Kiahuna's new owners look to bring back luster

By Bill Kwon

Nine property owners living by the once sporty Kiahuna Golf Course were so tired and disappointed in seeing its condition decline over the years that they bought the Robert Trent Jones Jr. layout with the resolve to restore it to its original luster.

"It's an exciting place to be. We can't work fast enough," Kiahuna's director of golf Ron Castillo Jr. says. Ron Castillo Jr. photo

"We witnessed the decline after Hurricane Iniki and finally decided to take action jointly to purchase the course when it came on the market," said Tom Batey, one of the owners. "We saw this as an opportunity to do something for the community, the employees and ourselves."

Besides Batey, the other owners are Bob Weist, Jim Miller, James Massaro, Allan Hanson, Chet Hunt, Bob Guide, Peter Baldwin and Andrew Smith.

Four of them live at Kiahuna full time, the others at least four months of the year.

Weist is chairman of the company they formed, Kiahuna Players LLC. Massaro is the club's general manager.

They bought the whole shebang — the golf course, clubhouse, cart barn and other facilities and equipment — for $4.5 million on April 9 from developer Bert A. Koba-yashi's company, KG Holdings LLC, which had purchased Kiahuna, along with Mililani and Pukalani, from Sports Shinko last year.

LLC is a term frequently bandied about these days in business. It stands for limited liability company. "It's just a $1.50 legal word for hui," Batey said kiddingly.

The new Kiahuna owners launched a very positive, and to local golfers, a very credible first step by hiring a certified PGA professional, Ron Castillo Jr., as its director of golf.

"We're delighted that he could join us," Weist said.

"He's one of the Castillo family, which is probably the first family of golf in Hawai'i," Batey added. "He hit the ground running over here. He's already done a great job getting things started. He has a lot of ideas which we've already started to incorporate. It's a win-win situation for us."

Said Castillo: "It's an exciting place to be. We can't work fast enough."

He and the new owners held a coming-out party Friday with about 90 golfers playing the course and nearly 200 attending the pupu party afterward.

Opened in 1984 on what was once the Kiahuna Plantation, the oldest sugar cane plantation in Hawai'i, the 6,353-yard, par-70 layout designed by Jones was the only championship golf course on Kauai's south shore until Po'ipu Bay, Tiger Woods' personal PGA Grand Slam playground, came along seven years later.

"It was one of the nicest courses in the state until 1991," said Batey, who retired from the Army Air Corps and worked for the state civil defense. He moved to Kaua'i in 1992 to become then-mayor JoAnn Yukimura's assistant.

"I had the best job in the world until 9/11 (1992) when the hurricane hit that day," Batey said.

So recovery plans are nothing new for Batey. Castillo is also looking forward to the challenge of restoring Kiahuna to its golden days. It had hosted the Kaua'i Open and two unofficial LPGA events won by Cindy Rarick in the late 1980s.

"There's been 12 years of neglect and 12 years of black eye in service to the golfers. But Kiahuna's got a lot of history. It's like finding a jewel that was buried for a while. Now we've got to polish it back to its original luster," said Castillo, a former head professional at the Hapuna Golf Course on the Big Island.

"We've got to bring it back to how everybody remembered it. And the new owners are committed, not only in hearts and minds, but with their pocket books, with the singular purpose of getting it done."

He's also excited about the new position because his brothers, Michael and Joey, are golf pros at nearby Po'ipu Bay Resort. "It's all about family," Castillo said.

Upgrading the greens and traps will be the first priority. The nines will be reversed according to Jones' original design. Other plans call for refurbishing the golf carts, installing a global position system and printing a new scorecard to reflect the updated yardage and changes in the nines.

"We intend to clear away the grass and weeds from the many beautiful rock walls, historical and archaeological locations on the course so that all can enjoy their significance and beauty," said Batey, who added that Robert Medeiros will continue to be the course superintendent but with a larger maintenance and repair budget.

"It's really looking nice," he said.

At this time, there are no major changes in the fee structure, which is $30 for kamaaina and $75 for off-property players. But it will eventually be adjusted to reflect the value and market conditions, according to Batey.

"We want to get the word out that the best is yet to come," he said.

Bill Kwon can be reached at bkwon@aloha.net.