Originally designed to be the home

King Kamehameha Golf Club is Maui's loftiest golf experience -- literally and figuratively.
Set 750 feet high up into the West Maui mountains, this private club with a "member-for-the-day" option features a secluded golf course set on the sloping hills, where the only sound is a little breeze and trickling waterfalls set beside several greens. Most holes above and below one another are parallel to the mountainside, while a couple of par 3s play sharply downhill. With the West Maui mountains beside you and the rest of Maui below, the closest homes you'll see are a few miles away along the south Maui coast.
The fact no homes are anywhere near the golf course, designed by Ted Robinson Sr. and Ted Robinson Jr., makes the 74,000-square-foot clubhouse, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, stand out that much more. Originally designed to be the home of Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe, the plans were later enlarged to house Maui's most exclusive golf club.
Kahili Golf Course
Golf courses that are among the most affordable in Hawaii might indicate the design has an unremarkable setting or was simply a vehicle for residential development. That's not the case at Kahili Golf Course.
Kahili opened in 1991 under the name Sandalwood Golf Course. Hawaii expert golf course architect Robin Nelson designed this 6,570-yard layout, which has some great variety. Located just below King Kamehameha Golf Club, the Kahili Golf Course still sits high enough into the West Maui mountainside and is clear of houses. Instead, holes dogleg through a mix of open and more low-lying, densely forested holes.
Gold and Emerald Courses at Wailea Golf Club
The original Old Blue golf course is the centerpiece of the Wailea community's residential development. But on the newer Wailea Gold and Wailea Emerald Courses, the only development you're playing around are the centuries-old stone wall remnants (named "papohaku") from the fishing villages that used to reside here.
Robert Trent Jones Jr. designed both the Gold and the Emerald Courses in the early 1990s. Each plays on the base of Mount Haleakala, leading down toward the sea. The Gold is the tougher of the two, while the Emerald is one of Maui's most player-friendly courses. Each has a similar setting: plenty of flower beds, lava rock, small ponds and fairways sculpted into the sloping hillsides.
The Gold, Emerald and Old Blue Courses come with an added bonus from upstairs: Some of the calmest fairways in Hawaii thanks to the 10,000-foot volcano shielding the brunt of the Hawaiian trade winds.