A place for work play. (Hawaii's Playgrounds).

Hawaii is a big sports arena, both indoor and outdoor, where in any given month score keeping is going on at some level -- professional, amateur and youth.

Hawaii's pristine beaches, manicured golf courses, city parks and mountainous terrain make good playgrounds for athletes.

"I think the outdoors is a natural lure for athletes," said Trey Garman, media relations director for Team Unlimited, a sports-marketing event organizer. "Hawaii offers the best tropical terrain on the planet."

Each year, athletes test that terrain in a variety of events.

In October, 400 of the world's top athletes go extreme on Maui in the Nissan Xterra World Championship: a 1.5-kilometer swim, a grueling 30-kilometer mountain-bike ride up Haleakala volcano and an 11-kilometer trail run from Makena to Wailea. This year's event is a winnertake-all competition with a $105,000 purse.

On the Big Island, nearly 1,500 triathletes from Japan, Germany, Italy and the United States test their skills in a 1 12-mile bike ride, 2.4-mile swim and 26.2-mile run in the Ironman Triathion World Championship.

The Honolulu Tinman Triathion, also known as the People's Triathion of Honolulu, attracts athletes from as far as New Zealand and across the mainland for an 800-kilometer swim, 26-mile bike ride and 6.2-mile run.

Every December, more than 20,000 runners from around the world participate in the 26.2-mile Honolulu Marathon, one of the nation's largest road races in terms of participants. The course stretches from downtown Honolulu out to Hawaii Kai in east Oahu and finishes at Kapiolani Park in Waikiki. The marathon is especially popular among Japanese residents: 9,159 of them came to Hawaii for the 2001 marathon.

For those who prefer swinging to running, Hawaii is a huge golfing Mecca, for pros as well as for amateurs, with six professional tournaments in the fall and winter months.

The senior men gather on Oahu's North Shore in October for the Turtle Bay Championship. In November, winners of the men's PGA majors, which will include Tiger Woods and Rich Beem this year, compete in the Grand Slam of Golf at Kauai's Poipu Bay.

The PGA begins its season in Hawaii each year with the Mercedes Championship in Kapalua, Maui, featuring winners of the previous season's tournaments. A week later, Honolulu plays host to the Sony Open, the first regular tournament of the year. That's followed by a Senior Skins tournament on Maui and the MasterCard Championship on the Big Island, featuring former senior tour winners.

While Hawaii attracts pro athletes, it has no major professional sports team of its own, and that makes collegiate sports especially popular. The University of Hawaii fields a full complement of Division I teams, including a winning football team and a men's basketball squad that went to the NCAA tournament last season. Some of the nation's best college basketball teams come to Oahu and Maui for tournaments during the Christmas holidays. And volleyball is a big attraction; the UH men's team won the national championship last season, and the women's team--the Wahine--is regularly in the top five nationally.

Hawaii is host to three football bowl games: the NFL Pro Bowl, the Hula Bowl collegiate all-star game on Maui, and the new ConAgra Hawaii Bowl, which will be played at Oahu's Aloha Stadium on Christmas Day.

As one would expect, the Pacific Ocean is a major venue for water sports, including world surfing championships on Oahu's North Shore when winter brings the big waves. Canoe paddlers are out in force from spring to early fall; more than a hundred teams compete in the 41-mile Molokai-to-Oahu race in October.

Meanwhile, the super bowl of big-game fishing, the Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament, attracts anglers vying to catch the biggest billfish off the coast of KailuaKona on the Big Island.

Youth and alternative sports also have found Hawaii to be an attractive tournament site. Central Oahu Regional Park, a multiuse sports facility, was host this summer to a national youth soccer tournament, where more than 7,000 players, parents and coaches converged.