Hawaii golf course deals with double bogey — virus and drought

Oahu’s oldest public golf course, for the second time this year, is scrambling to avoid the danger of a shutdown.

Like all local golf courses, Hawaii Country Club was forced to cease business in April under government COVID-19 safety orders. Now, the Kunia golf course has been hit with a drought of sorts.

An industrial pump, which draws water from a private well that supplies most of the irrigation for the 18-hole course along with water for its bathrooms and restaurant, broke in late July and can’t be fixed for roughly four to six weeks.

The Honolulu Board of Water Supply, an independent city agency, helped the privately owned golf course on an emergency basis by renting the company a 300-gallon water wagon as an interim measure even though the company is not a customer of the public utility.

But that courtesy is set to be withdrawn Wednesday, eliciting indignation from the golf course operator.

“Not cool,” Tom Berg, course general manger, said in an email to the agency last week.

Kathleen Pahinui, a Board of Water Supply spokeswoman, said the independent city agency intended to provide the portable water “buffalo” tank for one week to help, but then agreed to extend the rental for two more weeks to allow the golf course to find its own replacement.

“We’re actually doing this to be nice,” she said, adding the agency has eight such portable tanks that it needs to have on hand to respond to water main breaks, power outages and other emergencies that require providing water to customers.

Pahinui also noted the agency has lent its water wagons to other private water system users before, including a 2016 response to help the rural Kunia Village community, but does not want to make a habit of renting its portable tanks to landowners on private water systems.

“Our first and highest priority is to our customers,” she said. “We’re not trying to be difficult.”

Berg, a former Honolulu City Council member, said he can’t understand why the agency won’t extend the use of the tank given the existing condition that it can be removed at any moment if there is a need for it elsewhere.

“If these things are sitting in a parking lot somewhere, shame on you, that’s not fair,” Berg said in an interview. “Without water, we can’t flush the toilets.”

Berg said he has been able to find a private tank supplier that meets state Department of Health regulations, but that it wasn’t easy and will cost the golf course more than renting the Board of Water Supply tank.

Hawaii Country Club plans to buy a tank for $1,200 and pay $2,450 a week for refills. That compares with Board of Water Supply wagon delivery, refill and rental fees adding up to an estimated $2,100 a week.

Berg said it will likely cost $100,000 to replace the well pump.

A further hardship exists, Berg added, because water from the golf course well irrigates 13 greens, so Hawaii Country Club is paying for nonpotable water deliveries to keep the grass from dying.

The other five greens are irrigated from a reservoir on the property, though the reservoir also needs refilling.

“There’s so many challenges,” Berg said.

All has not been bad, however, for the golf course during the past few months. Berg said more people are playing the economy-priced course as a way to be outside and enjoy physical activity while socially distancing.

Berg said the course, which opened in 1957 as International Golf &Country Club and has a weekday greens fee of $20 for walking and $30 with a cart, has been drawing 50 to 60 customers a day recently, compared with 30 on a good-weather day before the coronavirus pandemic began.

“We’re busier than we’ve ever been,” he said.