A True Test of Golf : Riviera--Home of Memorable Tournaments

Certain golf courses, in part because of their history, their tradition or the way they play--St. Andrews, Augusta National and Pebble Beach come to mind--tend to be be more important to a tournament than the players.

Riviera Country Club, where the 62nd Los Angeles Open will start Thursday in wooded ravines of Pacific Palisades, is one of those.

For history, it was the site of the first U.S. Open ever played west of the Rockies. That was in 1948, the year Ben Hogan gave it the name of Hogan’s Alley when he carved five strokes off the Open record with an eight-under-par 276.

Riviera was also the first course Hogan played after his death-threatening automobile-bus accident in 1949 when he showed up only to see if he could walk 72 holes and ended up in a playoff, which he lost, with Sam Snead.

For tradition, it has been the site of the L.A. Open 26 times, with Hogan, Snead, Byron Nelson, Lloyd Mangrum, Hale Irwin, Lanny Wadkins, Johnny Miller and Tom Watson listed among its champions.

As a place to play, Riviera has always been the crown jewel of Southern California courses. It is annually listed among the top 20 courses in the country by Golf Digest and among the top 30 in the world by Golf magazine. As far back as 1939, the National Golf Foundation, in a poll of top-ranking players, rated it No. 3 in the world behind only Pine Valley, N.J., and Pinehurst, N.C., and just ahead of Scotland’s Carnoustie.

In 1973, after singer Glen Campbell helped bring the L.A. Open back to Riviera after an absence of 20 years, Jack Nicklaus said: “It was a pleasure to get back on a great golf course like Riviera. We don’t have the opportunity to play classic courses any more and coming back to Riviera makes the L.A. Open a classic stop on the tour.”

Curiously Nicklaus has never been able to win at Riviera. He has finished second twice, to Gil Morgan in the 1978 L.A. Open and to Hal Sutton in the 1983 PGA Championship.

One of the marks of a great course is how well thought of are its individual holes. Riviera’s get high marks.

No. 18, the 447-yard par 4 finishing hole, was selected as one of the 100 greatest holes by Golf magazine.

This is the hole where two-time PGA champion Dave Stockton hit what he called “the greatest shot I ever hit” on the 72nd hole of the 1974 L.A. Open. Stockton’s shot, a 250-yard 3-wood that carried to within 12 feet of the pin, enabled him to make a birdie and thwart Snead’s hopes of becoming at age 61 the oldest PGA tour winner in history.

The 18th calls for a tee shot to an elevated blind fairway guarded by a slope of dreaded Kikuyu grass on the left and a stand of eucalyptus on the right, but it’s hallmark is its amphitheater green. As many as 5,000 fans can sit on the banked hillside below the great clubhouse, the building that writer Henry Hoople dubbed “The Grand Hotel of Golf,” to watch the dramatic final shots of the $750,000 tournament.

Sunday’s winner will receive $135,000. By way of contrast, Hogan received $2,000 from a purse of $10,000 when he won his first U.S. Open in 1948. It was his third win at Riviera in 18 months as he had won the L.A. Open in 1947 and again in 1948.

It was that stretch that prompted writers to call it Hogan’s Alley.

A case could be made for each of the other 17 holes, starting with No. 1, the 501-yard par 5 where the tee stands 80 feet above the fairway.

“Standing on the first tee and looking down on the first hole is frightening,” says Al Geiberger, who played as a collegian for USC at Riviera. “The fairway looks like a bowling alley. It’s not your basic security hole, but, on the other hand, you can jump right of the box and pop up with an eagle.”

That is what Hale Irwin did in 1976 when he started the final round tied with Tom Watson, but Watson, after watching from the tee as Irwin holed out, responded with an eagle of his own. After a see-saw struggle all day, Irwin finally won.

When the fabled Walter Hagen played in the rainy L.A. Open of 1930, he didn’t fare as well. Hagen, the British Open champion at the time, took a nine on the first hole, picked up his ball and walked in.

“That’s enough,” he reportedly said to his playing partners.

The second hole, a 460-yard par 4 that the members play as a par 5, is one of the most testing. Watson called it “one of the most difficult par 4s in the country.” Not surprisingly, Hogan called it one of the finest 4 pars he’d ever played.

