club events — 2 6 0 the crosby — 2 6 8 the walker cups — 27 6
postscript
acknowledgments — 288
a letter to future members — 291
Opposite: Cypress Point, as viewed from the Clubhouse
Previous pages: Fan Shell Beach, 1928
Following pages: The ninth hole
author’s note
touched with wonder
“Even without some knowledge of their history anyone would be touched with wonder, coming for the first time upon the old cypress trees clinging to the rocky coast of the Monterey Peninsula; when one learns that they are the only native growth of their kind left on the earth the wonder grows, and one would learn more.”
THE CYPRESS OF MONTEREY: AN HISTORICAL SKETCH, 1922
AS WITH THE ANCIENT CYPRESS TREE, the more one learns about Cypress Point the more one would want to learn, for it is truly a place touched with wonder.
The purpose of this book is to produce a story worthy of the name of Cypress Point. In content, form and design the club wished to create for its centennial history an ethos inspired by the place itself: beautiful, intimate, understated, refined. The authors, in turn, sought to honor the club by learning more about its origins, founders and subsequent caretakers so that current and future members may better appreciate and preserve the spirit of the club they have inherited.
This is an opportunity for members to share with their friends an insight into the characteristics that have made their club so valued, generation after generation, and the reverence they have for the privilege of being associated with this special place.
By arranging the storytelling around the core elements that make Cypress Point what it is — the history of the land, the club and clubhouse, the golf course, and some of the members’ many stories — this book forms a portrait of an institution defined not by the activities of each decade or generation, but by the cumulative impression of a century of shared efforts. As envisioned by the club’s founders and early supporters, the Dramatis Personae of this centennial history, this is the story of how a small group of congenial members sought to create and maintain an ideal golf links overlooking Cypress Point, as they begin to celebrate their first hundred years.
— DAVID NORMOYLE
dramatis personae
From 1925 to 1930 these key individuals shared an ambition to create “the best golf links in the State of California” and “the greatest golf course in the world in that particular locality.” The Cypress Point Club was the product of their collective efforts. Profiles of the four leading characters (below) appear as noted, with supporting characters (right) mentioned throughout the story.
SAMUEL F. B. MORSE, Pebble Beach, Calif. (Profile p. 24-29) — Qui alic tempos expla volorer fernam ut maio. Nam rat por re pa nonsequo ipidendunt enis et laborit ut estor amet de cum invenet qui dolorere ditas es nobit esed qui nosa sunt.Bus et voluptatus rehendel iliaerit quatius sed ut eos et inisserat lautemo luptiur ma idebite sequam, to et archiliqui ulluptaquam re conet peribus assim cusdam est, suntiur, simi, odis es ut dollaut quam qui res debis comnihit, alit que nobis molum qui quam, sam, nem quos autempo rporem velitius. Bitassi utas ulparum apidendi ipiet, ut renienim aut eaturem id eseri atis se sapicie ndioriaest et eiciis et fugita qui doluptiorem inctius ipid maxime volorepedis et, cori con ienim aut eaturem id eseri atis se sapicie ndioriaest et eiciis et fugita qui doluptiorem inctius ipid maxime volore uptiorem inctius ipid maxime volorepedis
MARION HOLLINS, New York, N.Y (Profile p. 48-55).— Qui alic tempos expla volorer fernam ut maio. Nam rat por re pa nonsequo ipidendunt enis et laborit ut estor amet de cum invenet qui dolorere ditas es nobit esed qui nosa sunt.Bus et voluptatus rehendel iliaerit quatius sed ut eos et inisserat lautemo luptiur ma idebite sequam, to et archiliqui ulluptaquam re conet peribus assim cusdam est, suntiur, simi, odis es ut dollaut quam qui res debis comnihit, alit que nobis molum qui quam, sam, nem quos autempo rporem velitius. Bitassi utas ulparum apidendi ipiet, ut renienim aut eaturem id eseri atis se sapicie ndioriaest et eiciis et fugita qui doluptiorem inctius ipid maxime volorepedis et, cori con ienim aut eaturem id eseri atis se sapicie ndioriaest et eiciis et fugita qui doluptiorem inctius ipid maxime volore uptiorem inctius ipid maxime volorepedis et, cori con ienim aut eaturem id eseri atis se sapicie ndioriaest et eiciis et fugita et fugita qui doluptiorem inctius ipid
ROGER D. LAPHAM, San Francisco, Calif. (Profile p. 88-93)— Qui alic tempos expla volorer fernam ut maio. Nam rat por re pa nonsequo ipidendunt enis et laborit ut estor amet de cum invenet qui dolorere ditas es nobit esed qui nosa sunt.Bus et voluptatus rehendel iliaerit quatius sed ut eos et inisserat lautemo luptiur ma idebite sequam, to et archiliqui ulluptaquam re conet peribus assim cusdam est, suntiur, simi, odis es ut dollaut quam qui res debis comnihit, alit que nobis molum qui quam, sam, nem quos autempo rporem velitius. Bitassi utas ulparum apidendi ipiet, ut renienim aut eaturem id eseri atis se sapicie ndioriaest et eiciis et fugita qui doluptiorem inctius ipid maxime volorepedis et, cori con ienim aut eaturem id eseri atis se sapicie ndioriaest et eiciis et fugita qui doluptiorem inctius ipid maxime volore uptiorem inctius ipid maxime volorepedis et, cori con
DR. ALISTER MACKENZIE, Leeds, England (Profile p. 174-179)— Qui alic tempos expla volorer fernam ut maio. Nam rat por re pa nonsequo ipidendunt enis et laborit ut estor amet de cum invenet qui dolorere ditas es nobit esed qui nosa sunt.Bus et voluptatus rehendel iliaerit quatius sed ut eos et inisserat lautemo luptiur ma idebite sequam, to et archiliqui ulluptaquam re conet peribus assim cusdam est, suntiur, simi, odis es ut dollaut quam qui res debis comnihit, alit que nobis molum qui quam, sam, nem quos autempo rporem velitius. Bitassi utas ulparum apidendi ipiet, ut renienim aut eaturem id eseri atis se sapicie ndioriaest et eiciis et fugita qui doluptiorem inctius ipid maxime volorepedis et, cori con ienim aut eaturem id eseri atis se sapicie ndioriaest et eiciis et fugita qui doluptiorem inctius ipid maxime volore uptiorem inctius ipid maxime volorepedis et, cori con ienim
xii
SETH RAYNOR, Southhampton, N.Y. — Originally hired by Sam Morse and Marion Hollins to design 36 holes at Monterey Peninsula Country Club, Raynor also laid out a proposed routing of Cypress Point in February 1925. The plans were never developed due to Raynor’s unexpected death at age 51 in January 1926, whereupon the design commission was assumed and routing significantly modified by Dr. Alister MacKenzie and Robert Hunter. (Profile p. 61-63)
FRANCES ELKINS, Monterey, Calif. — Monterey’s leading interior designer in the 1920s, Elkins redecorated Morse’s new Hotel Del Monte in 1924, along with many glamorous Pebble Beach homes. Her elegant, domestic style influenced an understated clubhouse interior that remains unlike nearly any other conventional golf club in the world; a century later the design continues to shape to the social nature of the Cypress Point Club. (Profile p. 126-127)
HARRISON GODWIN, Carmel, Calif. — Owner of Carmel’s Pine Inn and a noted illustrator of California maps, Godwin entered the Cypress Point story as a 28-year-old salesman for Sam Morse at Del Monte. When Marion Hollins was incapacitated due to a back injury, he carried the membership drive over the final hurdle, signing up the 100 required to fund construction of the course, eventually becoming a member himself. (See p. 54, 70-71)
EDITH CHESEBROUGH VAN ANTWERP, Hillsborough, Calif. — The club’s founding Secretary and personal friend of Marion Hollins, socialite Edith Chesebrough was a champion amateur golfer who set the tone for the early membership ideals at Cypress Point. An all-round athlete like Marion, Edith was an accomplished horsewoman and six-time Northern California golf champion, winning the California state and West Coast titles in 1911. (See p. 47, 78)
JULIAN P. GRAHAM, Pebble Beach, Calif. — As the official photographer of the Del Monte Properties Company from 1924-1963, “Spike” Graham took more than 40,000 photographs of the famous people and places surrounding Pebble Beach. His detailed images of the creation of Cypress Point have proven invaluable to efforts to restore the course in subsequent decades. Julian Graham’s photographs made Sam Morse’s vision possible. (Profile p. 204-205)
ROBERT HUNTER, Pebble Beach, Calif. — Qui alic tempos expla volorer fernam ut maio. Nam rat por re pa nonsequo ipidendunt enis et laborit ut estor amet de cum invenet qui dolorere ditas es nobit esed qui nosa sunt.Bus et voluptatus rehendel iliaerit quatius sed ut eos et inisserat lautemo luptiur ma idebite sequam, to et et archiliqui ulluptaquam re conet peribus assim cusdam est, suntiur, simi, odis es ut dollaut quam qui res (Profile p. 199-203)
GEORGE WASHINGTON SMITH, Santa Barbara, Calif. — Qui alic tempos expla volorer fernam ut maio. Nam rat por re pa nonsequo ipidendunt enis et laborit ut estor amet de cum invenet qui dolorere ditas es nobit esed qui nosa sunt.Bus et voluptatus rehendel iliaerit quatius sed ut eos et inisserat lautemo luptiur ma idebite sequam, to et et archiliqui ulluptaquam re conet peribus assim cusdam est, suntiur, simi, odis es ut dollaut qu. (Profile p. 112-115)
FRANCIS McCOMAS, Pebble Beach, Calif. — Qui alic tempos expla volorer fernam ut maio. Nam rat por re pa nonsequo ipidendunt enis et laborit ut estor amet de cum invenet qui dolorere ditas es nobit esed qui nosa sunt.Bus et voluptatus rehendel iliaerit quatius sed ut eos et inisserat lautemo luptiur ma idebite sequam, to et et archiliqui ulluptaquam re conet peribus assim cusdam est, suntiur, simi, odis es ut dollaut quam qui res (Profile p. 100-101)
WILLIAM C. VAN ANTWERP, Hillsborough, Calif.
Labeled a “New Giant of Wall Street” in 1916, Van Antwerp came west to run E. F. Hutton’s San Francisco office in the 1920s after writing a best-selling history of the New York Stock Exchange. A noted book collector married to champion golfer Edith Chesebrough, he
joined Marion Hollins and Roger Lapham in 1925 on the club’s organizing committee (p. 65-66) before becoming Cypress Point’s first president in 1927.
GRANTLAND RICE, Nashville, Tenn. — As America’s leading sportswriter in the 1920s, Rice added valuable promotional efforts to enlisting new members. His early descriptions appeared nationwide in a syndicated column, calling the course, “the final word in golf from every known angle of beauty and play,” adding, “It is quite possible that Cypress Point may take its place as the most spectacular contribution to the 500 year old game.” (See p. 36, 47)
ancient impressions & new names
IN A TIME BEFORE land grants were determined by bureaucrats, the first people to lay any sort of claim to the area that would become Cypress Point were the Costanoan tribes of Central California. Derived from the Spanish word costaños, meaning “coast people,” they formed a broad collection of tribes with different languages and customs who dwelt from the San Francisco peninsula down to Point Sur. The Ohlone and Esselen Nations gathered around the catchment lands that flow into Monterey and Carmel Bays, providing ready access to hunting and fishing grounds.
