California Golf Club of San Francisco (Cal Club)

US Pacific Division Best in State Rankings 2016 Five States in the West Region are updated in the first of nine US divisional revisions Top 100 Golf Courses inaugurated its Best in State rankings for the United States in 2012 so this is the second biennial update of those listings. Two years ago, we published the revised standings for the fifty States in four geographical groupings. This time around, we plan to spread the announcements across nine distinct Divisions, starting with the five Pacific States of California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and Alaska. We’ve also extended the number of courses that we feature in nearly every state. For the Pacific Division, we’ve increased our coverage from 120 to 195 courses, thanks mainly to doubling the size of the Californian chart from a Top 50 to a Top 100. In total, there are 17 Pacific tracks ranked in our national Top 100 for the United States so it’s a division that’s hardly lacking in high quality golf courses. California The Top seven places in our Californian listings remain exactly as they have been since 2014 so that means Alister MacKenzie’s Cypress Point remains in the number 1 position – hardly a surprise when you consider it’s also our current US and World No. 1. The course attracted an excellent review last year when somebody posted a wonderful pictorial account of their visit (having spent more than a year carefully planning the trip beforehand ) and their comments ended with the wish that “many more readers of this site get the chance to play [the course], because it really is an experience like no other”. One of only two courses to make upward moves within the Top 10 standings, California Golf Club of San Francisco rises two places to number 8. Originally laid out in the 1920s, “the Cal Club” was extensively renovated by Kyle Phillips in 2007/8 and the results of that fabulous upgrade are now reflected in the layout’s latest chart position. Mention must also be made to another couple of courses which the same architect has revived with extensive makeovers in recent years: Menlo (at number 48) and Wilshire(at number 50), which are two of the highest new entries in our latest Top 100 for the Golden State. Click the link to see full details of our 2016 California Best in State rankings Oregon We’ve expanded our chart for the Beaver State by 50% to create a Top 30 and the top four positions are all occupied by courses from the iconic Bandon Dunes Resort. Tom Doak’s Pacific Dunes layout holds onto the number 1 position and the architect’s second design at this venue, Old Macdonald, climbs one place to the runner-up spot at number 2. All four 18-hole layouts at this popular golf destination are firmly ensconced in our US Top 100 table so it’s really hard to argue against anybody who claims Bandon is the best golf resort in the country. Two hundred and seventy miles further northeast of Bandon, the Pronghorn Club at Bend offers its residential members two terrific tracks. The rather unimaginatively named Fazio (designed by Tom Fazio in 2006) edges up two places to number 5 in the state listings and its older sibling, the Nicklaus (laid out by Jack Nicklaus in 2004), moves up one position to number 8. Another private facility, Portland Golf Club, enters the Top 10 at number 10 and some might be aware of the historical importance of this course, having hosted the first Ryder Cup after World War II in 1947. Click the link to see full details of our 2016 Oregon Best in State rankings Washington We’ve added another five courses to our Washington listings, where Chambers Bay remains the Evergreen State’s number 1 track, despite tumbling down the US national chart that we published four months ago. The course was widely criticised during last year’s US Open for the performance of its putting surfaces but, despite conditioning issues, it’s still regarded by many commentators as one of Robert Trent Jones Jnr’s better designs. New at number 2, we have David McLay Kidd’s Gamble Sands, which first opened for play in 2014. Set out on top of a sandy mesa within a huge 1,000-acre property, the course lies – in the words of its architect – in a ”once in a lifetime site every golf designer dreams of, rolling sand dunes overlooking a large body of water… no homes, no other development around, just golf on sand, golf as it was truly meant to be.” Click the link to see full details of our 2016 Washington Best in State rankings Hawaii There are now 30 courses in our standings for the Aloha State and another David McLay Kidd design, Nanea, retains the number 1 slot. This ultra-exclusive track on the Big Island was played by Paul Rudovsky last March. Paul (aka Rudo) is closing in on playing every course that has ever appeared on a World Top 100 ranking list: “This is a very very private club. It is simply exquisite, and fun to play, but it also very much values its privacy, and I shall respect that… What you might not expect is the difficulty associated with reading its greens, which are heavily influenced by the slope from Mauna Kea down to the Pacific Ocean. The course is one of the very few that is both challenging and fun to play. If you get the opportunity, do not let it pass.” Positions 2, 3 and 4 in the new Top 30 all remain as they were then, at number 5 (up two spots), we have the 1993 Jack Nicklaus design at Manele on Lanai Island which a reviewer last year described as “maybe the most visually stunning course you will ever play… almost every