Watson calls No. 4, a 238-yard par 3 over a gaping sand trap with the ocean breeze in the player’s face, one of the key holes.

“You must hit a high 4-wood there because of the sloping green,” he said. That’s easy for him to say. En route to his 1980 win at Riviera, Watson hit a high 4-wood into the cup for a hole in one.

Difficulty aside, the most intriguing hole is No. 6, an innocent little par 3 that measures only 170 yards--but it has a trap in the middle of the green.

“If you aren’t careful, and you wind up on the wrong side of the trap, it can present a double bogey situation,” said Ron Rhoads, club professional at Riviera since 1973.

The late Bobby Locke, who came from South Africa to earn himself a berth in the World Golf Hall of Fame, had an answer to the special problems of No. 6. In 1948, after finding the trap between his ball and the hole, Locke took out his sand wedge and deftly carved a chunk out of the close-cropped green. The ball popped over the trap, took a bounce or two and disappeared into the cup for a birdie.

Then Locke reached down, picked up the divot and carefully replaced it.

Willie Hunter, who won the British Amateur before coming to Riviera as head professional in 1936--a position he held for 28 years--wasted no time in posting a bulletin in the locker room that such tactics would not be acceptable for club members.

One of the most remarkable rounds ever shot at Riviera cannot be found in the record books.

Jerry Barber did it in a driving rain in 1950, shooting a 73 under what were later to be called impossible conditions. Barber lived in Montebello and ran a driving range in East Pasadena and was an early starter in the third round. When he finished his 54 holes, Barber had a 10-stroke lead on the field.

But Hogan and Snead were still on the course. When they reached the 11th hole they said it was too dangerous to cross the flood-filled barranca. Frank Hathaway, the club president, declared the course unplayable and all scores-- including Barber’s 73 and his 10-stroke lead--were wiped out.

“I don’t blame them for not wanting to cross that barranca,” Barber said later, never complaining of his ill fortune. “It was just the rub of the green.”

When the round was replayed, Barber was only two strokes ahead and a final round 79 dropped him back to a tie for seventh with Jimmy Demaret. Snead finished with birdies on the final two holes for a 66 to tie Hogan. Playoffs in those days were 18 holes, but because of the wet conditions it was played a week later and Snead was the winner.

It was 11 years later that Barber made headlines again when he defeated Don January in a playoff to win the PGA and became, at the time, the oldest winner in the tournament’s history. He was 45.

Another remarkable round, which did count, was a 30-36--66 by Johnny Bulla, a drug store employee from Chicago, in 1941. Bulla made seven consecutive 3s on the front nine, a remarkable feat in itself but made even more so by the fact that he was using a bargain drug store ball from Walgreen’s.

Larry Mize holds the course and tournament record, a nine-under-par 29-33--62, made in the second round in 1985.

Oldtimers will tell you that the course the pros will play this week is a far cry from the crusty course designed by George Thomas Jr. and built by Billy Bell Sr. in 1927. Until 1973 the course had a deep barranca that meandered for about a mile in and out among the fairways. A ball hit into the barranca, a ditch at places as deep as 40 feet, was as lost as if it landed in a lake. In 1970 a flood wiped out more than 100 trees and several holes. making it necessary to build a $1.8 million storm drain that took much of the character away from the course.

The one constant, however, is the Kikuyu, a hard, bristle-like grass that was imported from Africa around 1915 to fight erosion in Santa Monica canyon. The Kikuyu eventually spread to the fairways and the rough, giving Riviera a distinct playing surface that makes it almost impossible to hit a low pitch and run shot to the green.

This year’s tournament will open informally today with a $10,200 shootout among 10 players at 2 p.m. All 10 will start at the same time on the tenth hole and one player will be eliminated on each hole until the two survivors reach No. 18 and play off for the $3,000 first prize.

The shootout players include defending tournament champion T.C. Chen, Tom Kite, Scott Simpson, Corey Pavin, Payne Stewart, Larry Mize, Dan Pohl, Mac O’Grady, Bob Tway and Ben Crenshaw.