SAIPAN — LaoLao Bay Golf & Resort will reopen for play this Saturday, June 6, becoming the first golf course in the CNMI to return to operation after Super Typhoon Sinlaku.
Operations Manager Franco Santos said the resort took a hard hit from the storm but moved quickly into recovery, with a 30-man crew working the first three weeks to clear fallen trees, branches, and heavy loads of downed coconuts from the course. Santos, who said his first day on the job was April 13, the day the typhoon struck, described the cleanup as intensive manual labor that could take a full crew a day to clear a single hole.
For its reopening, the resort will operate the back nine of both of its courses, holes 10 through 18 on the West course and holes 10 through 18 on the East course, giving players a mix of mountain and ocean views. Santos said the combined back-nine layout means golfers would need two scorecards, and that whoever first completes all 18 will effectively set a new course record for the configuration.
This first week the course will run Saturday and Sunday only, with reservations for Saturday already sold out. Going forward it will operate Friday through Sunday. Green fees remain unchanged at $45 on weekdays and $55 on weekends, which Santos said the resort kept steady through the recovery period. Tee times run from 8 a.m., with the last booking at 1:30 p.m. so players finish by 5:30 p.m. Bookings can be made through the resort’s website, by phone, or through the Chronogolf app.
Santos said the driving range has been open for nearly a month, operating 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday through Sunday. The resort is also launching twilight golf on Fridays at $25 per person, and has adopted a new policy that does not accept single players or fivesomes, requiring a minimum of a twosome. For safety, player staging has been moved upstairs to the lobby area while the downstairs remains damaged, with a new staging setup closer to the parking lot.
Santos noted that ice remains in short supply across the island, and that the resort will limit players to two scoops per day, encouraging golfers to bring their own. He framed the reopening as more than a business milestone, calling it a way to give the community a form of recreation and, for many golfers, a kind of therapy after the storm.