hole has spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean… this is my idea of Paradise.” A little further down the chart, two of our ten new entries arrive inside the Top 10: Kukui’ula at number 8 is a terrific Tom Weiskopf layout on the island of Kauai that debuted in 2010 and Kohanaiki at number 9 is a remarkable Rees Jones design – routed around Ahu rock shrines and hundreds of anchialine pools – which was finally unveiled in 2013, five years after its scheduled opening date. Click the link to see full details of our 2016 Hawaii Best in State rankings Alaska The Last Frontier State is the only one in the United States where we list fewer than ten courses. Our number 1 is still Bill Newcomb’s thirty-year-old Anchorage course, located just outside the state’s most populous city. With the Robert Trent Jones Jnr course at Eagleglen closing two years ago, we have a new entry at number 4, Settlers Bay, to take its place in our new Top 5 chart. Click the link to see full details of our 2016 Alaska Best in State rankings We always like to hear what you think about our re-ranking process so please let us know your opinion of our five newly updated US Best in State charts. What course(s) have we missed or is there one (or more) that really shouldn’t be listed? Perhaps there’s one riding too high or languishing too low in the standings? Whatever your impressions are, please click the “Respond to this article” link at the top or at the bottom of this page. Jim McCann Editor Top 100 Golf Courses

Alex Frolish has been a pilot for approaching 20 years and now travels to all corners of the globe in his role as a commercial airline pilot. His passion for flight is only equalled by his passion for golf and golf travel. Having picked up a golf club over 35 years ago when aged just 3 years old, Alex has played over 550 courses across every continent on planet earth furnished with a fairway. Over the next few months you’ll be able to follow Alex’s golfing travels as he brings you anecdotes of his life both in the air and on the course. 2022 - A Year Better Than Most Life as a commercial pilot can seem chaotic when viewed from afar. In 2022 I flew a little over 280,000 nautical miles, crossed 800 time zones and drank approximately 100 litres of tea. Jet lag is an ever present companion and weekends at home are a novelty rather than a formality. But amongst the madness there are many benefits, the greatest of which is an ability to plan a never ending golf travel itinerary. In 2022, I played a little over 90 rounds of golf on 72 new courses. Those courses were located in 11 different countries across 5 continents. Some of those were bucket list occupying world top 100 courses, others were £20 municipal tracks that had peeked my interest in some way. But what stitched all of these rounds together was the sense of adventure and anticipation for a new experience enjoyed. California Golf Club of San Francisco, photo credit: Patrick Koenig There were too many highs and lows in 2022 to possibly highlight them all. The experiences at Cal Club in San Francisco and St George’s in Toronto were utterly memorable. The twilight round amongst the towering redwood lined Mackenzie crafted holes at Northwood GC in Northern California and the dawn tee time at Sentosa in Singapore as the morning mist stirred across the Straits of Mallaca, vie for the most atmospheric. And my visit to my 500th new course at Dumbarnie Links was possibly my most significant golf travelling milestone. However, for all of the wonderful experiences and plans fulfilled, there were those that didn’t quite go to plan. I had dreamed of a visit to North Berwick’s West Links for many years, and to arrive at the starters hut to be greeted with the news that the greens had been heavily punched the day before, was a particularly crushing blow. An unexpectedly frosty morning in South Wales resulted in a round at Pennard being played to all 18 temporary greens (which would subsequently be opened moments after we left the final hole). And due to my tuktuk breaking down en route to the course and the subsequent 40 minute sweaty walk and difficulty in renegotiating my tee time, Cosmopolitan Golf Club in Chennai, India was added to my list of clubs that would require a second attempted visit. Pennard Golf Club, photo credit: Larry Lambrecht The end of the year was particularly unsuccessful in respect of plans fulfilled. In December I arrived in Buenos Aires on the morning of the football World Cup final. The ensuing three day party put paid to my plans to visit Jockey Club and San Andrés Golf Club for long anticipated first time visits, but immersing myself in the plentiful celebrations softened the blow somewhat. Heavy snow and low cloud in the UK meant that the run up to Christmas was one punctuated by cancelled tee times and wistful looks through the clubhouse window. And a final trip of the year to Santiago in Chile was disrupted by public holidays that I had failed to take account of. No plans are bulletproof and in the ever evolving world of golf travel planning, there will always be days and itineraries that don't quite work out. However I like to look forward to what lies ahead and the coming weeks are filled with plenty of planned air miles and potential rounds in the diary. I have visits to California, Oregon, India and Dubai and at home, a first time visit to Royal St George’s to come before I will write my next update. Until next time, I wish you many straight drives, well negotiated four footers and happy rounds.

