Cypress Point Club

Pebble Beach Golf Links is often called "the greatest meeting of land and water in the world." (This phrase was first used by the artist Francis McComas to describe Point Lobos, a nearby nature reserve.) I would propose, then, that Pebble Beach's neighbor on 17 Mile Drive, Cypress Point Club, be known as "the greatest meeting of a golf architect and a site in the world."

When Alister MacKenzie and his lieutenant Robert Hunter broke ground at Cypress Point in October 1927, MacKenzie was at the height of his considerable powers. He was the R&A's go-to architectural consultant; he had established a beachhead for his practice in California; and he had recently visited Australia and New Zealand, where, in a three-month flurry of activity, he changed golf in that region forever. One can imagine MacKenzie's excitement to apply his talents to Cypress Point's unique mixture of pine and cypress trees, dunes, and seaside bluffs. His routing, likely based on an initial effort by Seth Raynor, highlights the property's best assets. The course weaves in and out of different ecosystems, alternating between linksland and forest, before bursting out onto the Pacific Ocean on Nos. 15-17. Throughout, MacKenzie and Hunter's artistry meets the drama of the land. Their smallish greens emerge naturally from the terrain, and their ragged-edged bunkers echo the gnarled shapes of the surrounding dunes and cypress trees. This wildness has been tempered over the years by maturing vegetation and refinements in maintenance, but Cypress Point is still one of the most overwhelming golf courses in the world—the product of an all-time great architect getting his hands on an all-time great piece of land.

Take Note...

A free glimpse. Many golfers spend decades yearning for a tee time at Cypress Point. Anyone, however, can use the hiking trails that vein the Del Monte Forest. One of these, the Green trail, happens to run along the dune ridge above the sixth, seventh, and eighth hole at Cypress Point. The trail then takes a right turn and wraps around the third and fourth holes at Spyglass Hill Golf Course. Here's a map. I would also recommend spending some time at Fanshell Beach, which sits within shouting distance of Cypress's beautifully bunkered 13th green.

MacKenzie's champion. Only in recent years has Marion Hollins started to receive proper recognition for her contributions to the game. As the athletic director for Samuel F.B. Morse's Del Monte Properties, she hired Alister MacKenzie for the Cypress Point job and gave critical input into the design of the famed 16th hole. Later, Hollins teamed with MacKenzie in developing Pasatiempo Golf Club in Santa Cruz, California. At the opening celebration for that course, she introduced MacKenzie to Bobby Jones, who soon tabbed MacKenzie to design a St. Andrews-inspired “inland links” on the site of the former Fruitland Nurseries in Augusta, Georgia.

Raynor Point? Before he died suddenly of pneumonia in January 1926, Seth Raynor, the architect behind Chicago Golf Club and Fishers Island Club, was Marin Hollins's choice to build Cypress Point. In 1924, Raynor created a rough routing plan for the course, which appears to bear many similarities to what MacKenzie and Hunter created in 1927 and 1928. This has spurred a decades-long debate over how much credit Raynor deserves for a design that has traditionally been attributed solely to MacKenzie. The latest we've heard on this front is that the club is working on a new history book, which will include a fine-grained comparison between Raynor's stick routing and MacKenzie's finished product.

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