Best golf courses near San Francisco, CA

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.

San Francisco Golf Club’s original routing was done mostly by a trio of club members, who first staked out the course in 1918. A.W. Tillinghast remodeled the course in 1923, establishing its signature greens and bunkering. He also added the par-3 seventh, called the “Duel Hole” because its location marks the spot of the last legal duel in America. Three holes were replaced in 1950 in anticipation of a street widening project that never happened. In 2006, the original holes were re-established by Tom Doak and his then-associate, Jim Urbina.

The Ocean Course at The Olympic Club has a tumultuous history. Originally Lakeside Golf Club, it was bought by Olympic in 1918 after Lakeside fell into some financial trouble following World War I. The course became the Ocean course in 1924 but winter storm damage just months after it opened forced the need for the course to be remodeled before finally reopening in 1927. The Ocean Course now has a great variety of holes and incredibly undulating greens with great speeds. The course is lined by beautiful Cypress trees that provide a scenic, yet challenging tee shot.

Across the street from the Olympic Club is San Francisco's most famous muny, designed by the same architect, Willie Watson. Framed by eucalyptus, cypress and monterey pines, TPC Harding Park hosted a PGA Tour event in the 1950s and 1960s. And it hosted the 2020 PGA Championship, won by Collin Morikawa, after a significant renovation a couple years prior. The course also hosted the 2009 Presidents Cup, as well as the 1937 and 1956 U.S. Amateur Public Links.

For a course that featured Alister Mackenzie bunkers (added just two years after it first opened), Cal Club was never considered the equal of its near neighbors, No. 35 Olympic (Lake) or No. 33 San Francisco G.C. That’s partly because it was so claustrophobic, not just from dense trees, but from its truncated front nine reworked in the 60s by Trent Jones after road expansion took two holes. Architect Kyle Phillips resolved the problem by clearing trees and creating five new holes, including a new par-4 second in the old practice range and a new dogleg-right par-4 seventh atop a previously unused mesa in the middle of the course. Best of all, he re-introduced Mackenzie’s glamorous bunkers. Cal Club is now much closer to its top-ranked neighbors.

Lake Merced is one of the latest clubs to benefit from the restoration work of Gil Hanse, Jim Wagner and their team. In 1962 a freeway forced a major overhaul of the work Alister Mackenzie did in 1929 and 1930, changing the look and feel of the golf course. Gone were the deep barrancas, sandy waste areas and Mackenzie's signature mounding and bunker designs. Hanse recaptured these lost features using what he often does—expansive research using historical photos and aerials. All 18 green and tee complexes were rebuilt, but perhaps most dramatically, 150,000 square feet of bunkers were refurbished to match Mackenzie’s signature style. What has emerged is a revitalization of one of California’s great courses that will further both Hanse’s and Mackenzie’s legacy as two of the most important architects in the game.

About a half hour north of the Golden Gate Bridge, Meadow Club opened in 1927 as Alister MacKenzie’s first design in the United States. Over the years, the original treeless links-style layout was lost as many trees were planted and greens shrunk, but a restoration project in the early 2000s recaptured much of MacKenzie’s original intent. Architect Mike DeVries expanded the greens to their original size and restored the bunkers to MacKenzie’s intended style. Set in a valley near Mount Tamalpais, Meadow Club once again plays as the sprawling design with large, undulating greens and well-placed MacKenzie bunkering.

Reconstructed by architect Rees Jones in 2018, the South Course at Corica Park is a classic sandbelt track with natural fescue and large, flat bunkers lining vast fairways. The minimalist design and expansive yet contoured putting surfaces allow the ball to be played by both the air and the ground at this Bay Area gem.

Sharp Park is an Alister MacKenzie-designed municipal layout set on the Pacific Ocean, about 10 miles south of San Francisco. Though time and lack of funding have eroded some of the classic strategic features of the course, 12 of the 18 holes are the original MacKenzie designs. The enduring MacKenzie influences are best seen with the prominent mounding and softly rising bunker faces that hide the view beyond and can deceive the player. Given budget constraints, the course struggles with conditioning, but if you can get past iffy lies and a slower pace of play, Sharp Park is an affordable chance to play a MacKenzie course with terrific ocean views.