Golfers tend to dream a lot. It must have something to do with being in wide-open spaces, focusing on a singular skill in concert with nature.
Golfers tend to dream a lot. It must have something to do with being in wide-open spaces, focusing on a singular skill in concert with nature.
You see and hear things out there you don’t see and hear on the job or in your living room watching TV, and every once in a while you jump on that rainbow bridge and dream of walking out your back door one day and playing a round on your own land.
Some people don’t just ask how such a thing could ever be accomplished, they wonder why they haven’t started already.
“It’s living the dream, man,” said Kim Pinkerton, practicing swings with a pitching wedge near the first tee on his in-progress 9 hole golf course in Mountain View. “The thing is, these dreams take work, they don’t just happen, it’s gradual and you have to love the process, it’s evolution, day-by-day.”
Pinkerton had a popular restaurant in a suburb of his home town of Dallas when he decided it would be fun to install two sand volleyball courts out back for customers to play. It was an overnight hit that generated a section front feature story in the Dallas Morning News and began to attract more and more people and eventually, the local authorities. Pinkerton said the issue with local law enforcement; from zoning to noise and everything in between – including an overnight stay behind bars over a permitting issue – was enough to look for another playground.
“I failed at local politics in the small town environment,” he said with a grin. “We’d have disturbances, people complained; basically, it stopped being fun.”
Looking for a way to make some money without all the hassles, Pinkerton headed to Las Vegas where he got a job as a blackjack dealer and eventually became a cab driver for his last three years in Nevada.
In search of something “a little more wholesome,” he visited Kauai, found it too expensive but made some contacts that led to a small condo being available in Hilo. He got a call one day about 20 acres with a house off Kopua Road. He made the deal over the phone, sight unseen, signed the papers and moved up the hill to his present location in 2003.
After about three months of walking the property, kicking around different ideas, he had one that he couldn’t get out of his head.
“I just hit me,” he said. “I was wandering around and the thought came, ‘I could build a golf course, right here.’”
And so he started on what became the Great Organic Lava links Farm, or GOLF, if you prefer the acronym. Today, 12 years later, he has seven holes in various degrees of completion with a desire to possibly install artificial turf on the greens by the end of the calendar year.
“It would be what we need for the putters,” he said, “but most of my friends who come out here are just hackers like me. We may not know what we’re doing, but we are going to enjoy ourselves while we do it.”
He has some tools for the job, a backhoe, a riding lawnmower and a truck with a lift bed. He judges it might take around 12 hours to mow the course as he has it constructed so far.
“This is a lifetime commitment for me,” said the 62-year-old Kopua Farmlots resident. “Could I do 18? I would probably need to get another chunk of land and that’s possible, but I’m not worried about that, not even thinking about it.”
There’s really nothing to think about. The project calls to him, he responds, and somehow, GOLF happens.