Cypress Point is, among golf courses, perhaps the ultimate enigma.
It is one of the most famous, has been called the most beautiful and is widely
considered to be one of the greatest golf courses in the world. Yet relatively
few play it, there is no practice range or high-end logo-filled pro shop, the
1928 vintage, Monterey Colonial-style clubhouse, although comfortable, is quite
modest and there isn’t even the refuge of what most golfers consider an adequate
19th hole.
On average, 30 golfers play Cypress Point on a given day, easily
making it one of the most exclusive courses in the world. Its members come from
the highest echelons of corporate and political arenas, along with a celebrity
or two like Clint Eastwood and Bob Hope. All this does make a statement,
however: Cypress Point is in a class unto itself, and that’s the way its
estimated 200–250 members like it. Membership and golf are matter so privacy in
a most conservative sense. Because we can’t see behind the veil, we want to that
much more.
There is not, however, an affected aloofness at Cypress Point.
There’s a dry sense of humor in the old, discarded golf bags that hang suspended
from branches in a towering cypress tree behind the pro shop. Cypress Point
Club, which was organized in 1926 and saw its first play on August 11, 1928, is
a product of the Great Depression. That might explain some of its conservatism.
The club was the idea of Samuel F.B. Morse, founder of the Del
Monte Forest enclave that today includes Pebble Beach. But ironically it was a
woman—1921 U.S. Women’s Amateur Champion Marion Hollins—who charted the club’s
history when she recommended Dr. Alister MacKenzie as the course architect.
Hollins sold real estate for Morse and because of her success in sales and
obvious connections in golf, Morse chose her to sell the Cypress Point
concept.
Hollins, tremendously enthusiastic over the course site, first
began to work with Seth Raynor, who had designed and built the Yale University
Golf Club with C.B. Macdonald in 1926. Cypress was part of a golf course and
real estate development plan that also included two courses at nearby Monterey
Peninsula Country Club; Raynor had been brought in by Morse to do all three
layouts.
When Raynor died of pneumonia in 1926, only his preliminary plans
for Cypress had been completed. It was then that Hollis hired MacKenzie;
Raynor’s plans were never used.
Of course, MacKenzie’s most famous hole is the 16th. Long
celebrated as one of the most visually stunning golf holes in the world, the
233-yard par 3 is a blueprint for heroic design. Both tee and green are perched
just yards from the cliff-crashing Pacific, offering no margin for error. A
direct path to the pin is nearly impossible into the wind, thus most players
temper their bravado by aiming for a broad bailout area to the left, and
attempting a deft up-and-down. It comes as no surprise that MacKenzie originally
designed it as a devilish short par 4.
Recognizing his layout could be nearly unplayable for the amateur,
especially in the wind, MacKenzie made some concessions without compromising the
integrity of the design. He gave golfers the option of going for broke and being
rewarded if successful, or taking the safe but longer route to the green
Ed “Porky” Oliver may have seen but ignored MacKenzie’s reasoning.
Playing in an early Crosby Pro-Am, Oliver took 16 strokes to finish the 16th.
But the hole also has been aced six times—including one by Bing Crosby in 1947.
Oliver would probably have agreed with O.B. Keeler, the biographer of Bobby
Jones, who said, “the whole place resembled the crystallization of the dream of
an artist who had been drinking gin and sobering up on absinthe.”
While the 16th is the most notorious, the 17th has also taken its
toll on golfers. In 1990, the last year the AT&T National Pro-Am was played
at Cypress, the National Weather Service reported winds up to 40 mph. Scores
soared, and Ed Dougherty posted an 88, including a 14 on No. 17. Doughtery
putted 11 times on the hole and later said the ball just wouldn’t stop rolling
in the wind.
The 346-yard 18th has been shuffled off to obscurity by the
critics, one of whom described Cypress Point as “the best 17-hole course in the
world.” This dogleg-right par 4 can be a welcome oasis—uphill and partially
blind in its approach and banded by a handsome cypress grove that pre-dates even
the earliest golfer.
The course, which plays from extreme difficulty to relative ease
depending on the weather, is not all about those famous oceanside holes,
however—all of Cypress provides great golf. In fact, more than anything it’s
Cypress Point’s exciting variety of terrain and golf holes that make it the
grand golf course it is. Its array of hillside and wooded inland holes, open
seaside holes through sandy dunes and dramatic cliff top, ocean holes make it
one of the most magnificent playing fields in all of golf.
The 421-yard 1st hole is played down to a valley bending to the
right and is a severe start. The second, at 548 yards, is the longest on the
course and has demanding tee shot requiring a heroic diagonal carry.
After the second the course heads for a wooded hillside, the
setting of the 5th through the 11th. The course then turns toward the rocky
shoreline, The layout and the weather —the “beauty and the beast”—make Cypress
what it is. But the greens also leave an indelible impression. Tom Kite once
said, “They say everything breaks to the ocean at Cypress Point. Probably the
Atlantic Ocean.”
Perhaps the most lasting—and most appropriate—description of
Cypress Point came from Bobby Jones. In 1929 the U.S. Amateur was about to be
played at neighboring Pebble Beach when he was invited to play a couple of
rounds at the new Cypress Point Club. “Pebble Beach is more difficult, but
Cypress is more fun.” Jones said in his typically diplomatic manner. His
assessment rings true today for anyone fortunate to play to play this
course—unless, of course the wind is howling at the 16th.
Par: 72
Yardage: 6,509
Year founded: 1928
Architect: Alister MacKenzie
