The L.A. Open : Not the Retiring Kind : George Clifford Thomas Jr. Thought He Was Through Designing Golf Courses Before the L.A. Athletic Club Persuaded Him to Build Riviera in Santa Monica Canyon

George Clifford Thomas Jr. was finished designing golf courses.

He said so. No, actually, it was more emphatic than that. He swore it was so.

After all, he had already designed courses from Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania to California.

Besides, he called such work “my hobby.”

Born into a wealthy Philadelphia family, Thomas had many hobbies. He was an author, golfer, an expert on deep-sea fishing and a nationally recognized authority on the care and breeding of roses.

In 1925, at 52, Thomas was content to work in his garden and labor on a book to be titled, “Golf Architecture in America: Its Strategy and Construction.”

But Frank Garbutt had other plans. Vice president of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, Garbutt was looking for someone to design a course for the organization on land it had recently purchased in Santa Monica Canyon.

Thomas agreed to look at the land. At first, he was not convinced it was feasible to turn the rugged terrain into a golf course. He said there was only so much that could be done.

But according to “Riviera’s Fifty Golden Years,” Thomas declared that whatever could be done with the land, it would “be good enough for the Los Angeles Athletic Club.”

Such a remark didn’t go over too well with the membership.

No surprise, considering the club’s roster included such prominent names as Lankershim, Van Nuys, Doheny, Spaulding and Huntington, influential and powerful men who would leave their imprint and their names on the map of Southern California. They were not used to being referred to in terms other than those of utmost respect.

Thomas was informed that nothing was too good for the LAAC. And besides, Thomas was apparently told, perhaps he wasn’t good enough for them .

Thomas believed he was, felt so strongly that he abandoned his oath of retirement, bid a temporary farewell to his beloved roses and took on the job.

For free.

He refused to take any money from the LAAC for designing its course. But that was standard operating procedure for Thomas. The son of a banker, Thomas amassed enough wealth of his own to become a millionaire.

His generosity reportedly extended far beyond the golf course. He was a decorated pilot in World War I, serving with the U.S. Army Corps in a unit that he outfitted at his own expense, according to one story.

Thomas, working with William Bell, was determined to maintain the natural beauty of Santa Monica Canyon as he plotted his course.

“Nowhere have I found such natural beauty and terrain opportunities,” Thomas said.

His biggest obstacle was a gulch that runs through the middle of the canyon. It was dry most of the year, but occasionally filled to overflowing. Thomas managed to incorporate the stream into the course on nine holes as a natural hazard.

Some of the huge trees in the canyon were moved for the course, but none were lost. Other trees were brought in to further beautify the course background.

It was a huge job. A crew of 200 men was involved in the clearing and grading of the land. Before the course was finished, 100,000 feet of pipe had been laid, 19,000 pounds of grass seed had been dropped and 1,350 tons of beach sand had been brought in.

LAAC members were hoping to get a gorgeous, challenging, eye-opening course at an inexpensive price.

Their hopes for the course were realized, but not their hopes for the cost. Despite an effort by the club to be economical, the price turned out to be staggering.

An 18-hole course in those days normally cost between $65,000 and $90,000. By the time it was finished in June of 1927 after 18 months of labor, the LAAC course had cost $243,827.63, believed to be the most expensive golf course in the world at the time.

The new project needed a name. It went from the less-than-snappy Los Angeles Athletic Club Golf Course to the mundane LAAC Golf and Country Club to the cumbersome Los Angeles Athletic Club Riviera Golf and Country Club, finally, to Riviera Country Club.

When it was done, Southern California had another distinctive George Thomas course, one that he regarded as his most challenging and best effort. The man who left his mark on such courses as the Bel-Air Country Club, the Ojai Valley Inn and Country Club, El Caballero in the San Fernando Valley, Griffith Park, the Los Angeles Country Club and Palos Verdes had again etched his imprint into the landscape.

Thomas was given the honor of hitting the first ball at Riviera. He died five years later at age 58, but his legacy remains.

“He called it a hobby,” said Bob Thomas, director of communications for the Southern California Golf Assn. and no relation to George Thomas. “It was a pretty damn good hobby. There haven’t been many like him.

“His bunkering at Riviera was very distinctive, the way the course flows, the movement. It’s very subtle and yet very beautiful. It’s a demanding course, certainly from the back tees. It’s challenging, and not just in the length (6,946 yards). He did a great job from the greens to the bunkers. With the subtle undulations, it’s a great use of the natural terrain.”

Jay Morrish, a golf course architect in suburban Dallas, had the opportunity to study Thomas’ work when he restored the Ojai Valley course. And Morrish came away impressed.

“He had a real flair for bunkering,” Morrish said of Thomas. “It was very dramatic. He did it in waves with very few straight lines. Everything moving. Very visual. Very simple, yet beautiful.

“His bunkers were different from anything I’ve seen. It’s hard to describe. You’d just have to go see them. When you walk a golf course, the bunkers are the first thing you notice. They affect you immediately, and his will certainly get your attention.”

But perhaps not your affection if you’re a golfer.

“He would use the bunkers to camouflage the green,” Morrish said. “He was good at that. A good player might lob a shot over one of those bunkers, thinking he had a chance for a birdie, but instead, he would find himself still 10 yards from the green.

“He had a devious mind in that regard. I like that.”