My Three Ideal Courses

When the average golfer thinks of Cypress Point, the holes that come first to his mind are the 15th, 16th and 17th, which are perched on a rocky headland above the Pacific. The 15th, a 139-yard par 3 across a deep chasm, is not at all an easy hole to par, for as often as not there is a formidable west wind to reckon with, and the green is both well bunkered and cleverly contoured. (The greens at Cypress are seaside bent, the fairways a mixture of Kentucky bluegrass, redtop and seaside bent.)

The 16th, over the last half century the most photographed hole in golf, is a par 3 of 233 yards, almost all of it a dangerous carry across the foaming ocean, with the tee set at the edge of a high cliff and the green set even higher on a tiny promontory. Here the prevailing westerly wind blows against the golfer and from right to left: The 17th, a 375-yard par 4 that doglegs sharply to the right, is also one of a kind. What makes it unique is the cluster of seven cypresses that commands the fairway; the golfer is required to place his drive with extreme care to avoid being stymied by the cypresses on his approach shot.

These are spectacular holes-one of the most thrilling sequences in golf-but the other 15 are a marvelous mixture of characteristically inland American holes with tree-lined fairways, holes that swing up into hills covered with Monterey pines, a number of holes with a British seaside flavor, and a few duneland holes unlike any others in this hemisphere.

The Cypress Point Club formally opened its course on Aug. 11, 1928. A little over a year later, word about how exceptional it was was carried home to the various corners of the country by golfers who had gathered at Pebble Beach for our Amateur Championship and who made it a point to get in at least one round on the new course next door. Bobby Jones, who played an exhibition at Cypress Point, made a typically astute judgment when asked to compare the two courses: "Pebble Beach is a more severe test, but Cypress Point is more fun to play." Cypress Point made such an impression on Jones that in 1931 when, after his retirement from competition, he was preparing to build his dream course, the Augusta National, he chose Mackenzie to act as his co-designer.

In Jones' day Cypress Point was about the same length it is today -- 6, 464 yards. No land for expanding the layout has been available for quite some time now, but, even if it had been, the club would probably have opted for keeping the course just as it was. Down through the decades a few new tees have been added, and one green (the eighth) has been altered, but that has been the extent of the changes. Under favorable conditions some very low scores have been shot--Gay Brewer holds the record with a 62, and Jim Langley, the club professional, has had a 63 -- but very few golfers take the course apart despite its shortness. Quit the reverse. Harold Anderson, a recent president of the club, kept charts during the 1970s on how the pros fared on the three courses they played in the Crosby tournament, and his records bring out that many scored lower on Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill, the heavyweights, than they did on Cypress Point. What are the attributes that make a course of only 6,464 yards such a sturdy challenge? No one is better qualified to answer this than Lewis A. Lapham, a son of one of the founding fathers, who has been involved with the course since the summer of 1926 when, a long-hitting Yale undergraduate, he was requisitioned by Mackenzie to drive hundreds of balls off rubber mats so that the architect could determine the best spots to place the back tees. Lapham, who really knows his golf-he put in five years in the 1970s as the chairman of the PGA Tour's Tournament Policy Board -- analyzed Cypress Point in the following fashion when I talked with him not long ago:

"To begin with, one of the chief strengths of the course is that nearly all the holes offer the golfer alternate routes to the green. If he wants to take the conservative route, fine. On the 16th, for example, he doesn't have to go for the green -- he can play a safe 4-iron onto the fairway out to the left.

Mackenzie, in his wisdom, set up the holes so that the golfer can bite off as much as he chooses. If a big hitter attempts to carry a corner to position himself for an easier second, he is suitably rewarded if he hits a strong, accurate drive. If he plays a poor drive, though, he suffers a severe penalty. Just about all the holes possess this beautifully balanced strategic design, so there's not the premium on long-hitting you find on many courses.

"You must control the ball at Cypress Point. You can pay a high price if you stray from the fairway.

The grass in the rough can be coarse and clumpy, but, more than that, in the rough your ball can end up in elephant grass, thick lupine bushes and fine white sand that is loose and fluffy-the ideal sand for fried-egg lies. Then there's the dreaded ice plant. The most famous patch lies along the cliffside edge of the 17th. You're very lucky if you can dislodge your ball from the slippery stuff in one shot. You can take a great many shots. We all have.

"Last but not least, there's the wind. It makes selecting the right club difficult. The westerly we get is behind you on the first four holes and then against you the rest of the way. In a south wind, which is our storm wind, it can be pretty tough out there. To give you an idea, when you play the short carryon the 16th in that wind, you have to hit a 4-wood and you have to hit it well"