Cypress Point’s first recorded name came from Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese explorer sailing under the flag of Spain. Cabrillo’s ship entered Monterey Bay on November 16, 1542 without coming ashore. “On November 18th,” according to ship logs, “they were hunting a port and discovered some snow covered mountains with a cape running out from them which they named ‘Cabo de Nieve’,” or Cape of Snow, believed to be Point Cypress. Was there snow on Cypress Point that November in 1542? Or was it the pure white sand of the dunes they saw beyond? An analysis of Cabrillo’s Portuguese-language journals reveals that “cabo” marked a change in the general direction or character of the coast, meaning Cypress Point was more likely the “Change of Snow” at the northern end of the snow-covered Santa Lucia Mountains, rather than a snow-covered cape itself.
In 1774, Spain commissioned Juan Perez to explore the Pacific Northwest, christening a new age of discovery. The Santiago recorded the first sightings of “Terra Incognita.” On board was missionary assistant Tómas de la Peña, remembered by history for the journal he kept of the voyage. De la Peña’s diary on June 15, 1774 (right) recounted seeing the “Punta de Cipreses,”
Previous pages: Originally known as Rancho El Pescadero, the future site of Cypress Point’s golf course, prior to construction, 1926
The first known written reference to “Cypress Point” Tómas de la Peña’s journal entry from on board the Santiago, June 15, 1774
“On the 15th we woke up in front of Punta de Pinos on the western side and clearly saw Punta de Cipreses, Carmelo Inlet and the Santa Lucia mountain range.”
suggesting the oldest recorded name of Cypress Point had achieved popular use following the 1770 landing of Father Junipero Serra. Previously, English cartographer Emery Molyneux adopted Cabrillo’s “B. de Pinos” to describe the Monterey Peninsula in a 1592 map, which included an outline of its distinctive western-most point. Sebastian Vizcaino, the Spanish explorer who gave Monterey its name in 1602, was the earliest European to detail contact with native tribes having any connection to Cypress Point. “The land is well populated with Indians without number,” Vizcaíno wrote of his brief visitation near the Monterey coastline in December of that year.
“Cypress Point, Monterey,” by Jules Tavernier, 1876, oil on two panels. Tavernier was one of earliest members of the Monterey artist colony to display works of Cypress Point
The next Europeans to record impressions of potential occupants of Cypress Point were Gaspar de Portola and Father Juan Crespi in late 1769, who journeyed from San Diego in search of Monterey Bay. According to diaries and ship logs, Portola and Crespi explored the Monterey Peninsula but did not report any initial contact with Indians. Crespi noted in his journal, “At Point Pinos (near Monterey) no port is to be found nor have we seen on all the route more unpopulated country than in this neighborhood, nor people more rough than are to be seen in this diary, considering to the contrary the voyage of commander Sebastian Vizcaino.”
Diagram of the “El Pescadero” and “Point Pinos” Ranchos featuring Point Cypress, the Sand Hills and John Gore’s house, by J. Ruurds, 1860
Father Junipero Serra arrived in Monterey on June 1, 1770, beginning the Spanish missionary settlement of the Monterey Peninsula that forever altered the customs of the native Costanoans.
With Serra’s arrival, along with the establishment of a presidio, Monterey soon became the military and ecclesiastical capital of what was then known as Alta California, inviting the possibility that new generations of voyagers might note their travels past Cypress Point. The French explorer La Perouse’s famous 1786 map from a global journey commissioned by King Louis XVI identified the area as “Pointe des Pins en Cyprès.” Seven Spanish missions were soon founded and authority for granting of lands was given in 1773 by the Viceroy of Mexico. Mexico’s subsequent revolt from Spanish rule in 1822 established a separate empire that led to the first formal land grants outside of European influence being given to a parcel of land that included Cypress Point.
In 1836, for the first time, the “Punta de Cipreseses” had an individual owner. His name was Fabian Barreto. From 1836 to 1906 the Mexican land grant known as Rancho El Pescadero, encompassing Cypress Point and much of Pebble Beach, was hobbled by a series of protracted legal disputes over ownership and use of the lands, as the sovereignty of California transferred from Mexico to the United States, and among various subsequent owners. The Rancho consisted of 4,400 acres of scenic land leading from Fan Shell Beach north of Cypress Point, south along the ocean to the Carmel River, and included most of the modern Del Monte Forest and Pebble Beach.
Associating the formal name of Pescadero with Cypress Point, meaning “where fishing is done,” goes back to at least April 2nd of 1835 when “La punta del pescadero” was mentioned in a letter from that year. Whether the name of Pescadero Point or Rancho Pescadero came first, when Fabian Barreto received a Mexican land grant in 1836 the land was labeled Rancho El Pescadero.
Barreto, Cypress Point’s first legal owner, was born circa 1800 in Hidalgo, Mexico. He came to Monterey in 1827 and as a new permanent resident was granted “one league” of land on March 3, 1836 by the Mexican governor of California, Nicholas Gutierrez . The grant was not approved in the Mexican assembly until 1840, and while little evidence exists as to what Barreto actually did with the 4,426.46 acres (left) in the short time he owned it, the crucial moment affecting the subsequent
fate of Cypress Point in the decades to come occurred when Fabian Barreto died unexpectedly in a construction accident in 1841, making his widow Maria del Carmen Garcia Barreto the sole owner.
Maria Barreto became a well-known resident of Monterey and remarried, but she was unable to pay the taxes on the vast tract of land despite its immense potential value. In 1846, the widow Barreto sold Rancho El Pescadero to John Romie, a German immigrant who came to California in 1841 at the invitation of John Sutter — the Swiss native who established Sutter’s Fort in Sacramento and was involved in the discovery of gold in 1848. Romie left Monterey not long after buying Rancho El Pescadero to seek his fortune in the Placerville gold rush, eventually dying there in 1850.
This is where the story of the land that included Cypress Point becomes entangled, as John Romie’s widow was also unable to pay taxes on the Rancho after the death of her husband and the family was forced to sell the land in a probate court auction. The winner of the auction was a recent arrival from the east named John C. Gore. This sale to Gore was legally binding, as accepted by the California Supreme Court. Therefore in 1853 John Gore became the third legal owner of Cypress Point and its surrounding lands, following Fabian Barreto in 1840 and John Romie in 1846.
Born in Boston in 1806 and later a resident of Tennessee, Gore was 46 years old when he arrived in Monterey in September 1852, seeking a milder climate to improve the health of his two sons, after his wife had died nine years earlier. Gore resided in Stillwater Cove with his sons prior to his own death in 1867, patrolling the land and keeping miscreants, neighboring sheep grazers and lumber thieves at bay. The Gore boys, Arthur and John Jr., wrote diaries of their adventures growing up and exploring what became known as Pebble Beach and its surrounds in the middle part of the nineteenth century. Gore built a two-story log house roughly where the Beach Club sits today. Evidence appears in early maps of a shelter constructed by Gore overlooking Cypress Point and Fan Shell Beach (opposite on p. 11 and on p. 8). An artist and writer, Gore was responsible for the education of his sons and contributed stories to various publications. By the mid-1860s his sons, Arthur and John Jr., were of college age and left to be educated in Boston.
This is where David Jacks enters the picture.
The legacy of David Jacks in Monterey County, let alone with respect to Rancho El Pescadero, is a complex and fraught tale. As the writer Robert Louis Stevenson once noted of Jacks, a wealthy though disreputable land owner and businessman, “The town lands of Monterey are all in the hands of a single man. How they came there is an obscure, vexatious question, and rightly or wrongly, the man is hated with a great hatred.” However, as David Jacks laid legal claim in 1864 to becoming the fourth owner of Cypress Point (see p. 12) and was the one who ultimately sold the land to the Pacific Improvement Company in 1880 — legally or otherwise — a glimpse of his tale is worth telling.
Born in Scotland in 1822, Jacks came to New York in 1841 as a young man plying at assorted trades until, like countless others including his eventual father-in-law John Romie, he heard of the discovery of gold in California. Jacks sailed around Cape Horn, landing in San Francisco as an 1849-er. He quickly realized there was more money to be made from selling goods to prospectors and speculators than becoming one himself, and a canny businessman was born.
Oldest known image of Point Cypress, owned by John C. Gore, 1856.
As early as 1852 Jacks became treasurer of Monterey County, giving him insight into large transactions, whereupon he sensed his future lay in the accumulation of vast land holdings. Jacks began a series of acquisitions via purchase, exchange, foreclosure, or buying out tax-delinquent tracts, among other circumspect methods, culminating in what was considered the most infamous of his land grabs: securing 30,000 acres of City of Monterey lands for a mere $1,002.50 in political chicanery. By 1877, Jacks owned some 70,000 acres in Monterey, including spurious claims on Rancho El Pescadero. For comparison, under Sam Morse’s leadership the Del Monte Forest holdings totaled a mere 5,500 acres in 1919. Jacks may have been the most influential person in Monterey County, or the most hated, but to complicate matters further Jacks also married the daughter of John Romie, the second owner of Rancho El Pescadero.
Plat of the Rancho El Pescadero conveyed to David Jacks, April 1864
Though he had acquired much of Monterey County, David Jacks reportedly chafed at the idea of not owning the desirable Rancho El Pescadero, which bordered many of his landholdings. By marrying Romie’s daughter he laid some claim, plausible or otherwise, to a family legacy that had been sold under financial duress to John Gore in 1853. Jacks somehow convinced Fabian Barreto’s widow, Maria, among others, to illegally re-sell or assign their interests in Rancho El Pescadero, though she had sold it legally to John Romie and his wife in 1846. Jacks was somehow successful in claiming title, deed and ownership in 1864 when the sons of John Gore, who were in Boston at the time, failed to appear at a hearing in California disputing ownership. Numerous other arcane details are omitted for the sake of brevity, as records of the court filings run some 544 pages long.
In 1880, Jacks unloaded Rancho El Pescadero to Charles Crocker’s Pacific Improvement Company, dovetailing with the opening of the Hotel Del Monte and furthering the complexities.
Despite Jacks’, and now Crocker’s, claims on the land, the Gore family began a fight in the courts that lasted until the death of one of the sons in 1906 in the San Francisco earthquake. That same year, due to a coincidental resolution of this decades-long dispute by another court, the story of the Gore family’s claim to ownership of Rancho El Pescadero came to an unfortunate end.
Given ongoing legal challenges, the Pacific Improvement Company couldn’t do anything with the land in the decades following the 1880 purchase, limiting its ability to develop the most desirable and profitable stretch of property from Fan Shell Beach and Cypress Point down to Pebble Beach and Stillwater Cove. This contributed to a growing desire to liquidate the “Del Monte Unit” from the Company’s holdings after Jacks’ death in 1909, which led in turn to the Crockers hiring Sam Morse in 1915 as a new manager of the Company with orders to do precisely that, as will be explained.
The acquisition of Rancho El Pescadero lands by Morse’s new Del Monte Properties Co. in 1918 and the incorporation of the Cypress Point Club in 1927 gave the Club the rightful claim to being the seventh legal owner of Cypress Point since the custom of Mexican land grants governing the “Punta de Cipreses” commenced in the first half of the nineteenth century.
