Played Manakiki over the weekend. I won't pretend to be that knowledgeable when it comes to golf courses, but it certainly seemed like a very challenging course. There are a lot of elevation changes and it seemed to me that on many, if not most, of my shots, I had to deal with not being able to hit the ball on a completely flat surface (i.e., feet above/below the ball or left foot higher/lower than the right). The course itself is beautiful--the view from nearly every tee is a sight in itself. I thought there was a restrained and judicious use of water hazards and sand traps.
Two negatives: The greens must have just been recently aerated--it was a little disconcerting lining up long putts. Second, on one hole, there was clearly construction going on in a "sand" bunker to the left of the hole. It ended up being a brutally deep mud hole complete with a backhoe shovel sitting in the middle of it. Needless to say, my ball strained mightily to get a closer look, but fortunately my approach shot...sailed right over the green.