the grande dame of maui golf

Written by: Jack ByrnePhotographed by: John Byrne

117MAUI GOLF REVIEW |www.MauiGolfReview.comMap to WAILEA OLD BLUE GOLF CLUB • PG 178>

the legendary golf course designer,Arthur Jack Snyder, now lying at rest

behind her 18th green, took his first historic steps across the lava pathsthat would become Jack’s “perfect blend of forgiveness and challenge,”The Wailea Old Blue Golf Club, more respectfully known as “Old Blue”and nicknamed by Jack as the “great lady of Wailea.”

Old Blue, born in 1972, was one of the early compelling attractionsthat lured the world to the south shores of Maui and a communitycalled Wailea, where more than ten days of rain is a bad-weather year.Today, Wailea is home to six world-class resort hotels and five crescentbeaches with access to the finest of life’s indulgences in The Shops ofWailea and to an abundance of sports and entertainment on land, at

sea and in the air. Highly ranked among these tropical pleasures are Wailea Old Blue and her sister courses, Wailea Emerald and Wailea Gold.

Old Blue is truly the Grande Dame of Maui golf courses. She hasearned deep respect, having hosted many professional events includ-ing her frequent visits from the LPGA Women’s Kemper Open. At 6,765yards from her blue tees, her slope is, nevertheless, a reasonable 129.Her par is 72. She is commanding and demanding but is also giving andforgiving. She’ll present you with a challenge of distance but give youa wide, hazard-free path upon which to meet the challenge. Or, she’lldemand that you hit hole high or face a watery grave, but then offeryou a safe and dry bail out along a touch longer but gentler path away

In 1968,

MAUI’S “MUST-PLAY” PLACE: WAILEA OLD BLUE

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118 | MAUI GOLF REVIEW www.MauiGolfReview.com

Hole Twelve:This is the Grand Dame’s shortest chal-

lenge; her 156-yard par 3 offers all apotential birdie experience. Keep thebunkers out of play and you’re home.

119MAUI GOLF REVIEW |www.MauiGolfReview.com

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“ ... a bad score, butnever a bad day.”

Hole Five:Old Blue’s 385-yard par 4 5th presents asinewy challenge to your shot off thetee calling for a well-executed fade toset up the approach to this elevatedgreen. Club selection requires thoughtto play to her multi-tiered green.


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Hole Sixteen:The 536-yard par 5 16th is the Grande Dame’s “invitation to the dance.” Its wide and unimpeded fairway invitesyour longest ball, and its long downhill run will add to your propulsion. A spacious and non-devious green adds

to the promise. If you’re ever to see an eagle soar, the Old Blue’s 16th may be your time and place.

from water’s edge. She wears a many-colored coat of exotic tropicalflora and sings the songs of a score or more species of radiant birds that

flock to her warm embrace.

Old Blue’s hospitality is felt immediately upon your arrival at the golf

club, where, as one local player said it, you’ll find that “She’s fair, reason-

able and competitive, both in price and play.” Her course rates certainly

show that old-fashioned aloha spirit. That hospitality continues the minute

you step up to the first tee and see, in the green acres spread out before

you, the splendid condition of the Grande Dame, a testimony to the year-

round devotion to her maintenance driven by the respect felt for Old Blue

by her seasoned grounds crew.

Jack Snyder, her creator, believed that the amateur golfer “might have

a bad score but should never have a bad day.” We imagine his heart

skipped a beat on that 1968 day in the Wailea sun when he saw an

opportunity to create his dream course in the protective shelter of

what Wailea Old Blue Golf Club general manager, Barry Helle, calls, “the

world’s most beautiful windbreak,” the 10,023-foot dormant volcano,

majestic Mt. Haleakala.

Now, four decades after Jack took his first steps on the lava of the

islands called the Paradise of the Pacific, Wailea has become known as

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Hole Thirteen:Old Blue’s 425-yard par 4 calls for a 250-yard draw from the

tips. A 3-wood will help avoid trouble to the right, where aquick hook off the tee will find trees. Putting this green can

bring pleasure if you spend the time proving the line.


“She’s fair, reasonable and competitive,both in price and play.”


Hole Eight:This 431-yard par 4 requires a bit moremuscle, but Old Blue gives you thewidth for your big wood. A long hittermay still pull out a mid-iron to the ele-vated green. (Caution: Her elevatedgreen is much narrower than it looks.)


Paradise Plus for its island-topping record

of days in the sun and breezes that are rarely

ever winds, and Wailea Old Blue has become a

must-play stop for the first-time and repeat

visitor alike.