AQUESTION to consider when something exists naturally in only one place on the planet is whether the Monterey Cypress should be seen as the last of their kind, the lone remnant of what was once a vast inland forest? Or are they the first of their kind, a detachment of troops that established an ancient beachhead, clinging to life in a never-ending battle with the sea, owing their existence to the particular climate of the granite cliffs surrounding Carmel Bay, waiting to advance?
Though there are fourteen named varieties of cypress trees worldwide, only the Monterey Cypress thrives in this native habitat, reproducing itself through offshoots of the parent root. Cypress bark may be weathered gray on the outside, but underneath the outer wood is a ring of deep, red brown, while the inner core becomes lighter, adopting a clear yellow hue, streaked with rose red. It possesses an aroma is not unlike cedar.
Before the ancient Greeks knew the Sequoia to be the oldest living thing on earth, they created the myth that the cypress was the symbol of immortality. Known by many cultures as the “Tree of Life” due to its long age and consistently green foliage, cypress species from Egypt to Rome, and throughout global cultures, have frequently been associated with the religious implications of death, resurrection and the afterlife.
“Scattered through the rich green vigor of the grove are the ashen skeletons of trees still stretching their knotted arms to the sky or lying where they have fallen, like whitening frames of huge animals. But the green predominates, the richest of green, the cypress green, that shows all the more vivid against the background of grey rock and blue and white ocean.”
Though Robert Louis Stevenson, a poet of great imagination and famed resident of the Monterey Peninsula, once called these creatures “ghosts fleeing before the wind,” he admitted that the cypress trees of Monterey were difficult to describe fully in his own vocabulary.
“Another characteristic that makes the Monterey cypress trees curious and provocative is the way each tree seems to project a unique personality,” wrote Catherine Christopher in the Monterey Herald, “as if reflecting the individuality of its own resident dryad. Perhaps this is the reason cypress trees, here and everywhere, have fostered a kind of mystique or cult in the minds of men throughout the ages. Call it arboreal charisma.”
Untold artists have delighted in the challenge required to capture these creatures in paint or pencil, or even photographs, perhaps because they are the most human-like of all trees. To glimpse the sea through the gnarled vistas of a Monterey Cypress, it has been said, is to be privy to some of nature’s cosmic secrets.
The reflections of one long-time member, shared in a letter among friends during the confusion of the pandemic of 2020, included the following rumination about the philosophical convergence between the Monterey Cypress and the Cypress Point Club.
The Octopus Tree (left) amid a grove of Monterey Cypress on the fourteenth hole
“Being the Cypress is my favorite tree,” Sam Reeves noted, “I began asking myself many years ago, ‘What is their secret?’ The secret of their strength lies in the unseen world. Its visible splendor is driven by its invisible unseen roots. It’s where their strength lies. Monterey Cypress roots often graft one another. Each nourishing the other. Creating their own ecosystem. Transferring carbohydrates and starches between each other. Literally in constant communication with each other. A stump can stay alive because of the nutrients of fellow trees. Transplanted Monterey Cypress trees often struggle to survive alone because they live within and are part of an intimately connected community. Our human culture vastly underestimates the power of community.”
The characteristics of the Monterey Cypress, to Sam’s way of thinking, should be considered transferable to the culture of the club named in its honor. Unique sculptures that each withstand harsh conditions. An admirable expression of stability and endurance. Outwardly independent yet inwardly connected. A community of shared dependence, unseen below the surface.
The trees at Cypress Point stand out against the horizon, distinguishable from a mile or more away, due to their branches spreading fan-like and crouching low against the wind, in contrast to the upwardly vertical nature of the constantly encroaching Monterey pines.
Octopus Tree detail with interwoven branches
Cupressus macrocarpa was first identified and named in 1846 by Karl Theodor Hartweg, a German botanist and explorer representing the London Horticultural Society who happened to be born the same year as his fellow scientist, Charles Darwin. Hartweg’s arrival in Alta California coincided with the U.S. Navy’s occupation of Monterey Bay amid a newly declared war with Mexico. In the same week Commodore Sloat raised the American flag over Monterey at the old Customs House on July 7th, Hartweg undertook a cross-country walk to Carmel at a time when foreigners may have been viewed with equal suspicion by the warring Mexicans and Americans.
Hartweg wrote in his diary of July 1846:
“Under these circumstances I cannot venture far away from Monterey, nor is it advisable that I should do so, as I might fall in with a party of country people, who could not be persuaded that a person would come all the way from London to look after weeds… I, therefore, confine my excursions within a few miles of the town. Crossing the wooded heights near Monterey I arrived at Carmel Bay, after an easy walk of two hours; here I found Cupressus macrocarpa, No. 143, attaining the height of 60 feet, and a stem of 9 feet in circumference, with far-spreading branches, flat at the top like a full-grown cedar of Lebanon, which it closely resembles at a distance.”
Botanist Charles Sprague Sargent stated in his late-nineteenth century series of books called The Silva of North America that, “Although its seeds appear to have reached England in 1838, Cupressus macrocarpa was first made known to botanists in 1847 by Karl Theodor Hartweg, who had found it at Cypress Point the previous autumn. It is now the most universally cultivated coniferous tree in the Pacific states, where it has proved hardy from Vancouver’s Island to Lower California.”
In 1921 a University of California botanist named Harry Ashland Greene counted some 10,550 cypress trees in the 50-acre grove that constitutes the surrounds of Cypress Point. In an attempt to have Cypress Point turned into a national monument, Greene had written in 1914,
“The grove of Monterey cypress is a relic of very great interest,” adding, “It should be the privilege of these people to lead and control the safeguarding, for ourselves and our posterity, of these trees.”
Macrocarpa means “with large fruit,” which is found under the dark green crowns that often lie prostrate due to strong ocean winds. While the dry cones are apt to be inconspicuous, mature fruit can be remarkably beautiful, massed in glossy, bronze clusters (right).
Another professor from the University of California named W. L. Jepson petitioned the federal government in the 1920s to protect the Monterey Cypress groves, stating, “It would be a crime to allow the two groves of cypresses to run the risk of being injured. By having them included within a reserve which would be under competent charge, they would stand more chance of being preserved and handed down to future generations.”
This formal stewardship of the Monterey Cypress eventually happened, though not as a federally governed national monument — instead they have continued to be overseen by private interests, beginning with Sam Morse and the Del Monte Properties Company. Subsequently, the Cypress Point Club and Pebble Beach Company have continued Morse’s vigilant protection of Monterey Cypress throughout the Del Monte Forest, as a complement to the Point Lobos State Reserve begun in 1933.
“Everywhere is shaded light under heavy foliage and springy soil under foot; and here, too, is the mysteriousness that hangs about any bit of old forest with those hints of a past only its trees know.”
a place of meeting
CYPRESS POINT stretches out to touch the sea with an eternal grace, shaped by the constant collisions of waves that evoke a time before human memory.
Occasionally colonized by swirling pelicans and cormorants during the migratory seasons, with perpetual residence claimed by noisy sea lions, seals and otters, in the centuries prior to the 1880s, before railroads and development made the western-most point of the Monterey Peninsula accessible to more than a few people, this remote strip of land occupied little recorded significance apart from its various names — Cabo de Nieve, Punta de Cipreses and Rancho El Pescadero — appearing in ship logs or on maps created by European explorers, or as part of vast Mexican land grants. It was a place that always seemed to be one of the most remote in California, despite being situated mere miles from the state’s first capital in old Monterey.
Only in the last hundred years, since the 1920s, have more than a handful of residents made the environs surrounding Cypress Point their permanent home. Prior to that, almost every person who glimpsed this incomparably beautiful meeting of land and sea was merely a temporary visitor.
Nobody really possesses Cypress Point for long, a fact that remains central to its allure.
From the 1880s to the 1920s, a double-track road for vehicles profaned the now-sacred sites of the fifteenth and sixteenth greens at Cypress Point. At first, this path accommodated horse-drawn carriages bearing guests from the Hotel Del Monte on a seventeen-mile pleasure loop. A colony of artists disseminated paintings (p. 6-7), postcards (p. 23) and stereo-gram images to tempt those who couldn’t take part in the journey themselves. As the road was improved, chauffeured motorcars carried picnickers and thrill-seekers to land’s end on the very tip of Cypress Point at “The Loop.”
Opposite: Automobiles and horses exploring the future site of the sixteenth hole, 1926
With the democratization of the automobile for millions in the 1910s and 1920s, scores of tourists rounded the cartoonishly narrow path around The Loop in vehicles ranging from the humble Model-T to concours-worthy saloons. After decades of popular use, the road was re-routed in the fall of 1927 to make way for the construction of the golf course at Cypress Point.
The advent of airplane travel has allowed people from around the country and around the world ready, casual access to what was once an impossibly remote section of forest, surrounded by towering dunes of pure white sand, all of which collided with the crashing surf of a great ocean. Collisions define the essence of Cypress Point — not limited to natural forces like sea, sand, forest and land, but also how people themselves have come to find this place of meeting.
What first drew people to this far side of the world? Was it the phantasmic trees, making up the oldest collection of native Monterey Cypress on the planet, that mystified and enthralled all comers? Hardly, for when undertaking to trek across the rugged, aromatic sand dunes or along the ocean’s edge one sees hoof prints of animals, footprints of humans, natural shapes that couldn’t be made by either — all while being overwhelmed by competing smells of juniper, kelp and the sea air.
Tourists motoring on Seventeen Mile Drive, circa 1910s
There is the ever-changing, raucous ocean. For it is only upon visiting Cypress Point in person that one soon realizes it’s not just the scenic thrill of seeing waves exploding on the rocks that beckons people here — anybody looking at a photograph could appreciate that — it’s the sound and feel of waves colliding with the very ground where you happen to be standing. This is the percussive chord of the universe resonating.
The confluence of these sensory experiences is an ongoing reminder of what Sam Morse knew as he sought to maintain the natural beauty needed to attract people to his Circle of Enchantment, crowned in his mind by a pinnacle social institution at Cypress Point. Morse, the central Dramatis Persona of the story, understood that in such scenes man is a necessary partner for the preservation of fragile and enchanting landscapes. He must have known at some level that dramatic settings like those at Cypress Point are possible only in places where there is a meeting of natural forces, of ideas new and old, and of generations of people committed to valuing the land for itself.
The Loop at Cypress Point, circa 1900
Samuel F. B. Morse
THE ORIGINAL IDEA for the Cypress Point Club belonged to Sam Morse. He said so himself.
“As I had conceived of the club and was responsible for its organization,” Morse dictated in 1959 for his unpublished memoirs, “I naturally, as President of the Del Monte Company, did not want to appear in any official capacity, or even appear as the first member, until after the club was completely organized and a going concern, entirely in the hands of people who had no connection whatsoever with the Del Monte Properties Company.”
Determining which persona Sam Morse decided to adopt in each moment is one of the more intriguing aspects of Cypress Point’s history.