US Pacific Division Best in State Rankings 2018 Five States in our West Region are updated in the first of nine US divisional updates. This is the fourth biennial update of the Best in State rankings that we introduced for the United States in 2012. As we did two years ago, we’ll publish the revised tables for the fifty states in nine geographical divisions over the next few months, beginning with the five Pacific States of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington. In these state charts, a total of 195 courses are featured – nineteen of which appear for the first time – and with seventeen Pacific tracks currently occupying prominent positions in our national Top 100 for the United States, that statistic tells you it’s a region which is high on quality at the top end. So, without further ado, it’s time to embark on a golfing journey across North America that starts now on the western seaboard and ends in August on the opposite side of the country with the six states in our New England Division. Alaska Alaska is the only US state where we list fewer than ten courses. The Last Frontier State’s number 1 is still Bill Newcomb’s thirty-year-old Anchorage Golf Course, located on the edge of the City of Lights and Flowers, with the fairways framed by the Chugach Mountain Range, the Anchorage city skyline and the Cook Inlet. The golf season at the club runs from early May through to mid-October but it’s still possible to tee it up on the 1st at 8.00 pm during June or July and finish all eighteen holes around midnight. Rank/ Click the link to see full details of our 2018 Alaska Best in State rankings California There’s a little bit of movement within the Top 10 for California but Alister MacKenzie’s Cypress Point remains firmly in the number 1 position – which will hardly come as a shock to the system when you realise it’s also our current US and World Number 1! A reviewer had this to say after a recent round on the course: “Cypress for sure held up as the best course in the world. It was in pristine shape and every single hole was unique and fantastic in its own way.” Suffice to say, all but one of the posts we’ve ever received for this layout has been accompanied by a 6-ball rating. Two 18-hole layouts make significant two-place upward moves within the new Top 10 and both have benefitted greatly from extensive renovation work carried out over the last few years by two of the world’s top architects. The first of these climbers is the North course at Los Angeles Country Club (at number 3) which Gil Hanse has upgraded and the second course is California Golf Club of San Francisco (at number 6), where Kyle Phillips has given the layout an extensive facelift. Another course to have its fortunes positively transformed by a large-scale makeover is Monterey Peninsula (Dunes) (up ten spots to number 11) which has had its original 1920s Seth Raynor design remodelled by Tom Fazio and former associate Tim Jackson. Our US Consultant Fergal O’Leary visited last year and he told us there had been “improvements to drainage and irrigation across the course” along with “much-improved bunkering” and he felt “you’ll be left with countless memories due to the excellent design variety and aesthetics” after playing here. The highest of the twelve new entries in our updated Top 100 for the Golden State arrives at number 35 and it’s the result of another Tom Fazio redesign project at Rams Hill Golf Club in Borrego Springs. Only reopened in 2014 after being closed for a few years, the course enjoys a curtailed playing season during the Autumn and Winter months but its relative remoteness next to the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park makes it an ideal weekend getaway destination for the more intrepid golfer. A reviewer in January described it as “a classic Fazio design, very picturesque, a really good track and fun to play for all levels”. Click the link to see full details of our 2018 California Best in State rankings Hawaii The top seven positions in the Aloha State remain the same as before so that means David McLay Kidd’s design at the ultra-exclusive Nanea holds on to its status as the number 1 in state. According to the DMK website, this was the first course in North America to use paspalum from tee to green, across the entire course. David’s father Jimmy had pioneered the use of this grass in the Middle East years earlier and he felt that it would be ideally suited for the Hawaiian islands. Taking a not so subtle swipe at his critics, the architect says: “Nanea was my retort to those that enviously postulated that anyone could have designed Bandon Dunes.” The only course to progress within the Hawaiian Top 10 is the Rees Jones design at Kohanaiki, inching one spot closer to the top at number 8. Laid out with six ocean-front holes