What assures your “never-a-bad-day” at

Wailea Old Blue? Certainly much of it lies out-

side the game: the aloha spirit of every member

of the club’s staff and management whom you

come upon, the selections, style and values in

the Old Blue Pro Shop managed by Pat Kaiwi,

the handicap-lowering guidance given by club

professional, Brenda Rego, and her associates

and the lots-of-fun nights of entertainment (and

daytimes of Sports Bar TV) at Mike O’Dwyer’s

Mulligan’s on the Blue, the only true Irish pub on

Maui. But after all is said and done, the most

credit for your pleasure will go to your sun-days

at play on Wailea Old Blue.

The Grande Dame greets you with catch-

your-breath beauty that goes on and on

throughout your round: the towering distant

mountains of West Maui across the bluer-

than-blue Maalaea Bay, Kahoolawe island and

horseshoe-shaped Molokini islet sitting in those

shimmering waters, her many-colored coat

of exotic tropical flora, and the songs and

the dances of her kaleidoscope of radiant

tropical birds.

Let’s take you out on Old Blue’s 16th, for ex-

ample. Here, the Grande Dame gives you four

shots to make a birdie but places the target 536

yards from where you stand in the blue tee area

to make the effort interesting. (Naturally, she is

far more kindly to the ladies in red.) Then, she

helps you relax at the tee, first, with your view of

blue Maalaea Bay backed by the shimmering

mountains of West Maui, then by presenting you

with a wide-open, all downhill run for your go at

birdie. Ah, but as you address the ball with a cer-

tain confidence, someone calls your attention to

a breaching humpback whale and her calf in the

blue-blue bay behind you. Moment enjoyed and

experience noted, you turn back to business and

Hole Two:On her 207-yard par 3, Old Blue offers ample room to the right to

skirt the twin ponds that edge the line and a huge green to help re-cover from a possible errant play. Should your ball take a dip, it prob-

ably won’t be alone. A nene goose or two or even a heron might bethere, too, enjoying the spot you are in.

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whale your white missile down her welcoming

fairway. You move off the tee, hopefully with a

satisfied grin, but, if not, she forces one from you

anyway, by the ungainly dance across the fair-

way of two pure-white, long-necked egrets.

Then, she further cheers your spirits with the

trilling vocalizations of a brilliant yellow Amakihi

(Hawaiian Honeycreeper) perched ahead upon

the lush green rectangle of the manicured Sea

Mulberry tree, planted to mark what will be the

final 150 yards of your journey to the green. If

your shot has sliced and brought you near fair-

way’s edge to the right, you may decide to take

a few steps toward the Grande Dame’s fragrant

red floral display, and to paraphrase Walter

Hagen: “Don't hurry. Don't worry. You’re only

here for a short visit. So don't forget to stop and

smell the roses.” Spirits recharged, your relaxed

swing brings you close to her friendly apron in

two, a deft pitch from the hole. The rest is up to

you. Such are the ways of the Grande Dame of

Wailea. You may yet take three or four more

strokes to get down, but not to worry. She is

rooting for you to have a good score, but Old

Blue makes it absolutely-positively certain that

you will have a good day.

And, if two holes later, at the Grande Dame’s

176-yard 18th, should you over-club to the right

and run over the lip into the waiting bunker, your

finish on this course will have brought you to its

true beginnings. Here is the place on earth

where, after a lifetime of great course design

and sixty-plus world-class courses in action,

Arthur Jack Snyder chose to have his ashes

spread; here in her final bunker in the arms of

his great lady.

It is fitting that Jack’s influence is still active

in the presence of Arizona course architect For-

rest Richardson, the protégé of Jack Snyder and

author of Routing the Golf Course, Bunkers, Pits &

Other Hazards and On Course – A Dictionary of

Golf Course Terms. Forrest knew Jack better than

anyone. We were fortunate to have had an op-

portunity to meet with him when researching

this story, and that which follows about Jack.

Just as one should never visit Hawaii with

out Maui, or Maui without Wailea, it follows that

seeing Wailea without visiting the Old Blue is less

than prudent, especially in the face of the

Grande Dame’s benevolent pricing, her gifts to

the senses and her historically great game

of golf.

Phot

o By

: Kei

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Forrest Richardson, Jack Snyder’sprotégé, honors the good work of his

mentor, and is a huge force in golf.