Was it as the Del Monte Property Company’s President, advancing its interests while exuding a Teddy Roosevelt-like masculinity along the way? Was it as the captain of the Del Monte Polo team, or chief promoter of the luxury lifestyle in his “Circle of Enchantment,” as publisher of the society rag Game & Gossip? Was it as a member Cypress Point’s “Fearsome Foursome” — so-named by former caddie-master Joey Solis — despite Sam’s protestations that, as he had no use for the game of golf the Company should reimburse his club dues? Was it as a landscape artist with a painter’s soul who personally reviewed and approved the architectural plans for every house and building in the Del Monte Forest
from 1915 to 1969? Or was it as the “Duke of Del Monte,” a nickname Sam secretly liked, even if he claimed publicly to be embarrassed by it?
Whichever persona Sam Morse adopted — developer, socialite, athlete, enthusiast or artist — his enduring vision for placing the Cypress Point Club at the top of Pebble Beach’s social hierarchy will always be central to the reputation he earned as Del Monte’s great panjandrum.
Born July 18, 1885 in the Boston suburb of Newton, Mass., Samuel Finley Brown Morse’s namesake and distant cousin invented the telegraph half-a-century before Sam was born. They never knew one another. Sam’s father was a prosperous Boston lawyer who had been scarred by combat as a teenager in the Civil War. His mother was a painter and a sculptor. From his parents, Sam adopted the dual persona of being both a fighter and an artist.
Projecting a vigorous masculinity and excelling at athletics were early priorities in Sam’s life, dating to his days at Andover and Yale. Sam developed a love of outdoor pursuits at the family’s summer camp in Maine and grew to have muscular features, a sharp jaw line, and an easy smile. He was voted “most popular” his senior year in college and captained the undefeated 1906 Yale football team.
Though never a great student, at Yale Sam became a great student of people. He developed connections 25
Opposite: Portrait of Sam Morse, oil on canvas, by Jesse Corsaut, 1958
that would be more important than any book learning. Templeton Crocker, from the famous San Francisco family, became a friend. So did Harris Hammond, whose father John Hays Hammond, a noted professor of mining engineering at Yale, offered Sam a path out west after graduation in 1907.
Teddy Roosevelt made a significant impression on Sam’s generation by promoting a lifestyle defined by manly outdoor pursuits. Central to Roosevelt’s biography were his experiences operating a cattle ranch in the Dakotas in the 1880s, which fostered an appreciation for land conservation, later inspiring development of the National Parks and Forest Service. “He was a dynamo,” Sam said of Teddy, “the kind of man I admired tremendously.”
From 1907 until 1915 Sam emulated Roosevelt by overseeing two ranches in California’s San Joaquin Valley. His first ranching job in Visalia came from the connection with John Hays Hammond and then, in 1910, he began working for W. H. “Will” Crocker, uncle to his Yale friend Templeton and head of the Crocker family’s interests, which included the Crocker Bank. Working for Hammond and Crocker on their ranches, Morse developed a love of roaming properties on horseback, becoming recognized as a capable manager of complicated land holdings.
San Francisco’s 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition attracted some 18 million visitors from around
the world to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal a year earlier. Will Crocker served as chairman of the “Pan-Pacific” Exhibition, as he had been among the major bankers who helped rebuild San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. Several of those leading banking families, including the Crockers, Tobins and Fleischhackers, would become original members of the Cypress Point Club.
As a child of the east who discovered himself in the west, Sam Morse was drawn to the temperate climate and dramatic scenery of the Monterey Peninsula. It was a place where the sensory overload of everything he encountered — sights, sounds, smells and tastes — inspired new romantic visions of an older way of life.
On the heels of Sam’s success managing the Crocker family ranch in Merced, in 1915 he was offered a position as manager of Crocker’s Pacific Improvement Company. Sam’s mandate was to liquidate the Company’s holdings in sixteen different corporations and distribute the assets to various heirs and investors. That is where Sam’s history with Pebble Beach begins.
For more than half a century, Samuel F. B. Morse singlehandedly oversaw the development of Pebble Beach and the Del Monte Forest, as well as the emergence of the Cypress Point Club as the crowning feature of his vision for how to transform a rustic outpost into a land of luxury.
When Sam arrived in 1915 as the nearly 30-year-old manager of the “Del Monte Unit,” Pebble Beach had not much to speak of in amenities. There was an aging log-cabinstyle lodge where picnickers could stop for refreshments, a few equally rustic cottages for overnight guests, a ramshackle Chinese fishing village where the Beach Club now stands, and the famous seventeen-mile toll road loop for tourists. There was nowhere to live and certainly nowhere to play.
As early as 1914, according to a 1923 article on the history of Pebble Beach by Francis McComas, later corroborated in a personal letter by Sam, when Morse and Will Crocker first began to discuss the creation of new golf courses at Del Monte, Sam imagined a role for the sacred piece of land at Cypress Point in his vision for the future.
First, Sam had to preserve Del Monte’s pristine coastline from the same crass over-development he’d observed in neighboring communities throughout California.
“On the entire California coast, which I know from one end to the other,” Sam wrote in 1965, “there are only two places that have presented possibilities beyond any others, and which no other place can ever compete; one, of course, is the Monterey Peninsula and the other is Santa Barbara.”
Then he had to attract wealthy people to buy in. To achieve his reinvention of Del Monte, Morse imagined that Pebble Beach would become the athletic and social center of
Above: Sam Morse, around the time he created the Del Monte Properties Company in 1918, at age 33
this new community, attracting leisured classes to a tasteful environment unlike any other similar real estate venture on the Pacific coast. Central to this recreational lifestyle would be the emergence of new golf courses, anchored by the historic Old Del Monte course built in Monterey in 1897 and continued in 1919 with the opening of what became known as Pebble Beach Golf Links.
Sam anticipated the glamorous clientele he sought to attract would prefer larger lots for gracious homes, along
with other activities of conspicuous leisure like tennis and equestrian pursuits such as polo, which Sam enjoyed, to complement golf, about which Sam knew little at first.
Golf courses would preserve open views of the coastline while driving business to the hotels and increasing the scenic value of lots on which to build houses inland. From hosting the Western Amateur at Del Monte in 1916, Sam learned that competitive golfers were often wellconnected and wealthy — just the kind of people he would need to support his ambitions.
His opening gambit was to turn over the diminishing quality of the patrons at the Hotel Del Monte and attract a higher standard of customer by improving the facilities and service, charging a higher price, and making guests feel more like members of a club than bargain-rate tourists. The influx of global visitors following the 1915 “Pan-Pacific” helped fund this strategy. With respect to property sales, Morse’s predecessors had explored ideas for development at Pebble Beach by placing more than 400 narrow home sites, similar to existing parcels in Pacific Grove, crammed onto the scenic headland where the current sixth through thirteenth holes are laid out at Pebble Beach Golf Links.
In 1918, after reconstructing a new, modern Lodge and commissioning amateur golfers Jack Neville and Douglas Grant to lay out a new cliff-top golf course along Stillwater Cove instead of the home sites, Sam found a potential buyer
Above: Sam Morse, profiled
1940, at
for the Unit — a Yale friend named Gustave M. Heckscher.
As a leading polo player with a family fortune that came from mining and real estate, Heckscher found the idea of owning Del Monte appealing but wanted to keep his old friend Sam involved as a manager, not an owner-operator like Morse envisioned. When Heckscher’s offer was rejected by the Board, Sam countered with a successful offer to buy Del Monte outright, even though he didn’t have the money to pay the asking price of roughly $1.4 million. Nevertheless, the Board gave him a year to arrange financing.
Morse went to his boss, Will Crocker, but was surprised and disappointed when the Crocker Bank declined, citing a desire to avoid being both the “Vendor and Purchaser” of the Del Monte Unit. Crocker ended his letter to Sam on a prescient note, “I have no doubt you will make a great success and I very much hope that you will.”
Commuting to Del Monte by train while living in Hillsborough, Sam kept a foot in three camps: an office in San Francisco provided access to money and influence as he developed connections with the social elite through the Burlingame Country Club. Sam ultimately convinced the Anglo Bank to finance his proposal, creating an entity called the Del Monte Properties Company, with Morse as President and Anglo Bank’s Herbert Fleischhacker as Vice-President and major shareholder. Hotel golf courses were niceties but the real money would come from real estate.
Opulent residences set the tone for Del Monte’s new hierarchy. Fashionable designers like Frances Adler Elkins and architect George Washington Smith became in great demand during the Pebble Beach home building boom of the 1920s. Elkins decorated the new Hotel Del Monte following a 1924 fire, as Morse chose to replace the Victorian aesthetic of the 1880s with a Spanish-revival style. The Santa Barbara-based Smith expanded his California coastal designs to include the Monterey Peninsula. An Australianborn artist named Francis McComas, a keen golfer and friend of Sam Morse, was commissioned to paint murals at both the new Hotel Del Monte and The Lodge at Pebble Beach.
With tournament golf coming to the Monterey Peninsula in 1947 with the Crosby Clambake, culminating in numerous U.S. Opens for men and women in the decades that followed, Morse’s vision for golf as the grandest of all activities leading the development of Pebble Beach has been validated many times over.
“I shall never cease being grateful to Sam Morse,” Bing Crosby said to local sportswriter Ted Durein in the 1972 U.S. Open program. To Crosby, Morse was, “the man whose vision, dedication and almost religious devotion to quality, tradition and keen sense of the dramatic made the Monterey Peninsula one of the showplaces of the world... Without Morse there would be no Pebble Beach, Cypress Point or anything. It would all be Coney Island.”
a moment in time
FOR A FULL CENTURY NOW, the defining experience of those fortunate enough to play golf at Cypress Point has been the anticipation and thrill of hitting a single golf shot across the precipice of a great ocean.
If executed with skill, the act of safely propelling a golf ball hundreds of yards into the air, over an inlet of roiling waves to a clearing of turf on a point jutting into the sea, surrounded by nothing but bunkers and peril, imprints a memory to last a lifetime.
As you pause to savor the implausibility of playing golf in such an impossibly beautiful setting, reflect on the many historical contingencies necessary for such a scenario to be possible, let alone plausible, let alone something that generations of enthusiasts have come to celebrate as central to the story of golf worldwide.
Imagine if a golf course and private club at Cypress Point had been envisioned and created in any era other than the moment in time that occurred from 1925 to 1930.
Any earlier than the 1920s and Sam Morse’s encompassing vision for Del Monte would have been at a premature stage, with the surrounding infrastructure of Pebble Beach, its newly rebuilt Lodge and first generation of new owners, all in their infancy. Any later and the economic Depression of the 1930s would have
Opposite: The sixteenth tee by Ansel Adams, as published in Fortune, 1940
Following pages: Marion Hollins exploring the future site of the first green, 1925
“When this course is completed there will be something for the golfer to talk about until the years are old.”
GRANTLAND RICE
resulted in a concept that failed to launch before it even began. During the war years of the 1940s, the land would likely have been requisitioned for its strategic military value, as it was when the club ceased operations for a period of time from 1942 to 1944.
In the 1950s and the 1960s, a clubhouse in some form could have been constructed overlooking Cypress Point, but the modernist architectural fashion in other buildings of the day might have produced something unfamiliar to the California coastal aesthetic of George Washington Smith’s ode to old Monterey, an understated white stucco clubhouse adorned with green shutters and matching trim.
