History in the making

Unlike many of American golf’s established hotbeds, Southern California has seen a great deal of history played out over its private and public courses, giving even the humblest muni player numerous opportunities to walk, literally, in the footsteps of the game’s giants. Profiled here are 10 of the Southland’s most historic layouts, a group that includes the old, the very old and even, surprisingly, the new.

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Griffith Park, Harding and Wilson Municipal Golf Courses (Los Angeles): Though golf made its debut in Griffith Park in 1914, today’s facility dates to a 1923 expansion to 36 holes by the legendary designer George Thomas — a project that the philanthropic Thomas reportedly augmented from his own pocket when city funding ran short. The site of three late-1930s L.A. Opens, as well as the longtime home of 1961 PGA champion Jerry Barber, Griffith Park once ranked among the world’s finest period municipal golf facilities. Today, after decades of ill-advised modifications (e.g., Harding course’s now-removed “water bunkers”) and the building of the Golden State Freeway, it remains among the most historic.

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Chester L. Washington Golf Course (Los Angeles): Chester Washington (named after the influential publisher of the L.A. Sentinel) is noteworthy as perhaps the American gathering place for minority golfers, particularly during the game’s more segregated days of years past. Formerly known as the Western Avenue Golf Course, it played regular host to legendary black golfers like Bill Spiller and Teddy Rhodes during the PGA of America’s infamous “Caucasians Only” era, as well as golfing celebrities ranging from Jim Brown to Joe Louis to Harry Caldwell. Substantially altered from John Dunn’s original 1920s design (which extended south of El Segundo Boulevard), Chester Washington also remains home to some of the Southland’s more lively wagering.

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The Catalina Island Golf Course (Avalon): With some reports indicating the playing of golf here (over three rudimentary holes) as early as 1892, Catalina Island may have hosted the first known course west of the Mississippi. Today’s 2,104-yard executive nine bears no resemblance to those early holes, however, instead being the survivors of a newer 18 built between 1925 and 1929. Surprisingly, this Golden Age short course actually hosted three playings of the PGA Tour’s Catalina Open during the 1920s and 30s, with Horton Smith’s winning 1928 score of 245 surely representing the lowest 72-hole total in the history of professional golf.

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Brookside Golf Courses (Pasadena): For TV viewers of the Rose Bowl, Brookside is probably best known as one of college football’s greenest parking lots, yet here lie 36 venerable holes, the earliest of which date to a 1928 Billy Bell design. This, the longer Number One course, played host to the PGA Tour’s Pasadena Open nine times between 1929 and 1938, as well as to the 1968 L.A. Open, allowing it to claim Hall of Famers Horton Smith, Paul Runyan, “Lighthorse” Harry Cooper, Henry Picard and Billy Casper among its champions. While much of its early routing remains intact, a number of alterations have taken place, none more prominent than the concrete barricading of the Arroyo Seco, which today mars the course’s pastoral landscape.

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Rancho Park Golf Course (Los Angeles): One of America’s busiest courses (logging over 100,000 rounds annually), Rancho Park enjoys a history like few others, having hosted, at varying times, the PGA, LPGA and Champions Tours over its Pico Boulevard links. Lloyd Mangrum and Doug Ford claimed the first L.A. Opens to be played here (1956 and ‘57), setting the stage for future winners like Frank Stranahan, Billy Casper, Charlie Sifford, Ken Venturi (with a memorable closing 63 in 1959) and, on three occasions, Arnold Palmer. Of course, Palmer is best remembered here for taking a colossal 12 on the par-five 18th hole in 1961, a feat commemorated with a tee-side plaque. Though golf has been played on this site since Herbert Fowler built the Ambassador Hotel’s original Rancho Golf Club in 1922, the present layout dates only to 1947.

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Balboa Park Golf Course (San Diego): Golf made its debut in Balboa Park’s western reaches quite early, with the San Diego Country Club building its first course there in 1897. A sand-greened municipal facility came along in 1915, only to be replaced by the present Billy Bell design in 1921. Substantially altered in the modern era, this layout has never held a PGA Tour event — though by having hosted San Diego’s annual Junior World Championship, it still manages to claim luminaries like Tiger Woods and Ernie Els among its past champions. Sam Snead set the course record — a cool 60 — in 1943.

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Ojai Valley Inn & Spa (Ojai): Here is a golf course that is notably historic at three levels. First, it may have been Southern California’s first great resort layout, opening for play in 1923. Second, it was, at least in its prewar years, one of George Thomas’ finest designs, standing eye to eye with places such as Riviera, Bel-Air and the Los Angeles Country Club. Unfortunately Ojai has also made history a third time by performing one of the lamest “restorations” ever, a much-trumpeted rebuild of Thomas’ classic, long-lost third hole that bears virtually no resemblance to the famous original. A Champions Tour stop during the early 1990s, and former home — at least contractually — of Jimmy Demaret and Doug Sanders.

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Torrey Pines Golf Courses (La Jolla): Some consider La Jolla’s famous Torrey Pines courses to be somewhat overrated, their relatively mundane designs hardly matching the spectacular cliff-top setting. As the site of the PGA Tour’s Buick Invitational since 1967, however, they boast a huge competitive history, with names like Palmer, Nicklaus, Player, Casper, Watson, Miller, Mickelson and Woods (four times) among the champions. An unsightly 2001 renovation by Rees Jones succeeded in making the now-7,607-yard South course tougher, allowing the city to land the 2008 U.S. Open.

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La Costa Resort & Spa (Carlsbad): Historians of a different sort recall La Costa’s early days as a burying ground for some of organized crime’s ill-gotten Las Vegas winnings, but for golfers it offers a more polished competitive pedigree. Having been host of the PGA Tour’s Tournament of Champions (forerunner to today’s Mercedes Championships) from 1969 to 1998, and all but one WGC Accenture Match Play event since 1999, it, like Torrey Pines, boasts a list of past champions that reads like a Who’s Who of American golf. It also ranks among the highest-profile designs of prominent architect Dick Wilson — though that status carries a bit less cachet today than it did in, say, 1975.

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Trump National Golf Club (Rancho Palos Verdes): Unquestionably historic.

What other course...

• Has its 18th hole plunge 50 feet to its death before opening?

• Has been billed, albeit temporarily, as “The World’s Most Famous 15-Hole Course?” (Aside: The very short list of contenders actually included a second local facility, Los Angeles’ Westchester Park.)

• Has reportedly cost more than $250 million to bring to fruition?

“The best golf course in California”? Not even the best in Los Angeles County, but its place in history is unassailably secure.

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