on a coastal site near Kona international airport, the course is the sporting centrepiece of a private residential development where its paspalum fairways are routed around a rather unique environment of Ahu rock shrines, numerous anchialine ponds and black lava outcrops. The highest-placed of three new entries is Makena Golf & Beach Club on the southeast coast of Maui which enters at number 15. The course started out as the North course at the Maui Prince Hotel in the early 1990s but, after several changes of ownership over the last decade, the Discovery Land Company acquired the property four years ago and commissioned Dennis Wise, a former Tom Fazio associate, to remodel the layout. Click the link to see full details of our 2018 Hawaii Best in State rankings Oregon The top four slots in our Beaver State chart are all held by courses from the iconic Bandon Dunes Resort with Tom Doak’s Pacific Dunes layout retaining its position at the top of standings, where it has held a tight grip on the number 1 position for the last six years. All four 18-hole layouts at this modern golf destination are firmly entrenched within our US Top 100, giving Bandon a reasonable claim to be considered as the best golf resort in the country. The course at Waverley Country Club rises seven places to number 5, tucked in behind another three Bandon layouts in our chart. Originally redesigned by Chandler Egan more than a century ago, the layout has been modified over the last couple of decades by Gil Hanse, with many trees removed and bunkers reinstated to help revitalise its Golden age design credentials. Host venue for a number of USGA tournaments over many years, the course came under the national spotlight again last year when it was used for the 2017 Senior Women’s Amateur. The only new entry in the Oregon Top 30 appears at number 11 and it’s yet another Bandon Dunes layout, the 13-hole par-three circuit named Bandon Preserve, which is located between the sand hill holes at Bandon Trails and the closing holes at Bandon Dunes. Our International Correspondent David Davies awarded this short track a 6-ball mark when he played here, saying it “has enough eye candy to equal every one of the other Bandon courses… the routing is wonderful and runs through extremely wild and rolling sand dunes… a roller coaster ride of short irons, punch and knock down shots”. Click the link to see full details of our 2018 Oregon Best in State rankings Washington The Evergreen State chart is now headed by David McLay Kidd’s Gamble Sands which eases up one place from the runner-up position to number 1. Laid out on top of a sandy mesa within a massive 1,000-acre property, this course proves that it doesn’t take an enormous construction budget to create a nationally ranked top track. Of course, it helps to have the right topography and an architect who knows how to extract the best from it. The course at Wine Valley Golf Club advances two positions to number 3 in our revised state listings. It’s Dan Hixon’s second design and already he’s being earmarked as an architect worth watching (his 2017 reversible creation at Silvies Valley Ranch in Oregon is also receiving praise). Last month, one reviewer posted the following for this course: “there’s plenty of width here in a similar vein to Gamble Sands. With width you get options and with the wind that blows here it’s a necessity. Wine Valley will appeal to minimalists but it just seemed a touch bland off the tee lacking focal definition to my eyes – a few more fairway bunkers [required] perhaps.” The first of two new entries comes in at number 20 and it’s the course at White Horse Golf Club near Kingston in Kitsap County. Now operated by the Suquamish Clearwater Resort and Casino, the original Cynthia Dye-designed layout opened a decade ago to much critical acclaim, though many observers felt it was just too tough. When the golf facility changed ownership a few years back, architect John Harbottle III (who sadly passed away in 2012 at the age of just 53) was called in to soften the layout by widening fairways, removing bunkers, clearing trees and adding more tees. Since those changes were carried out, the club has never looked back. Click the link to see full details of our 2018 Washington Best in State rankings We’re always happy to hear what you think about our re-ranking process so feel free to let us know your opinion of our five newly updated US Best in State charts. Which course have we overlooked or maybe there’s one (or more) that really shouldn’t be listed? Perhaps a particular layout features too prominently or maybe it sits too low in the standings? Whatever your thoughts, please click the “Respond to this article” link at the top or at the bottom of this page if you’d like to voice your opinion. Jim McCann Editor Top 100 Golf Courses