Dr. MacKenzie’s artistic bunkers from golf’s golden age of architecture were eventually modified during the lean post-war years into conventional, rounded forms that were more easily maintained. What would the course have looked like if it was built in the first instance during an era defined by the bulldozer instead of the horse-drawn scraper? While the faithful restoration of Cypress Point’s bunkers that began in the 1990s may stand out as an exception, it is doubtful that a course featuring MacKenzie’s radical naturalism could have emerged in times less heralded for such craftsmanship.
If the idea for Cypress Point was born in the 1970s or 1980s and beyond, the increasing emphasis on coastal regulation may have produced a golf links unable to engage so closely with the very landscapes valued by Sam Morse’s glamorous clientele. What’s almost certain is that if a golf course were proposed at Cypress Point at any time in recent decades, it would have been all-butimpossible to secure planning permission on environmental grounds — let alone appear in any form recognizable to what came about during the club’s formal gestation period from 1925 to 1930.
From the perspective of history, the window of opportunity for the creation of the Cypress Point Club remains inconceivably narrow. The bringing together of the main characters required a tiny sliver to open in the vein of time. Into that breach walked Sam Morse, Marion Hollins, Roger Lapham, Alister MacKenzie, Robert Hunter, George Washington Smith and Francis Elkins, among others. Particular characters for a particular moment in time, with their own particular sensibilities.
When playing any of the celebrated shots over the ocean along Cypress Point from the fifteenth to the seventeenth holes, or overlooking the turbulent sea from the comforts of the clubhouse, or traversing the pristine forest and inland dunes, there is an overwhelming sentiment that holds true for every generation of members who came after the creators — a sentiment best expressed by something along the lines of, “Thank goodness they built this for us to enjoy today.”
Thank goodness these creators gave us the opportunity to share in the anticipation and thrill of hitting a single shot across the precipice of a great ocean.
Following
Dr. Alister MacKenzie, Marion Hollins, H. J. Whigham (see Seth Raynor profile p. 61) and Robert Hunter on the future site of the eighteenth green during construction, January 1927
pages: The sixteenth hole
“No one but a poet should be allowed to write of the beauties of Cypress Point.”
S.F.B. MORSE
TO UNDERSTAND the history of the Cypress Point Club one must first understand Sam Morse’s vision for the early development of Del Monte, especially the period from roughly 1915 to 1930. Though he’s often remembered as a distinguished older man in a tweed jacket or a bow tie, at the time Sam ranged in age from 29 to 44 years old.
In the beginning, S. F. B. Morse imagined Del Monte would be his “Newport of the West,” a fashionable resort development on a rugged tract of remote land. His concept for Del Monte was to draw aspirational tourists and wealthy home buyers to the most desirable portion of the Monterey Peninsula — the same scenic section that had been deemed unprofitable and dispensable by heirs and investors in a conglomerate called the Pacific Improvement Company. Formed in the mid-nineteenth century by California’s “Big Four” railroad barons — Crocker, Stanford, Hopkins and Huntington — the Pacific Improvement Company was a vast holding corporation with broad interests. In time, the renown of Pebble Beach came to replace Del Monte as the brand identity of the development, but both names reflect the expansive vision first conjured by Morse. It was a vision that began to take shape in the years after 1915 when Morse was tasked with the responsibility of liquidating the Pacific Improvement Company’s “Del Monte Unit,” not reinventing it.
The conventional story of many private clubs begins with a group of like-minded people who come together to meet the needs of their existing community. They pool their resources to invest in the creation of facilities where friends can gather. While that is what the Cypress Point Club eventually became, that is not how it began. Cypress Point began as an adjunct in support of a larger concept: Sam Morse’s new Del Monte.
Opposite: Illustrated map of Sam Morse’s vision for Seventeen Mile Drive and the Del Monte Forest, by Jo Mora, 1929
Sam Morse sought to develop golf courses throughout the Monterey Peninsula, as portrayed in a map by J.W. Bull, 1926
This tri-fold illustration was created to promote the Monterey Peninsula Country Club and also appeared that same year in the original Cypress Point Club prospectus.
While the public-access golf at Del Monte and Pebble Beach drew tourists and competitors to patronize Hotel Del Monte and the newly rebuilt Lodge at Pebble Beach, Morse knew he needed the allure of private golf clubs to secure permanent residents. His tiered approach first required the creation of a full-service country club to meet the needs of local residents, including a sizable population of military retirees. That became the Monterey Peninsula Country Club, which was formed in 1925. Then, as the crown jewel for the social elite he hoped to attract from throughout California and across the country, Morse conceived of an exclusive private club on Pebble Beach’s most scenic piece of land. For Morse to fully achieve his concept of a “Newport of the West,” and all the grandeur that title implied, he needed a mythological siren that would beckon sailors of only the finest ships, as described in the Cypress Point prospectus.
It is now proposed to organize a club to acquire property that is generally referred to as Cypress Point, and to construct thereon a golf links for the use of members only. The site of this club is extraordinary, both from a scenic standpoint, and from its natural adaptability to the game. It is doubtful if any more desirable terrain for a golf course exists in the world. This is a broad assertion to make, but innumerable golfers who have played the game in various parts of the globe have been authority for the statement. It has been stated by Seth Raynor and by Dr. MacKenzie that it would be possible to build the greatest golf course in the world in that particular locality.
CYPRESS POINT CLUB PROSPECTUS, 1926
This is where the vision that would become Cypress Point Club began, not only as a remarkable golf course, or a club for like-minded friends that might enhance a growing community, but as the ultimate halo attraction for his inspired reinvention of the Del Monte luxury lifestyle.
However, as President of the Del Monte Properties Company, Morse could not be seen as the proponent of this private club. Maximizing his Company’s financial gains to provide returns for major stock holders like Herbert Fleischhacker of the Anglo Bank in San Francisco meant driving
value through real estate sales, not subsidizing money-losing private clubs. Morse therefore sought to identify an agent to act on his behalf in the development of a private club at Cypress Point.
“Shortly after Pebble Beach got well underway, I induced Marion Hollins to join the staff as saleswoman,” Sam Morse wrote in an early draft of his unpublished memoirs, believed to be dated in the 1930s. “She was one of the outstanding sports women of the world... Her acquaintance was tremendous and she developed into the best saleswoman I have ever known.”
“I offered her compensation in the shape of a piece of land, in the event she was successful,” Morse later wrote. “We laid out the plan for her, and she did the selling.”
In New York’s Marion Hollins, Sam Morse found his ideal.
Marion Hollins showing amateur golf champion Edith Chesebrough Van Antwerp and sportswriter
Grantland Rice the future site of the sixteenth tee at Cypress Point, April 1926
Marion Hollins
BORN ON DECEMBER 3, 1892 into a New York family with a tradition of wealth and prosperity going back generations, Marion Hollins remains largely an enigma to the modern sports world. A deeper search into the newspapers of the day reveals that she was a major star, profiled nationwide. Her peak of fame from the 1910s through the 1930s pre-dated most existing recorded newsreels and the sweeping power of the modern television age.
“The most curious aspect of the Marion Hollins story,” said Betty Hicks, winner of the 1941 U.S. Women’s Amateur and an original founder of the LPGA in 1950, “is that she did not become many times more celebrated than she was.”
Marion’s father, Harry B. Hollins, was raised in New York City and dropped out of Harvard to become a Wall Street runner. He worked his way up to start his own firm in 1879, and H. B. Hollins & Co. soon held a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. Hollins was a club man through and through, with memberships at a dozen social or sporting clubs that included golf clubs such as Garden City, The Links, Saint Andrew’s, and the National Golf Links of America. Harry Hollins was also elected the inaugural president of the Metropolitan Golf Association in 1897. Marion’s mother Eveline Knapp traced her lineage back to the Plymouth Colony, perpetuating the fashionable aspects that such a genealogy required in Manhattan’s Gilded Age.
Harry Hollins was a business confidant of William K. Vanderbilt, heir to America’s greatest fortune. Hollins’ stature increased when his company personally backed Vanderbilt’s threatened position in 1884, stemming a panic at a time when Vanderbilt’s father Cornelius was the wealthiest man in America. Along the way, Hollins built an estate commensurate with the family’s social position on 600 acres of land in East Islip, Long Island called “Meadowfarm,” where Marion and her four brothers were raised. Their winter home at 12 West 56th Street in Manhattan, three blocks south of Central Park near the corner of 5th Avenue, later became the Consulate General of Argentina.
Horses, sports and activities dominated Marion’s childhood as a precocious tomboy, keeping up with the energy of four brothers. She learned to play tennis at Meadowfarm, where there was also a private, three-hole golf course.
Marion began to play golf with some intent starting at age six. Her teacher was a former caddie from Sandwich, England named Arthur Griffiths. Harry Hollins met “Griff,” as he became known, on a trip to the Royal St. George’s Golf Club in the early 1900s and liked Griff so much he hired him to be the professional at the Westbrook Golf Club in Long Island. Marion learned the fundamentals of the game from Griff and was often referred to as the “girl from Westbrook” in contemporary newspaper accounts.
Opposite: Portrait of Marion Hollins, charcoal on paper, by Clarence R. Mattei, 1925
International travel was a feature of the family’s lifestyle, and Marion was exposed to grand tours of Europe through her father’s business interests nearly every summer prior to World War I, with constant motion becoming the habit of a lifetime as she emerged as an amateur golfer and horsewoman who traveled the world.
Marion became a celebrated driver of four-in-hand horse-drawn coaches, appearing in numerous newspaper articles for her exploits both in the U.S. and Europe. As a polo player, she was acknowledged to be the only woman who carried a man’s handicap. As was the case on her first journeys to Pebble Beach, when she appeared in golf reports
she was more commonly identified as, “the well known horsewoman and polo player.” She received her society debut in 1908, at the age of 16, and began entering golf competitions in 1912, when she was 20.
Marion reached the final of the 1913 U.S. Women’s Amateur in her first appearance. Though she lost 2 down on the final hole to England’s Gladys Ravenscroft, had she won she would have joined 1913’s illustrious triumvirate of national champions alongside 20-year-old Francis Ouimet, who shocked the world by winning the U.S. Open at The Country Club in a playoff, and Jerry Travers, who claimed a record fourth U.S. Amateur title at Garden City.
Several times in the United States and abroad Marion came close to a breakthrough championship victory, only to lose in the end. She was finally good enough in 1921, when she defeated Alexa Stirling, 5 and 4, over 36 holes to win the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Hollywood Golf Club in Deal, New Jersey. Marion was 29 years old.
Marion often enjoyed taking friends and especially British visitors to the National Golf Links of America in Southampton, N.Y., which she played often, as her father Harry B. Hollins was one of the founding members. Her familiarity with the ideals of the National would play an important role in several future golf courses in which she became involved with developing, including Cypress Point.
One such visitor was the British ladies champion Cecil Leitch, who wrote, “Nothing is a trouble to Miss Hollins, and she will undertake a long journey for a round of golf which
50 Left: Marion and H. B. Hollins, circa 1897, the year he was president of the Metropolitan Golf Association
Right: An undated family portrait
few would consider worthwhile. No one is more appreciative of the good features of a course, a quality which makes her an interesting and satisfying partner or opponent. For many reasons, I shall never forget that day of golf over the National Links on Long Island.”
