There are of course many nice courses in the world. Few though can match the incredible beauty of the Plantation course at Kapalua on the northwest coast of Maui. With the Mercedes Championship being played there this week it offers me a chance to reflect on my round at Kapalu a couple years ago. Some of the biggest challenges players are faced with at this course are:

• Wind
• Bermuda Greens
• Elevation
• Scenery

The tradewinds are frequent on this part of Maui and are essential to the design of the course. Without them, PGA players can basically pick the course apart as it is generally wide open enabling them to bomb the driver and then hit high soft landing approaches onto the greeens. With the wind blowing, players must maintain accuracy and forces longer approaches into the greens.

The grass is very strange if you’ve never played on it before. It tends to be very sticky and grows strongly toward the setting of the sun in the west. Especially odd is the putts that seem to always break toward the ocean in west even when it seems the break is uphill! Extremely fast toward the ocean and considerably slower away.

With ocean views around every turn and massively deceptive looking fairways it easy to get consumed by the beauty of it all. It’s still a golf course though and can be tamed. Geoff Ogilvy did a nice job staying focused today as he shot a 6-under 67. Amazingly he putted for birdie on every hole but the 18th.

The elevation is an additional challenge as you can see from the photos. Hole #18 is massive at ove 600 yards and is the longest hole on the PGA tour. Despite its length, tour players will frequently reach this in two due to the large elevation drop and wide fairway. One of my playing partners swung out of his shoes and was able to drive it 385 yards down the hill, nearly running out of fairway along the left fairway.

Phil Mickelson's Locker

Playing a round at the Kapalua Plantation Course is something you can never forget. Watching last years PGA champions tear the course apart demonstrates the incredible talent they have. However, it is a golf course and can be played well even by those of us with more modest abilities. If you ever have a chance to visit (and you can tell by the number of carts in the photo that it can get busy) be sure to visit the locker room. Right there in the open are many of the players personal lockers which is kinda cool.

Failing to break 100 on one of the best courses in the world will not do much to your confidence. Regardless of whether you can go low or not, just playing a course like Kapalua will always hold special memories.

Hooray! lowScore.com is now officially launching.

What is it about? Golf of course! More specifically its about all those crazy tips, techniques, contraptions, gadgets, doodads, videos, books, lessons and anything else I feel might just be crazy enough to lower my own golf score. Perhaps you’ll find something useful here also.

Who am I? I’m your host. Just a typical golfer that dreams of playing better than I do now. I’m likely a lot worse than I think but we’ll just keep that to ourselves… and move along with the dream.

Since this is the first post and I have to set the tone somehow, why don’t I just start with a little riddle to help us get going.

What is the first big, worst thing that can happen to a new golfer that dreams of glory?

• A birdie, for then he thinks he could be good.

What is the ultimate worst thing that can happen to a golfer that dreams big?

• An eagle, for then he thinks he could be great.

So sad. So true. From now on we’ll ignore reality though and focus on the dream and all of the crazy gadgets and tips that are going to make that dream a reality.