Golf course in Palolo Valley opened some 80 years ago

One advantage I have as a columnist for the paper is the interaction I have with my readers. I rarely hear from readers of my books, but readers of my column contact me in droves each week.

Recently, Denny McPhee wrote me, saying he’s lived in Palolo Valley for 26 years. He heard there was once a golf course in Palolo and wondered whether I knew anything about it.

If his last name is familiar to you, it’s because Denny is the son of the former beloved Punahou School President Rod McPhee, who served there for 28 years.

I’ve played golf (poorly) for 50 years but had never heard of a course in Palolo. However, we’ve had several courses come and go over the years, such as Manoa (1904) and Haleiwa (1906).

The Manoa golf course straddled Oahu Avenue and Manoa Road but quickly was sold and subdivided for homes. A golf tournament was planned and a trophy made, but the course was gone before it could be awarded.

The promoters gave the trophy to the Oahu Country Club, which opened in 1907, and that’s why the Manoa Cup amateur golf tournament has been held in Nuuanu for more than 100 years.

Golf came to Hawaii in 1898 when Samuel Mills Damon built a course at Moanalua. It was the second course west of the Rocky Mountains. All the early courses in Hawaii were private.

Palolo would be Hawaii’s first municipal course, and “one of the finest in the world,” the Honolulu Star-Bulletin stated in the late 1920s. The Board of Supervisors (now the City Council) considered other sites, such as Ala Moana, Kalihi Valley and Koko Head, before settling on Palolo.

Back then Palolo Valley was the site of several farms, two dairies and a rock quarry. The Palolo Chinese Home had moved there in 1920, and Palolo Elementary School opened a year later in 1921. Most of the streets were narrow dirt roads.

The development of Kaimuki and Palolo got a boost from the Great Chinatown Fire of 1900. Many families were displaced and moved to what was then the eastern edge of the city. Quarter-acre lots sold for $300 to $500.

Promoters called it the “Pearl of Honolulu Suburbs,” “a land of sunshine and breeze, where the day mosquitos are not known.”

The Palolo Golf Course’s designer was Alex Bell, famed golf pro at the Oahu Country Club. The nine-hole course would be 3,225 yards and take advantage of the natural features of the site. Two streams crossed the course, and rolling fairways and several hills would challenge golfers, as would gullies, ditches and bunkers.

Because much of the land had been under cultivation, little groundwork would be needed, and costs could be limited to $100,000. It was touted as being a walkable half-mile from Waialae Avenue for those taking public transportation. Maybe they moved Waialae Avenue since then (doubtful) because by my reckoning, it’s almost exactly a mile to the course site. Uphill.

The newspaper gave directions to the course, suggesting turning off Waialae Road onto what was then called the Palolo Belt Road opposite the King’s Daughter’s Home for the Aged (now Kaimuki Shopping Center), then driving straight up the valley.

The clubhouse was on the makai-Ewa corner of the property at what is now Palolo Avenue and Kalua Road. Jarrett Middle School is on that corner today.

The golf course opened on Sunday, Dec. 6, 1931, with 2,000 in attendance. Dr. Dai Yen Chang, the “Father of the Palolo Golf Course,” member of the Board of Supervisors and chairman of the parks committee, welcomed the crowd. Chang was the first Chinese elected to the board. He led the movement to acquire the land and develop the course.

Chang introduced Mayor Fred Wright to give the keynote address, calling him an “old-time athlete and great believer in recreational facilities.” The mayor recalled the days when he surveyed the valley for a possible golf site and said he was thoroughly satisfied with its completion.

The Royal Hawaiian Band and several local singers performed. Then, one of the best golfers in Hawaii, Francis Ii Brown, shot the first ball. Bell teed off next.

Golf that day was billed as an international tournament among five teams: Hawaiians, led by Brown (who won), Haoles, Japanese, Chinese and the Honolulu Braves.

The first week was reserved for tournaments: professional golfers, civic clubs, women and caddies.

I talked with Jack Omuro, who played the course when he was young. Omuro won the 1960 Manoa Cup and was inducted into the Hawaii Golf Hall of Fame in 1998.

“Ken Miyaoka and I would caddy at Waialae to get money to play the course at Palolo. It cost 25 cents to play all day, and we’d play sunrise to sundown, 54 holes,” he said.

Omuro was poor and couldn’t afford golf shoes. He played Palolo barefooted, and even famously played the Manoa Cup tournament barefooted in 1946.

“We’d only have two or three balls, usually what we found on the course, and we’d have to keep our eyes on them. If we lost them, our friends wouldn’t have an extra one for us,” he said.

The ninth hole, a par 3 across Palolo Avenue, was problematic. “If you hit the ball wrong, it could roll down Palolo Avenue all the way to Waialae,” he joked. “There weren’t many cars on the road then.

“It was a sporty course,” Omuro recalled. “Everyone played there.”

The course was a big hit with Honolulu residents through the 1930s, but World War II brought it all to an end. A hundred prefabricated homes were built on the golf course in case evacuation from lowland areas needed to be declared.

The homes were used as emergency quarters by families that could find no other accommodations.

In 1945, 300 emergency housing units were built on the course. Fifty-six buildings containing one-, two- and three-bedroom units were put out to bid. Phase two called for an additional 500 units.

To keep costs down, each building, with four to six apartments would share one shower and toilet area for men and another for women.

The Army built an airfield and housing in Palolo Valley near the golf course. After the war they became the Palolo Valley Homes public housing complex.

In 1955 the homes on the former golf course were torn down, and William Paul Jarrett Middle School and Palolo Valley District Park were built on the site. Jarrett had been a sheriff and territorial delegate to Congress in the 1920s.