Having won the 1921 U.S. Women’s Amateur, in early 1922 Marion began to assemble a group of leading female golfers for the purpose of developing a golf course designed and built exclusively for women.
“When I first satisfied myself that it was practical and timely to build a course only for women,” Marion wrote in Golf Illustrated in January 1923, “the point uppermost in my mind... was to create a course which would bring out the best in women’s golf, without sacrificing length or hazards.”
The name for her enterprise, clearly inspired by her experiences at the National Golf Links of America, was to be the Women’s National Golf and Tennis Club, the first and, to date, only all-female club in American history.
Marion organized working groups to identify potential subscribers, secure a piece of land and finance the endeavor, all of which would serve her as she developed Cypress Point. She traveled to Britain in the style of C. B. Macdonald’s tours prior to his own design of the National Golf Links, playing many of the leading courses in an attempt to scout out the best holes for women.
Though a celebrated success upon its opening in 1924, the Women’s National was sadly short-lived. Due to the effects of the Depression and other financial factors, the club
merged with The Creek Club in 1941, only to be sold off to satisfy a mortgage shortly thereafter and was subsequently reconstituted as the Glen Head Country Club in 1947.
As a child of the east like Sam Morse, surprisingly little is known about what prompted Marion Hollins to first come to the Monterey Peninsula, or when she began to chart her future in the west. On March 12, 1916 an innocuous column appeared in the society pages of the San Francisco Examiner. “Polo at Del Monte is always a drawing card,” the report proclaimed, “but polo with one of the most famous sportswomen of America playing with the home team makes for an attraction of notable interest.”
Marion Hollins as a young woman in New York
It was the then 23-year-old Miss Marion Hollins, “known as America’s greatest horsewoman,” who was the attraction of notable interest, playing polo — and golf — as a guest of Mr. and Mrs. Charles W. Clark in Del Monte for the coming season, underscoring Marion’s strong society connections in the west well before she arrived, or was ever employed by Sam Morse to sell real estate.
Charles Clark, one of Morse’s original Directors of the Del Monte Properties Company, was an avid horseman and scion of a Montana copper fortune. He married Celia Tobin, socialite heir to the Hibernia Bank fortune, who hailed from one of San Francisco’s most prominent families. As Mrs. Celia Tobin Clark she later became one of the thirteen original Cypress Point members who were women.
While Marion came for polo in 1916, it wasn’t until later that Marion began visiting Pebble Beach in earnest. In
March 1920, Marion visited Del Monte as a guest of polo player Maurice Heckscher, a wealthy Yale classmate of Sam Morse who had submitted an offer to buy the Del Monte Unit from the Pacific Improvement Company before Morse himself became the successful bidder (see p. 31).
Following Marion’s stay with the Heckschers the New York Tribune reported, “Coast Lures Miss Hollins,” adding, “The California women’s golfing fraternity will likely be pleased to learn that Miss Marion Hollins, of New York, rated as one of the expert women golfers of the country, has purchased a piece of land at Pebble Beach, and is intending to erect a house and make her home there part of the year.”
The San Francisco Chronicle’s Society Section ran a full page of photographs on February 20, 1921, featuring figures of note who eventually played key roles in the creation of the Cypress Point Club. Marion Hollins was the
Marion Hollins was the lead investor in an oil exploration project in California’s Kettleman Hills that struck in October 1928, earning her millions
central character, on horseback, with interior designers Frances Elkins also pictured. Harry Hunt, the club’s early Secretary, and later President, appeared with his future wife, Jane. Finally, Byington Ford was both an original member of Cypress Point and the Sales Manager for the Del Monte Properties Co., as well as Sam Morse’s new brother-in-law through Sam’s 1919 marriage to his second wife, Relda Ford.
In a nationally syndicated article published on March 3, 1921, several months prior to her victory in the 1921 U.S. Women’s Amateur, sportswriter Jack Walker reinforced the point that many in amateur golf were discussing.
“If reports from the Pacific coast are true, the east is due to lose the super woman of the athletic world, for news has reached us that Miss Marion Hollins has purchased a home site at Pebble Beach near the famous seaside golf course where the California amateur championship is to be played and is figuring on locating there permanently...
Miss Hollins is known as the most versatile sports woman in the United States. While better known for her achievements in the golfing world than in any other line of sports, Miss Hollins does not let golf take up all her time by any means. She has gained distinction as an expert horsewoman and is considered the best woman polo player in the country today. Again, very few men could show her the anything when it comes to sailing a boat as this sport has been a hobby with her for years, and she has become proficient in the art.”
The historical record diverges as to how Marion ended up in a prominent role at Del Monte, both in Morse’s own recollections and in modern accounts. It has been suggested that Sam hired Marion as his “Director of Athletics” after she won the 1921 U.S. Women’s Amateur but there’s little known evidence to indicate her role was more than to attract wealthy society members — many of whom Marion knew through golf, polo and her New York connections — to buy
Marion Hollins (left), Captain of the inaugural USA Curtis Cup team in 1932, with Maureen Orcutt, Leona Pressler and Opal Hill
real estate in Pebble Beach. As we will see, the organization of Cypress Point from 1924 to 1927 occupied much of Marion’s energy following the opening of the Women’s National.
Longtime Cypress Point caddie-master Joey Solis, who was born in 1921, recalled caddying for Marion as a young boy: “Marion played a lot of golf there in the early 30s. She used to hit balls before playing. I used to catch the balls on the fly and bring them back to her. Every time she came out there, she’d say ‘I want Little Joey to shag for me.’ She played with Sam Morse, Harrison Godwin. Of course Hollins and Godwin were real estate people and they were trying to get people to come over here and join Cypress Point.”
Sam Morse had offered Marion a piece of property as compensation for setting up Cypress Point. “When she injured her back and was incapacitated she fretted and worried about it a good deal,” Morse wrote in 1959, “but couldn’t do much about it, and the membership drive began to recede. A number of people decided to drop out. Marion in the meantime had of course actually lost any right to the land on the waterfront, but her health had improved and she came to me and said she would like to compensate Harrison Godwin to the extent of $10,000, which I had agreed to give him, and take over the piece of property on the waterfront, to which I agreed.”
While Marion remained a member of Cypress Point until the end of her life, after the club’s organization was completed in 1927 she began to turn her attention almost wholly to new interests in developing Pasatiempo Golf Club
in Santa Cruz. Two months after the opening of Cypress Point’s golf course in 1928, Marion struck it rich as an oil wildcatter when a geyser blew on a oil dome in the Kettleman Hills near Fresno, California (See p. 54). Marion had been the lead investor on the project and when the $10.5 million sale went through in May 1930, she netted $2.5 million in profit from Standard Oil. Despite coming from a family of wealth in the east, Marion became a millionaire several times over on her own terms as a businesswoman in the west.
The day before her 45th birthday, Marion’s car was struck on December 2, 1937 by a drunk driver. Declining medical treatment, she was believed to have suffered a severe concussion that affected her for the rest of her life. Though she continued to compete and win golf tournaments — including her seventh Pebble Beach Women’s Championship in 1942 — friends said she was never the same.
After pouring her fortune into Pasatiempo and other failed investments, eventually the car accident and Depression took their toll. Marion lost everything and was forced to sell it all, including her home in Santa Cruz. In 1941 she returned to Pebble Beach, where Sam Morse gave her a nominal job selling real estate and arranged a place for her to live as a house-sitter.
On April 1 that year, at Cypress Point, “Upon motion made and seconded, and unanimously approved, the Secretary was instructed to write a letter to Miss Marion Hollins extending to her all privileges of the Club until same is revoked.”
By 1944, her health had deteriorated significantly. A subsequent resolution was made by the Cypress Point Board.
“The Ass’t Secretary read a letter dated January 17, 1944 of the Club Secretary relative to the condition of Miss Marion Hollins, commenting on her present physical and financial troubles and the great service she rendered to the Club in the past. On motion, duly made, seconded and unanimously carried, the Board, in consideration of the services of Miss Hollins to the Club, elected her an Honorary Member of the Club for the calendar year 1944, subject to extension by order of the Board, said membership to carry all of the privileges of a regular membership, without the payment of dues, excepting voting rights or proprietary interest in Club properties.”
Marion died eight months later in a nursing home in Pacific Grove, on August 27, 1944, after a brief illness. Though she had been unwell, it was unexpected. She was 51 years old. Sam Morse paid for Marion to be buried in El Encinal Cemetery in Monterey, in a plot with a simple headstone that he provided.
Following a significant increase in interest about her accomplishments as a result of Marion’s election to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2020 the marker was replaced by her family to recognize her achievements. The original headstone was then donated to the Cypress Point Club, where it forms part of the foundation walls of the Hollins Terrace, overlooking the sixteenth hole.
Today, many people now agree with what golf historian H. B. Martin first wrote in 1936: “No woman golfer had done more for the game of golf in America than Miss Marion Hollins.” Like Sam Morse, Marion Hollins was a child of the east who eventually found her purpose in the west.
Marion Hollins won seven Pebble Beach Women’s Championships, the last in 1942 at age 49, after her car accident
forming the club
GIVEN HER HIGH PROFILE in Pebble Beach as a champion golfer, leading polo player, member of fashionable society, developer of golf courses back east and saleswoman to the elite through the Del Monte Properties Company, Marion Hollins was the obvious and natural choice for Sam Morse to hand-pick to develop the Cypress Point Club.
According to his memoirs, at an early point in their relationship and certainly by 1924 Sam took Marion to view Cypress Point. Sam explained to Marion how he envisioned an exclusive private golf club on this exquisite piece of property. Upon hearing his proposal, Marion, at least in Sam’s recollections, “immediately became tremendously enthusiastic.”
Documents in the S. F. B. Morse’s personal papers at Stanford University record that Marion was indeed Sam’s No. 1 saleswoman — or salesman. Marion led the sales figures for the first few months of 1927, as Cypress Point was ramping up, and she finished the year strong. She achieved the highest volume in dollars of property sold but, curiously, ranked second-to-last in total number of sales. Marion Hollins was, as might be expected from her “tremendous acquaintance,” a big-game hunter, in a manner of speaking.
Opposite: Marion Hollins driving from the second tee at Cypress Point, 1929
Seth Raynor, Charles Carstairs and C. B. Macdonald at the Lido in Long Island, N.Y., 1915
“She did tremendously well in selling the Pebble Beach property,” wrote Morse in the 1930s, “and earned a great deal of the credit for the establishment of the Cypress Point Club. I took her over the ground; told her about the Cypress Point zone and what we hoped to do; and suggested an exclusive club — this was after Pebble Beach had thoroughly arrived!” Operating independently from Marion’s employment arrangement with the Del Monte Properties Company was the compensation agreement Sam and Marion reached regarding her development of the Cypress Point Club. At roughly the same time, inspired by ideas dating back to 1915 — prior to the formation of the Del Monte Properties Company — Morse and Hollins engaged Seth Raynor and C. B. Macdonald to design 36 holes of golf at the proposed site for the Monterey Peninsula Country Club, north of Cypress Point. Macdonald, one of the forces behind the founding of the United States Golf Association in 1894 and the inaugural U.S. Amateur champion in 1895, was arguably the leading golf architect in America at the time. Having recently advised Marion Hollins and Devereux Emmet on the Women’s National Golf & Tennis Club in Long Island, Seth Raynor was another natural choice to lead the design of multiple new golf courses for the Del Monte Properties Company.
