Location and Architects

One of the world's most beautiful and expensive pieces of land is around San Francisco. The city is located on a rocky peninsula, located between the Pacific Ocean and the San Francisco Bay. The California Golf Club (established in 1918 and also referred to as 'The Cal Club') itself is located a few miles South of down-town San Francisco. It is a gentlemen’s-only club and has a spectacular 18 holes golf course on an undulating and a beautiful piece of land. It moved to its current location in 1926. After a major restoration/renovation project in 2007-2008 it is currently ranked as number 60 on the ‘2009 Golfweek’s Best of America’ list.

Over the years, the golf course has had five different architects. The Scot Willie Lock begun with the routing and design in 1926, but was replaced at the start of construction by the Irishman Arthur Vernon Macan to do the actual construction. Two years after opening, the Scot Dr. Alistar MacKenzie (Augusta National Golf Club, Cypress Point Club, Melbourne Golf Club) was hired to re-design the bunkers and green complexes on the young golf course. Because a road was partly constructed through the golf course, Robert Trent Jones was hired as an architect in 1963 to make alterations to the course.

Over recent years The Cal Club, just like some other golf courses in the area (i.e. San Francisco Golf Club, The Olympic Club) faced major problems on the greens due to nematodes. Besides that, the site was overgrown with mature trees, it had drainage issues and it did not look much like the original design. To completely restorate/renovate the golf course, Kyle Phillips was hired as the architect. Besides some notable golf courses in the USA (mainly California), he is internationally highly regarded for his work at Kingsbarns, Dundonald (both in Scotland) and The Grove (England). In my home country The Netherlands he has designed Golf Society De Lage Vuursche and re-modeled the Dutch Open venue Hilverschumsche Golf Club.