Golf carts are once again rolling over the greens at the Volcano Golf Course, about a mile from the Kīlauea caldera. The course reopened last week after falling tephra forced its sudden closure April 9th.
“It’s basically, you know, falling rocks coming at you,” General Manager Dawn Crozier explained. “So we quickly just shut down the course for the safety of our employees and our golfers.”
The lightweight rocks blanketed the grass in a dark covering causing the course to remain closed for several days.
“I’ve been here for over an hour,” Crozier said, referencing the faint green trail behind her. She was towing a large blower from a golf cart, clearing a fairway a few days before the reopening.
“We have several backpack blowers and handheld blowers that we use for the smaller areas,” she said, describing the labor intensive-process. “Then it’s a lot of shoveling, raking and scooping it up.”
This is the third time the golf course has been hit with tephra since the eruption began in December 2024. Episode 43 on March 10 left a thicker covering. Crozier says it took nearly 12 hours to clear each fairway.
The full course hasn’t reopened since the March episode. That’s because a Kona low storm knocked down several trees just a few days later. Only the front nine holes are in use right now but Crozier expects the full course could reopen by the end of the month.
“We appreciate the community and all the support that we’ve gotten. Our team has worked really hard to get this far,” she said. “I guess there’s not a lot of places in the world that deal with this. And so we’re doing our best.”