Raynor visited Pebble Beach multiple times, including both late 1923 and 1924, for the design and construction of Monterey Peninsula Country Club, though C. B. Macdonald never did. During these visits Hollins also took Raynor to survey the land at Cypress Point, whereupon Raynor produced a preliminary routing for a course, commissioned by the Del Monte Properties Company. Raynor’s proposed routing, dated February 1925, has been held in the Cypress Point Club archivess since that time and while it was incorporated into contemporary promotional maps like J. W. Bull’s illustration (p. 44--45), Raynor’s version of the routing was never built.
Seth
J. Raynor
FOR ANYONE SETTING OUT to build a golf course in America in the mid-1920s, especially one with great ambitions like Cypress Point, the connoisseur’s choice for an architect would not have been Dr. Alister MacKenzie, who had yet to construct a course in America. Instead, the choice likely would have been Charles Blair Macdonald, regarded as the father of American golf architecture; or his protégé, Seth J. Raynor.
As C. B. Macdonald began to create the National Golf Links of America in Southampton, N.Y. in 1906, he needed a surveyor and construction supervisor to bring to life the concept of replicating famous holes for his ideal golf course, inspired by their British originals. Seth Raynor, a Princeton-educated engineer in his early 30s at the time, was employed as the Civil Engineer for the town of Southampton. Though Raynor knew nothing about golf at that point, Macdonald engaged him to solve the technical challenges of constructing the National.
“When Mr. Charles Macdonald laid out the National Golf Links twenty years ago, there was not a single course in America to compare with the classic links of Great Britain. As soon as the National was completed, it set a new standard, and ever since then it has been customary for the architects of new courses to assure their patrons that the new ventures will equal or excel the National.”
“Yet in all these twenty years,” Whigham protested, “how many links in this country are in the same class as the National?” He cited only two: Pine Valley and the Lido, the latter of which was diminished. In September 1925, newspapers in California (p. 68) proclaimed the development of a “Wonder Golf Course” being led by Marion Hollins, who, “with the assistance of Seth Raynor, golf course architect of national note, hopes to construct a creation which will even surpass such notable links as Lido and the National” — foreshadowing the comparison Whigham described after his visit to Cypress Point.
In the lead up to its formal opening in 1911, the National received wide acclaim, immediately becoming the new accepted benchmark for golf course development in America. Upon first visiting Cypress Point in early 1928, H. J. Whigham (p. 41), editor of Town & Country magazine and a former two-time U.S. Amateur champion wrote how the National had created a paradigm rarely equaled:
Macdonald and Raynor eventually created more than a dozen courses together, several of which became the leading clubs in America, though no projects met the standard set by their first collaboration. Macdonald received more design requests than he wished to undertake and by 1914 Raynor began to accept the commissions instead, building or reconstructing some fifty courses of his own,
specializing in Macdonald’s method of applying copies of famous holes from classic Scottish and English golf links.
Marion Hollins’ father, H. B. Hollins, was a founding member of National Golf Links; she modeled her development of the Women’s National Golf & Tennis Club on Macdonald’s approach, traveling to study the famous holes of the links courses of Britain; and Raynor assisted Devereux Emmet with the design of Women’s National.
At the club’s first organizational meeting in March 1925, Hollins, Roger D. Lapham and William C. Van Antwerp cited the National as a model for Cypress Point.
However, as Marion had not secured enough members to fund construction of the course or to incorporate the club by the end of 1925, no further progress was made on Raynor’s preliminary routing prior to his unexpected death on January 23, 1926, at age 51. History may only presume how Raynor might have applied his methods of presenting copies of “famous holes” at Cypress Point.
“Now the point of all this discussion,” as Whigham concluded in May 1928, “is that the new Cypress Point course on the Monterey Peninsula presents one case where the architect may truly say to the prospective member: I have made a course which will surely equal or excel the National. Or, rather, if the architect, Dr. Alister Mackenzie, will allow me to make a correction, he ought to say: Nature meant this for the ideal links; I have carried out what nature intended.”
Seth Raynor’s proposed routing of Cypress Point, February 1925
On February 24, 1925, for the sum of $10, Marion Hollins secured an option from the Del Monte Properties Company on an estimated 150 acres of land valued at roughly $1,000 per acre. The total agreed price was $150,000, offered by Morse and the Company at 1/5th of its market value.
The actual L-shaped parcel consisted of 169 acres that included Cypress Point and the site for a clubhouse, before crossing the Seventeen Mile Drive to venture up the ancient drainage ravine and sand dunes leading from Fan Shell Beach into the Del Monte Forest. The original proposed parcel terminated prior to Drake Road, built several years later across from the equestrian center and polo fields situated on the other side of the road.
With the option in hand and a routing from Raynor for reference, Hollins began the process of organizing the club by attracting members to fund construction of the golf course and clubhouse. She established an executive committee with Roger D. Lapham and William C. Van Antwerp, experienced golfers and members of the San Francisco Golf Club. At an initial organizational meeting in March
Surrounding: Marion Hollins’ original solicitation for membership in Cypress Point Club, October 1925
1925, Hollins, Lapham and Van Antwerp discussed the cost of developing the club, along with the proposed nature of the membership and club itself. They quickly settled on a budget for development: $150,000 for the land, $150,000 to build the clubhouse and $200,000 to build the course; a total capital requirement of $500,000, most of which would be loaned by Del Monte Properties.
To meet the club’s financial goals, Hollins first contemplated up to 500 members paying at least $1,000 each, but upon further discussion the committee settled on the model of a smaller, “more congenial” membership to fund construction of the club’s facilities. From that moment to the present, the membership at Cypress Point Club has never exceeded 250 members. The precepts envisioned for attracting new members to pay $2,000 to join at a time when the comparable initiation fee at the developing Monterey Peninsula Country Club was $100 appear directly in the notes from that first organizational meeting:
1st. That a first class golf course was built and maintained in the best possible condition, it being the idea that it should be known as the best links on the Coast, in some such way as the National Golf Links of America is regarded the best on the Atlantic Coast.
2nd. That the club house, while not necessarily large or elaborate, be made thoroughly comfortable with a limited number of sleeping rooms, say, eight or ten, and the best possible service in the club house provided.
3rd. That with the membership limited to 200 instead or 400 or 500, a better balanced and more congenial membership could be secured.
The simple, original ideas with which Hollins, Lapham and Van Antwerp formed the basis of the club remain as true a century later as they did in that first organizational meeting in March 1925: an exceptional golf course that was the pride of the Pacific Coast, a thoroughly comfortable but modest clubhouse with excellent service, and a small, congenial membership.
Opposite: The Club’s original prospectus, 1926
Promotional articles and photographs of Cypress Point began appearing in newspapers and golf magazines (opposite), touting the “Wonder Golf Course” that Marion Hollins would be creating. By the end of 1925, Marion had secured the option on the land at Cypress Point, a routing for the course, a capital plan for funding development and, through Lapham and her own acquaintance, a list of potential names from San Francisco, Burlingame and across the country to solicit as founding members. In October she issued formal, printed invitations for people to join the new enterprise (p. 64-65). Then her plans hit one of several snags.
In January 1926, while in Palm Beach, Florida, Seth Raynor died unexpectedly at the age of 51. In an amazing coincidence and historically significant bit of good fortune, Dr. Alister MacKenzie, a well-known Scottish golf architect based in Leeds, England, happened to be on a train crossing the heartland of America, bound for San Francisco at the time of Raynor’s death.
MacKenzie arrived in California only six days after Raynor’s passing. The original purpose of his maiden journey to the West Coast was to develop a course north of San Francisco at Meadow Club with his design partner, Robert Hunter. Three days later, on February 2nd, MacKenzie toured Cypress Point for the first time while visiting Hunter’s Pebble Beach home on Seventeen Mile Drive.
With Raynor recently deceased, Marion Hollins needed a new architect quickly, and MacKenzie and Hunter were poised to assume Raynor’s design commission. How Hollins came to know MacKenzie is only rumored, but they had occupied overlapping social circles in British amateur golf; Robert Hunter, already an ongoing fixture in the Pebble Beach golf scene, was certainly involved. He inscribed a copy of his brand-new golf architecture book The Links, published in 1926, to Sam Morse on April 12th, just weeks after his February 2nd visit to Cypress Point with MacKenzie (p. 200).
By the end of February 1926 MacKenzie and Hunter produced a new stick routing for the course, followed by a revised topographical routing in March. They borrowed in some instances from Raynor’s counter-clockwise treatment of the four holes around Cypress Point, developed with Marion’s input (p. 216), but diverged greatly from Raynor’s plan on the balance of the holes across
Opposite: Early articles promoting the development of Cypress Point Club Game & Gossip, December 1926, and the Los Angeles Evening Express, September 24, 1925
Seventeen Mile Drive, the more challenging portion of the property on which to route a course. (See p. 182-183)
MacKenzie also developed a design with detailed features of the golf course’s greens and bunkers (p. 200-201) sufficient for Albert Barrows to produce an artistic aerial map of the course dated 1926 (p. 164), though MacKenzie would not return to California until the following year.
For the rest of 1926, with her architectural quandary resolved in a matter of days, Marion’s plan’s suffered an even greater setback — she injured her back, reportedly playing polo, and the drive for membership stalled as she became incapacitated. Subscribers dropped out.
The question of whether Cypress Point would come together was imperiled. Fortunately for Marion, for Sam Morse, and for the whole project, a 28-year-old salesman for the Del Monte Properties Company named Harrison Godwin became one of the unheralded Dramatis Personae of the story and took up the cause of enlisting members.
As Marion recuperated from her back injury, Godwin carried the ball over the line. By the late spring of 1927 it was Harrison Godwin who had secured the requisite 100 members at $2,000 each to fund the estimated $200,000 cost needed to construct the golf course. (See p. 54)
The full purchase price of the land was financed by the Del Monte Properties Company at 6% interest, requiring
limited outlay for the club to secure the property, beyond the $10 option Marion Hollins paid. The proposed $150,000 in clubhouse construction costs was also to be financed by the Company, commencing only after the golf course had been completed and became a going concern. All of which is why the clubhouse was the final piece of the Cypress Point project to be completed, when it opened in September 1930.
On March 15, 1927, Byington Ford, Sales Manager at Del Monte Properties Company and brother of Sam Morse’s wife Relda, sent an interdepartmental memo mentioning several points, the fourth of which was:
The Cypress Point golf club is under-written. I think 98 have actually signed, and three or four others have stated that they would sign. As soon as the hundredth one is signed, they will start construction of the club. They have already had topo made of the club site, and have selected George Washington Smith to design the clubhouse.
With “fur flying,” to use Sam Morse’s phrase when describing the frenzy of activity that accompanied Marion whenever she swept into town from the East Coast, Hollins and the Executive Committee chaired by William C. Van Antwerp gathered in San Francisco in July of 1927 to formally incorporate the “Cypress Point Golf Club.”
