The L.A. Open : Hit This Course, and It Hits Back

In 1930, when he was at the top of his game, a worldwide golfing idol, Bobby Jones played Riviera for the first time. He shot 73 and, as he came off the course, well-meaning locals stopped him. What did he think of the course? they wanted to know.

“Oh, it’s a great course,” Bobby told them. “But, tell me: Where do the members play?”

It was inconceivable to the great Bobby that any group of auto dealers, stock brokers, oil lessees or department store executives could handle this intimidating 7,000-yard layout with its narrow fairways, par three with a trap in the middle of the green and an outgoing nine in the teeth, frequently, of an ocean gale whistling through the eucalyptus in the golfer’s face. Like Winged Foot, Medinah and Pinehurst, this track must have an easier 18 for the high-handicappers in the club to play.

It doesn’t. Riviera, teeth, claws and all, comes in one piece.

It’s not Pebble Beach. It doesn’t hang over the planet’s mightiest ocean. It doesn’t have any water on it. It doesn’t need any. It is 18 holes of diabolical twisting and turning. Jack the Ripper and Quasimodo in one person.

I once said to Tom Weiskopf referring to the 18th at Riviera, “Isn’t that a great finishing hole?”

“There’re 18 great finishing holes out there!” Weiskopf snapped.

The legend of Riviera is inextricably interwoven with the legend of Ben Hogan. It was here that Hogan first served notice that he had shucked his early years as a hook-fighter of the first magnitude and became the shotmaker who took over the game of golf in fee simple in the late 1940s. Hogan won his first U.S. Open here. He won three times in four years here and was in a playoff a fourth. It was to Ben Hogan what Yankee Stadium was to Ruth, Toledo was to Dempsey, Forest Hills to Tilden. When Hogan shot 275 here in 1948, it was widely believed not to be possible. After all, Denny Shute won the L.A. Open here in 1930 with 296.

They have been taking liberties with the grand old lady of late. Holes thought impregnable have been yielding birdies by the score, eagles, even. Well, shrug the purists, the state of the art is advanced, the equipment is better, the terrain manicured. Putts roll true, lies are pure. Everyone hits the ball 275 today, not just a Snead, Hogan or Jimmy Thomson. The game is different, not the course.

Still, if the wind blows and the grass gets wet, Riviera shows up with a knife in her teeth and murder in her heart. She is no one to be trifled with.

One year, the PGA was being played at Riviera and the great author, Dan Jenkins, came up to me, his voice tinged with the sardonic. “Your course has become a has-been,” he charged. “Gibby Gilbert has just shot the front nine in 29!”

I soothed him. “Why don’t we at least wait till the back nine before we ashcan Riviera,” I suggested.

Gibby Gilbert shot a 37 on the back nine. The next day, he shot 80.

In 1985, Lanny Wadkins shot an incredible 264, 20 under par, to win the tournament. But two years earlier, he had shot a second-round 80 to miss the cut in the PGA.

Riviera bites, kicks, scratches. When it looks its most innocent, it’s most dangerous. If it were human, it would have stripes. Or spots.

One guy shot a 61 here (George Archer, 1983). Two have shot 62 (Larry Mize and Fred Couples). Seven guys have shot 63.

But lots of guys have shot 93. And it’s well to remember, Walter Hagen once shot 81.

It’s zealously protective of its relationship with Hogan. It never let Palmer or Nicklaus win. Jack made determined runs at Hogan’s Alley. He was third in scoring in 1973 and ‘75, he was second in ’78 and second (by one shot) in the PGA in ’83. He could never quite get the hang of playing No. 18.

Lots of people couldn’t.

Riviera is a big part of the sports fabric of Southern California. Long before there were any Rams, Raiders, Dodgers or Angels, there was Riviera. L.A.’s link with the big time.

Movie legends were abroad on its fairways. Bogart sat out under the tree guarding the 12th green at every L.A. Open, a thermos full of God-knows-what at his side and his trench coat thrown over his shoulders. Clark Gable peered out of the galleries. Chaplin walked here. Babe Didriksen learned to play here.

Some of the game’s greatest rogues cheated here. When the Philippine general, Carlos Romulo, took up the game here, the hustlers queued up all the way to Sunset Boulevard. One bandit even teed up in a monocle and top hat to sweeten a bet, according to gossip of the time.

Riviera is rich in any kind of golf lore you want to give it. It’s where Fred Couples plays for $180,000 of television and Junior Chamber of Commerce money. But it’s where Hogan got $2,000 for winning the U.S. (by God!) Open in 1948. And it’s where generations of desperadoes played $100 Nassaus when they only had change for a five in their pockets.

Riviera has seen them all. I love every blade of grass or grain of sand on it. It’s a mensch of a golf course. Just don’t bet on anybody who needs a three on the 18th hole to win.