possible. We had players teeing off before we got to hit our first shots from the fairway on hole 1. These groups passed us and others ahead of us. We had to skip one hole to keep time which is what it is. But then when we got to half way to use the bathroom, the course marshall yelled at each of us individually to go faster and skip holes. Once we finally got out, a separate staff member had the nerve to tell us to skip the last nine holes. Sorry but this is a pretty expensive course and we were moving as quick as we could to keep pace. We had let clearly faster groups play alongside us while continuing ourselves. Ultimately we skipped 4 holes and still got yelled at. This was a humiliating experience with terrible service and lack of quality expected at a customer centric facility. Another point: the drink cart was only seen once all day. When it got to us, it was out of water on a blistering day so we couldn’t even hydrate before 9 aside from the two bottles received with the cart.

Exceptionally...