RBC Heritage

Harbour Town Golf Links



    The Olympic Club: Lake

    San Francisco, CA Private

    Overview

    It seems fitting that, in a town where every house is a cliffhanger, every U.S. Open played at Olympic has been one, too. For decades, the Lake was a severe test of golf. Once it was a heavily forested course with canted fairways hampered by just a single fairway bunker. By 2009, the forest had been considerably cleared away, leaving only the occasional bowlegged cypress with knobby knees, the seventh and 18th greens were redesigned and a new par-3 eighth added. Despite those changes, the 2012 U.S. Open stuck to the usual script: a ball got stuck in a tree, slow-play warnings were given, a leader snap-hooked a drive on 16 in the final round, and a guy name Simpson won. If the past was predictable, the future of the Lake Course might be more mysterious after Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner completed a remodeling in 2023 in preparation for the 2028 PGA Championship. The holes are even more breathable than before with additional tree decluttering, the greens have been expanded for more hole locations and the bunkers don't seem so deep and disconnected with the greens as they did. That old seventh hole was also scrapped in favor of a new drivable par 4 playing to a new greensite closer to the eighth tee. What hasn't changed is the Lake Course's secret ingredient, the mysterious hillside atmosphere that makes balls fall out of the air and the holes play much longer than their yardage.

    About

    Holes 18
    Length 7050
    Slope 141
    Facility Type Private
    Year Opened 1924
    Designer Sam Whiting/(R) Robert Trent Jones, ASGCA/(R) William R. Love/Gil Hanse & Jim Wagner (2023)

    Awards

    100 Greatest
    Best Courses in Every State

    Ranking history:

    100 Greatest: Ranked since 1966.
    2023-'24 ranking: 35th.
    Previous ranking:
    34th.
    Highest ranking:
    10th, 1985-'88, 1991-'92.

    Best in State: Ranked fourth, 2011-'14. Ranked fifth, 2015-'22.
    2023-'24 ranking: Sixth.
    Previous ranking: Fifth.

    Golf Digest Logo Panelists

    Ratings from our panel of 1,900 course-ranking panelists

    4.8

    100 GREATEST/BEST IN STATE SCORES

    Shot Options
    7.8621
    Character
    8.0095
    Challenge
    8.1286
    Layout Variety
    7.7511
    Fun
    7.503
    Aesthetics
    7.8115
    Conditioning
    7.7124

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