Cypress Point Club

Overview: Cypress Point Club is a rare course in which the routing changes character several times without losing its sense of unity. The opening holes move through Del Monte forest, the middle section crosses dunes and open ground, and the closing stretch reaches the rocky Pacific shoreline. Alister MacKenzie shaped the design with Robert Hunter involved in construction, allowing woods, sand and ocean to determine the strategy rather than treating them as scenery added around a conventional course.

History: Marion Hollins and Samuel Morse were central to the club’s creation on the Monterey Peninsula. After the club was incorporated in July 1927, construction began across terrain that looked unusually difficult for golf. The first official round was played on 11 August 1928, and the George Washington Smith clubhouse opened two years later. The club’s own historical account describes MacKenzie’s work as a course that appears to have been made by nature, a fitting summary of the project’s philosophy.

Did You Know? The short 16th hole is the course’s most famous expression of its coastal setting, with the line to the green played across a rocky pocket of Pacific shoreline. It is not just a photogenic pause in the round. The hole forces a direct decision over the edge of the ocean, showing why Cypress Point became such an influential example of landscape-led architecture. Robert Hunter’s involvement also matters: he was not simply a builder, but an important figure in translating MacKenzie’s ideas onto the unusual site.