Before you walk halfway down — and up — the first hole of Kapalua's Plantation Course, it is obvious if you are in for the walk of your golf life. The PGA Tour's season-opening Mercedes-Benz Championship is played on a course that lives large, from the drop-dead views to the plummeting — and soaring — elevation changes that make spectators beg for mercy.

The Plantation, a unique 7,411-yard golfing adventure, is not for the faint-hearted, by any definition. If you want to follow your favorite player fulltime the next four days it will take an effort as massive as the slopes that shape the course plopped on an old volcano and surrounded by pineapple fields, 100-year-old Norfolk Island Pines and the Pacific Ocean.

That might play into the golf-gloved hands and Pali-trained legs of Kane'ohe's Dean Wilson, who got his first tour win last year in his 118th start. It came at The International, played over the hills and through the dense woods of Castle Pines in Colorado.

Castle Pines and Plantation are considered two of the toughest strolls on tour. "Maybe that's a good omen for me," Wilson said optimistically at yesterday's Pro-Am.

When Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore designed the Plantation, which opened in 1991, they wanted to "fit the holes to the terrain." They started with the closing hole, a 663-yard par-5 so shaped by the slope and prevailing winds that Tiger Woods and Ernie Els hit irons in when they both eagled the 72nd hole to force the memorable playoff of 2000.

There is a 170-foot drop from tee to green, almost identical to Six Flags Magic Mountain's newest roller coaster, the stomach-churning "X." The view here is much more serene, with the ocean seeming to swallow the green from the tee and humpback whales often roaming the Pailolo Channel between Maui and Moloka'i.

From the 17th tee — the Plantation's highest point — to the green, the drop is 150 feet, about the same as Six Flags' "Scream!" The 508-yard par-4 is drive-able when Kapalua is blowing, as it often is.

"I'm always glad when I get to the 17th hole," says Marty Keiter, Kapalua's Vice President of Golf and Tennis. "You've only got two holes left and they are both downhill."

Keiter's favorite description of Plantation might be its oldest. When it opened, Sports Illustrated called it "golf played off the edge of the world."

The course was built over 300 acres, about twice as much as most on tour. Its natural geographic formations include ridges, ravines and canyons. Its greens average 9,500 square feet — twice as big as Waialae Country Club. There are no water hazards, other than that killer view, but nearly 100 bunkers provide ample opportunity to hit the beach.

Coore and Crenshaw worked with the dramatic slopes and contours to create a layout that is as subtle as it is in-your-face. The fairway bunkers on the first hole were designed to mirror the waves in the distance. The 11th green is meant to remind golfers of the cliffs a mile down. From the tee, the 14th green appears as flat as the mountain in the distance.

Their vision was to make a hole "look comfortable in its surroundings, as if it belonged there for generations." They created a layout with an ocean view on every hole and a rare demand for carts on steroids.

The Plantation was not designed for walking, with its elevation changes, wayward spectator paths and huge gaps between holes. Keiter figures about 100 golfers walk the course in a year using the resort's caddie program. Those golfers and caddies are shuttled at the toughest transitions, just as the pros are in a sight rarely seen on the PGA Tour.

The distance from the fifth green to the sixth tee is four-tenths of a mile. Mercedes also supplies shuttles for the pros from the ninth green to the 10th tee and the eighth tee down through the canyon and up to the green.

Spectators are left to their own devices — strong legs and lots of willpower. The Plantation can be conquered by spectators, but keeping up with a group is a tremendous challenge, with no real shortcuts in sight.

"The tee to the fairway at No. 4, up the hill, is a brutal walk," Keiter said. "The valley between (Nos.) 1 and 9 is brutal. You've got to go up and down on both. Climbing from the bottom of the 15th fairway to the green is a good little walk, and so is going up the 13th fairway to the green."

His advice is to walk the back nine before contemplating the front — "there's no craziness back there" — or stick with what works: Start at No. 1, cut over to the third, then back to the par-3 eighth and climb down and up the ninth before taking on the back.

Take water, and a good attitude. Or just peer at the Pacific and the golf from the 10th green, where the 11th and 14th tees are in view, along with the 13th green. Watch the guys making the big money work. They seem to like it.

"It's really close to being a piece of land that maybe you shouldn't have a golf course on ...," said U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy, partial to the "awesome" views. "It could have been a complete nightmare if it was narrow with long carries, but how they made it, they were smart about it."

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.