Waialae Country Club
Designed by Seth Raynor
History
The story of Waialae begins in 1927, when a group of Honolulu businessmen set out to build a club worthy of the island’s growing standing in American life. Hawaii was still a territory, its social and economic ties to the mainland tightening year by year, and a proper golf club on Oahu’s southern shore fit the ambitions of a community eager to plant its flag in the broader American sporting world.
To design it, the club turned to Seth Raynor, the Princeton-trained engineer who had built his reputation translating the template holes of C.B. Macdonald into new ground across the continental United States. Waialae represented something different for Raynor — a Pacific commission, worked out at a considerable remove from his usual Eastern seaboard projects, using the geometric template principles that had become his signature: the redans, the biarritz, the road hole concept, each adapted to the flat coastal plain of East Honolulu. Raynor died in 1926, and there is some question as to how much of the Waialae work he completed personally before his passing, with associates carrying the design through to its 1927 opening.
The club has hosted Hawaii’s PGA Tour stop continuously since 1965, when the Hawaiian Open — now the Sony Open in Hawaii — made Waialae its permanent home, giving the course a place on the tour calendar that few Pacific courses can claim. Over the decades since, the layout has undergone various renovations to accommodate modern tournament conditions and turf demands, though its ownership has remained fixed as a private club, distinct from the resort-driven development that came to define so much of Hawaiian golf in the postwar era.
Playing Notes
Expect the trade winds to be the deciding factor in your round — they typically build through the morning and can shift the way approach shots play by two clubs or more, so pay attention to flags and palm trees before committing to a number. The layout sits low and flat near the ocean, which means the wind moves across the course with little to block it, and club selection matters more than raw length off the tee. Greens here run fast and are kept firm, so putts that look straight often drift more than expected, and short-game touch around them will save you strokes that a big drive won't. Walking is manageable given the flat terrain, though most visitors take a cart given the heat and humidity that settle in by midday. Bring extra water, sun protection, and a flexible mindset on distance control — the course asks for patience with the wind rather than brute force, and players who flight the ball low and account for conditions will fare better than those who try to overpower it.