The location for the Los Angeles Country Club makes it possibly one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in the world. It’s therefore fitting that the North course does full justice to the land because it is a truly magnificent layout.
The club was founded in 1897 as the Los Angeles Golf Club, moving locations three times before settling on its current site adjacent to Beverly Hills in 1911. The original club founders, Joe Sartori and Ed Tufts, along with Norman Macbeth and Charles Orr, laid out the inaugural course at the new Wilshire site.
The course (now known as the North) at the renamed Los Angeles Country Club was refashioned by Herbert Fowler in 1921 but re-routed in 1927 by George C. Thomas Jr. and his right-hand man, William Bell, with excellent effect. Fast-forward to the new millennium when Gil Hanse was entrusted to restore this classic course to its former glory.
The layout is at once thrilling and often exciting with its hills, ridges, swales and valleys. There are two 18-hole courses, the North and the South, if you can get a game, but only have time for one round, try and persuade your friendly member to play the North course.
There are far too many great holes to mention them all, but the par threes are exceptionally strong, exactingly long and noteworthy. The 7th is perhaps the toughest of them all, measuring almost 240 yards where only the perfect tee shot will find the sanctuary of the green. The 9th is perhaps the signature hole, with the clubhouse as the backdrop, but many members consider the 11th to be the star of the show with downtown LA as the backdrop.
As far as parkland courses go, Los Angeles North is as good as it comes. The course holds your interest all the way round and it’s a challenging and tough but fair layout. Roll this up with a beautiful setting (except perhaps for the odd imposing tower block) and you have a little piece of heaven.
