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By Dave Shedloski
PGATOUR.com Senior Correspondent

KAPALUA, Hawaii -- There are few stops on the PGA TOUR more enjoyable and envy-inducing than Kapalua Resort on Maui, host of this week's season-opening Mercedes-Benz Championship. Its accompanying featured layout, the Plantation Course, might be one of the most enervating TOUR players face all year.

The tranquil vistas of the Pacific Ocean and neighboring island of Molokai available from the Plantation Course's mountainside perch invites a certain reclining approach to golf, but, ironically, this is a course where one can ill afford to fall asleep. The fairways are immensely generous but necessarily so given the enormous sweep of land, the routing around jungle gorges, and strong elevation changes on the former pineapple plantation.

Players have come in on form and won and have taken time off and won. Three-time defending champion Stuart Appleby has succeeded doing it both ways. Subduing the 7,411-yard, par-73 layout requires instincts and patience as much as a swing under control.

"You have to invent a lot of golf shots out here," said former U.S. Open champ Jim Furyk, who won the 2001 Mercedes-Benz Championship and owns a home on the property. "It's an interesting piece of property. Other than the tee shots you rarely have a flat lie and you're rarely hitting a shot you would hit on the driving range.

"It's inventing little cut shots and punches and just working the ball and using the wind to try to help you instead of letting it eat you up."

(Sam Greenwood/WireImage)

Winning Scores at Kapalua

Year Winner Total Relation to Par 1999 David Duval 266 -26 2000 Tiger Woods 276 -16 2001 Jim Furyk 274 -14 2002 Sergio Garcia 274 -14 2003 Ernie Els 261 -31 2004 Stuart Appleby 271 -16 2005 Stuart Appleby 271 -17 2006 Stuart Appleby 284 -8

*The Mercedes-Benz Championship was first played at Kapalua in 1999.

Wind is one of a trio of forces that come to bear on shot selection on the course routed intelligently by the team of Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore, who took a traditional approach to an atypical piece of golfing property when they built it in 1991.

"It's really close to being on a piece of land that maybe shouldn't have a golf course," Geoff Ogilvy said with a smile.

Of nearly equal impact are grain and slope that can make the layout play exceedingly shorter than the advertised yardage. That is how Ernie Els shot 31 under par in capturing the 2003 title and how Appleby posted scores of 22 and 21 under in winning in '04 and '05, respectively.

It helped that the northwesterly trade winds were relatively mild in those years. The course is designed to be played in winds of that direction with the longest holes, including the signature 663-yard par-5 18th going with that wind and down the mountain (a drop of more than 150 yards). The layout's shorter holes are routed uphill and into the wind.

"They were smart the way they did it," Ogilvy, the reigning U.S. Open champion, said. "It could have been a complete nightmare if it was narrow with long carries, but they were smart about it. Everyone hits fairways all day and you hit a lot of shots because the greens are big."

It wasn't as much fun last year when Appleby defeated Vijay Singh in a playoff after they finished 72 holes at a mere 8 under par. The field scoring average for the week was a beefy 74.893. Kona winds blew steadily, making the long holes impossibly tough. Further confounding the field were new TifEagle Bermuda greens that repelled many approach shots while the aprons and fairways were soft.

"The issue they were trying to resolve last year was getting the front of the greens firmer because they were too soft," Appleby said. "Plus the greens were pretty slick and hard, and I remember certain times downhill they were as quick as any greens in the world."

Appleby struggles to explain why he feels comfortable on the Plantation Course. The common threads that run through all three victories are superior putting and impeccable club selection. "I tend to get the right club in my hands here. Maybe it's not always the right shot, but I get the distance control right."

Course superintendent Craig Trenholme predicted that scores would be significantly lower this year than in 2006 because the greens have settled and softened. Intermittent showers the last few days have only made the course more accessible to scoring.

"I'm the biggest advocate in the world for firm greens," Ogilvy added, "but the trouble last year (was) the greens were firm and the fairways were soft. So you land short and stop or you land it long and it went over the back ... wicked. This year's it's all the same, just all soft, which is fine. It's much more playable in that respect."

The greens are also that much smoother and consistent. It all adds up to a potential shootout among the 34 PGA TOUR winners from 2006 who are in attendance.

"I think since they made the change to Champions Bermuda (TifEagle), they are night and day, how much better they are," Furyk said. "They are smoother, there's less grain, and they are quicker. Everything about them is nicer. The golf course is in good shape. Right now it's a matter of how much it rains and how much it keeps wetting down the golf course to how firm and fast it can play. Of course, it will play a little longer, softer, but it allows you to get a little more aggressive with your iron shots. Guys will score better."