The first could explain how Craig Stadler once four-putted after driving the green of the par-4 13th hole of the Kapalua Bay Course during the PGA Kapalua International. It was still dark on a recent morning at the Bay Course as greenskeepers Kimo Kiakona and Arniel Libunao, put out pins and tee markers on the 13th and 14th. "I seen `em first, this white thing." said Arniel. "At first I thought a water pipe had busted, or maybe the sprinklers went on. It looked like water shooting up, except there was no sound."
He immediately called Kiakona, a Native Hawaiian. "I saw this white thing, like walking toward me, taking steps. But when I turned the headlights of the (maintenance) cart on it, there was nothing there," Kiakona said. Hawaiian culture is rich with ghost stories. Kiakona said his elders have talked about seeing ghosts and this one fits their description: "I know it was one ghost." "Oh sure!" says Bay Course head professional Marty Keiter, the son of legendary sportscaster Les Keiter and a firm believer in the here-and-now. "Was is it Casper the Friendly Ghost or should we call Ghost-Busters?"
They're asking the same thing on the other side of the West Maui Mountains at Sandalwood. A Hawaiian warrior clad in loincloth and helmet has allegedly suddenly appeared to several groups of golfers, rising either out of a pond or out of the ground, or materializing at the edge of trees lining the seventh hole, a la Shoeless Joe Jackson in "Field of Dreams." While the story has been widely repeated on Maui, neither head professional Fran Cipro nor his staff have ever seen the apparition.
"I heard one story about eight guys seeing this thing and leaving in such a hurry they forgot their clubs and carts out on the course," says Cipro. "That's just never happened."
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