Wailea - Emerald Course

• 🏆Best in State Hawaii #18 — Golf Digest

Robert Trent Jones Jr. opened the Emerald at Wailea in December 1994, the same week as its tougher sibling, the Gold. The two share Maui's southwest-coast topography and the same dramatic Pacific elevation changes, but where the Gold rewards length and precision off the tee, the Emerald is built around playability — wider corridors, fewer forced carries, and tee shots that tend to play downhill more than up. The course has been a fixture inside Hawaii's top 20 since opening, ranked 18th in the state for 2025-26 by Golf Digest after sitting inside the top 15 for most of the early 2000s. It was one of the first courses in Hawaii to be rated women-friendly by Golf for Women — an honor it has won seven times — which tracks with its overall design philosophy. Greens fees in the $300 range put it firmly in the premium-resort tier; among the three Wailea layouts it's the most popular, largely because the views and the pacing land for a wider mix of players.