Hole Eighteen:Unlike many courses, which choose to end your day with their mostchallenging par 5, Old Blue 176-yarder offers the opportunity totouch down in one and birdie out on your way to reward yourselfwith a Guinness at Mulligan’s on The Blue. Should you miss thechance and overrun into the right bunker, you will share a momentin the sand with the ashes of the great Jack Snyder, devoted designer of the course he called his Great Lady.

Jack’s “perfect blendof forgiveness andchallenge.”


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of accomplishment and recognition

defines the unusually gifted course

architect who created Wailea Old Blue, Arthur Jack Snyder. Jack, as he was

known, not only became president of the American Society of Golf Course

Architects but also was prolific enough to be one of only a handful of pro-

fessionals to be a member of the ASGCA while also a member of the Golf

Course Superintendents Association of America and the American Society

of Landscape Architects. His awards are legend and were earned year after

year throughout a career spreading over six decades. As recently as 2003,

at the age of 86, his work in Utah received the “Development of the Year”

honor by the jury of Golf Inc. Magazine.

This beloved visionary, who brought us Wailea Old Blue, in his own

words, “learned to walk on a golf course.” His father, Arthur A. Snyder, was

greenskeeper at the Alcoma Country Club, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

At age 10, Jack began caddying and by 12 was spending full summers

working at the course. His life plan was never in question. Even before

THE GRANDE DAME’S GREAT ARCHITECT:ARTHUR JACK SNYDER 1917-2005

A lifetime


graduating from Penn State in 1939 with a Bach-

elor of Science in Landscape Architecture, as a

senior, he was already teaching a course in golf

course design to his fellow students. Just two

years following graduation, Jack designed his

first course, the Harmony Farm Golf Club in Jane

Lew, West Virginia. During World War II, Jack

served as a land surveyor and was involved in

defense design. Following in his father’s steps as

his two younger brothers followed in his, Jack

chose as his early golf career golf course super-

intendent, initially at the famous Oakmont

Country Club, located outside Pittsburgh, Penn-

sylvania. With wife, Ruth and family, Jack moved

westward to Arizona, settling in Pinetop to run

the White Mountain Country Club. Here, Snyder

helped layout the club’s second nine, construct-

ing the course using his knowledge of golf course

design and maintenance. This turning point ulti-

mately established Snyder as a respected golf

course architect, and he moved his family to

Scottsdale in 1959, allowing him to focus full-time

on course design.

Jack came to Maui in 1965 as a consultant to

Amfac, Inc. on their growing Hawaiian golf and

“Wailea Old Blue hasbecome a must-playstop for first-time andrepeat visitors alike.”

Hole Ten:Old Blue’s 542-yard par 5, from the tips, may give you

enough room to reach in two, but approaches land youon an oversized green with a false front and complex

sloping from right-to-left and back-to-front on the firsttier. You will have to battle her for that birdie.


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resort properties. The islands suited his spirit,

and he was involved deeply with the developing

Kaanapali Resort and several other golf course

projects, eventually designing six 18-hole

courses in the islands, helping to pioneer golf in

Hawaii and to establish the state as a major

golf destination.

In his prolific career, Jack designed more than

60 golf courses and remodeled numerous oth-

ers across the mainland and Mexico, including

planning activities in places as remote as the Pa-

cific Rim to Russia, where he worked with an in-

ternational team to plan six golf courses along

the Sea of Japan. Among his own list of favorite

accomplishments are the famed Phoenician in

Scottsdale, AZ, Arroyo del Oso in Albuquerque,

NM (Rated by Golf Digest in the Top 50 Municipal

Courses in America), The Hideout in Monticello

UT (2005 #2 in Utah, Golfweek Magazine) and the

back nine at Volcano G&CC on the Big Island.

Of these famed courses and Jack’s other great

productions, none had ever filled him with more

pride and joy than his great lady, Old Blue at

Wailea; whose design he would call his “signa-

ture” course. He displayed his affection during

his lifetime with license plates reading WAILEA.

At the end, he confirmed it forever by requesting

that his ashes be spread on the bunker behind

Old Blue’s 18th, where Jack rests to this day.

Jack created 60 courses over a 64-yearcareer span including his ‘signature

course,’ Wailea Old Blue.


Hole Nine:Finishing the front nine is the Grand

Dame’s 160-yard par 3. She asks onlythat you connect for at least 130-yards. If not, the birdie you scoremight be a Hawaiian dove or stilt;splashing in the pair of ponds you

missed clearing. If uncertain, bail left.Either path, the great lady here is de-ceptive. Pat your own back if you par.


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