Official incorporation document and by-laws signed by officers of Cypress Point Golf Club, August 9, 1927
Directors the founding directors
James A. Mackenzie
William C. Van Antwerp
William H. Orrick
Roger D. Lapham
Albert J. Houston
Marion Hollins
Frank G. Noyes
William C. Van Antwerp President
Edith Van Antwerp Secretary
Construction on the golf course, led by MacKenzie and Hunter’s American Golf Course Construction Company, began that fall and proceeded at a break-neck pace through the end of the year, felling acres of trees and creating a naturalized landscape for golf out of a complicated site that mixed sea, sand and forest. All eighteen greens were contoured and ready to be seeded in less than three months.
After Marion Hollins began to turn her attention to the development of Pasatiempo in Santa Cruz after striking oil in the Kettleman Hills in late 1928 (p. 52-54), Cypress Point’s ongoing development was left to be carried forward by the members. These efforts were led principally by Roger Lapham, who chaired the club’s golf course construction committee and who became the new President of the club in 1928 after Van Antwerp’s brief tenure. Lapham would serve in that role throughout the 1930s, in tandem with Morse’s careful oversight from the Del Monte Properties Company, until Lapham finally stepped aside from his voluntary duties as President in 1943, having been elected the Mayor of San Francisco. (See profile p. 88-93)
Original bank register for “Cypress Point Golf Club,” 1928
73
On August 11, 1928, the golf course opened for play, ahead of schedule and under budget thanks to creative construction techniques and scientific turf-grass analysis developed by Hunter and MacKenzie’s experienced crew (p. 199-203). While the course was met as an instant success and heralded around the world, the development of the club and achievement of a full roster of members remained an ongoing challenge for years to come. The first major change to take place at the newly incorporated Cypress Point Golf Club would be the name of the club itself.
a club or a golf club?
THE ORIGINAL ELEMENTS STILL HOLD TRUE: a superlative golf course more beautiful than its reputation; a comfortable clubhouse more modest than one would expect in such a setting; all supported by a coterie of 250 “congenial” members, with an emphasis on couples who enjoy socializing and playing golf together. The club exists, as intended from the beginning, solely for their pleasure.
“This is a club,” in the words of one senior member, “to which nobody deserves to belong. We feel that every time we drive in the grounds. Even after all these years, I still pinch myself that they let me in.”
Though the finer points of any club’s culture are constantly in flux, as members are forever joining and departing, over the last century the nature of how members enjoy the Cypress Point Club has settled into a familiar rhythm whose greatest strength is that it appears to have always been that way. To read the early records of the club, however, one might think it began with an identity crisis.
To start with, Cypress Point chose to legally change its name only a year after incorporation.
On June 18, 1927, Burke Corbet, the San Francisco attorney who arranged the incorporation of the club, wrote to Sam Morse: “I notice that the copy of the contract, which has just been furnished to me by Mr. Orrick, refers to the name as “Cypress Point Golf Club”. The subscription to the shares of stock taken in October, 1925, by Miss Hollins [p. 64-65], states that the name contemplated for said Club at that time was “Cypress Point Club”. In your letter you refer to it as “Cypress Point Club”. In discussing the matter with Messrs. Kingsbury and Lapham, they suggested the interjection of the word “Golf” in the name, so as to make it read “Cypress Point Golf Club”. This, in my judgment, is the better name.”
Corbet’s judgment wouldn’t last for long.
Opposite: Original prospectus for Cypress Point Golf Club, 1926 Original by-laws and roster for Cypress Point Club, 1928
In the original articles of incorporation the “Cypress Point Golf Club” was formally organized on July 26, 1927
A year after the original incorporation, the name of the club was formally changed with the California Secretary of State back to “Cypress Point Club” on August 22, 1928, omitting reference to the word golf. That subtle shift mirrored the intent early members had for the club.
“It was to be a sanctuary of the group that first came to Pebble Beach and golfed before golf became everybody’s game,” wrote Fortune magazine in a January 1940 profile of Sam Morse’s Del Monte. “And that’s what it is; Cypress Point is the inner circle... It has only 70 members — rarely more than 20 players on its lovely greens — and few of them own land at Pebble Beach. Mr. Samuel F. B. Morse can no more use it for selling lots than he could use the pulpit of his church.”
The club’s original prospectus, developed in 1926 to entice members to join, laid out five “salient points” for those considering investing in the club, points which had far more to do with Cypress Point’s financial prospects than its social atmosphere.
First, the acquisition price of the land was emphasized to be 1/5th of its actual value, a statistic born out by a contemporary memo from January 13, 1927 prepared for Sam Morse by Byington Ford,
Sales Manager for Del Monte. The memo recommended prices for twenty-one lots in the proposed Cypress Point subdivision on the ridge above the seventh and eighth holes. The average price-peracre was $6,200. The agreed price-per-acre of the Cypress Point Club land, on the other hand, was $1,000 — nearly 85% below market for the adjacent properties, especially on a site of such stunning scenic beauty and history.
In that same 1940 article in Fortune, Morse was cited as claiming, “The highest price he ever got for choice, near-waterfront land was $6,000 an acre: and he’ll never get that much again because nearly all the ‘easy’ acreage (shore or golf-course frontage) is sold. Mr. Morse doubts that resale prices will ever again reach the 1926 highs, when prices zoomed to $37,000 an acre.”
In other points, the prospectus created during that era of frenzied speculation emphasized the value of a membership as an investment, likely to appreciate in future years. The extraordinary terms of purchase — being that the club was largely financed by Del Monte, rather than solely by members themselves — was an additional point of emphasis. Should membership levels ever drop below a threshold of fifty, or the land cease to be a golf course, ownership would revert to the Company.
The third point, however, is one that sticks out to the modern reader seeking insight on the nature of the club. “While the principal object of the club is the development of the golf links, the club will have an attractive home, which will offer all the accommodations and attractions of a country club. There will also be facilities for tennis, bathing, and other outdoor sports.”
According to the original articles of Incorporation, filed on July 26, 1927, the legal object of the club was: “To construct, purchase, erect, and maintain a Club House, Club grounds, tennis courts, polo grounds, golf courses, and all of the usual and necessary accessories in connection therewith.”
The intended provision of tennis courts, swimming pools and other outdoor, equestrian sports at Cypress Point would surely take members of today by surprise. That kind of club culture, with an expansive vision for country club amenities and profitable real estate holdings, is contrary to the prevailing sentiment that subsequent generations of members have subscribed to and upheld.
Though Sam Morse may originally have had grand visions for a Cypress Point subdivision that would yield vast profits for Del Monte Properties, in time he acquiesced to and embraced an atmosphere promoted by gracious Pebble Beach inhabitants like Harry and Jane Hunt and a platoon of Crockers, among others, all of whom sought to be part of, in the words of artist Francis McComas, “a very small and elite club, with perfect food and service, in which all members could be great and good friends.” (See p. 100-101)
The inaugural Cypress Point roster from 1928 listed 103 names out of a potential 250 proprietary members allowed for in the by-laws. Four out of every five of the founding members came from California, with half hailing from the San Francisco Bay Area. The remaining balance came in equal proportions from the Monterey Peninsula, Southern California or the eastern United States, with a few at-large members completing the balance. Twenty percent of the founding members first appeared on a list of prospective names provided by Roger Lapham to Marion Hollins following their inaugural organizational meeting in March 1925.
Of note, thirteen of the original hundred or so members were women, including the first membership certificate issued — No. 1, to Helen Irwin Crocker (opposite). Women have been key members of the Cypress Point Club from its inception.
In addition to Marion Hollins being the developer of the club, she was joined as a founding director by socialite and amateur golf champion Edith Chesebrogh Van Antwerp, who served as the club’s initial Secretary (p. 72). When the time came to decorate the clubhouse in 1930, six leading female members stepped up to furnish the upstairs bedrooms and lobby (See p. 133).
Opposite: Cypress Point membership certificate No. 1, belonging to Mrs. Helen Irwin Crocker
The first set of rules for use of the clubhouse and course at Cypress Point, issued upon the clubhouse’s opening in September 1930
Women at Cypress Point have participated on and led the House Committee from the beginning, setting the tone for how members enjoyed the club beyond the golf course. Leslie de Bretteville, daughter of former club president Charles de Bretteville (1965-1973) recalled how the social nature of the club was influenced for decades by people like founding members Harry and Jane Hunt, Harry (President, 1955-1962) was a prominent polo player and Jane was a leading social figure.
“If Mrs. Hunt liked something one way, that was the way my mother went,” said Leslie, of her mother Frances de Bretteville, who was involved with Cypress Point’s House Committee for many years. “Mrs. Hunt had all the taste in the world and was friends with Coco Chanel. People were so polite. It was a wonderful era. The golf pros were the greatest and everything was attractive and understated; it was all done just so nicely. The food was out of this world from Chef Roger [Gascoin, 1958-1976] and Mrs. Hunt played a large role in that. The only people who could call when we were having dinner were Mrs. Hunt and my grandmother. My father would get right up from the dinner table when Mrs. Hunt would call. My parents wouldn’t do anything without her.”
Though the club’s full membership has never exceeded 250 at any one time, it took nearly seventy years to get there. Hand in hand with the stabilization of the club’s finances and retirement of indebtedness to the Del Monte Company in the post-war years (See Challenges, p. 94-101) was the marked growth of the membership from less than fifty in during the low point of the war to the eventual complement of 250 members first envisioned by the founders.
By 1956 the club achieved a new record of 135 active members. Though well within the limits established in the by-laws the club sought to impose an internal limit of 150 total members, with self-defined quotas of no more than sixty to come from Monterey Peninsula & County, fifty-five California members outside the Monterey Peninsula, and thirty-five from outside of California. These numbers were regularly adjusted in the coming decades to reflect new demographic realities in California and Board priorities. The overriding reason behind the constant adjustments was to preserve, in the words of Roger Lapham, “the informal and intimate nature of the club.”
It was necessary to restrict the number of local and California members, according to Lapham, “or the conditions that have made the club so attractive to its members and their guests would deteriorate.” Distinctions between members were later eliminated and merged together, then changed yet again by subsequent Boards, all in pursuit of achieving an ideal balance between local, California and out-of-state members, in an effort to preserve the “informal and intimate nature of the club.”
A membership study commissioned in November 1962 contemplated the original concept of the club as envisioned by the founders. “It was apparent that the early members were brought into the Club on a basis of their desirable personal attributes rather than their golfing prowess.” It was the sense of the Board that this concept should be reemphasized and in the future proposed members should be considered on the same basis. The limit of 155 desirable members in effect at in the early 1960s perhaps led to Bob Hope’s oft-quoted line about Cypress Point’s infamous “member drives.” Proving that every argument has a counter position, in 1963 a discussion at the Board revealed a distinct lack of golf-playing members. It was suggested by then-President Allen Griffin (1962-1965) that the directors bring in the names of a few golfers who would make for “desirable” members.
The club’s Secretary was authorized in 1965 for the first time to prepare 250 new membership certificates, as the original supply was down to the final few. This indicated that it took nearly forty years, from 1927 until roughly the mid-1960s, to reach the first 250 certificate-holding proprietary members in aggregate, not at one time. The size of the membership gradually increased and by the early 1970s it was suggested that to meet the rising costs of running the club, Cypress Point may need to increase the then-current goal of 220 proprietary members to an even larger number. This was increased again to 240 members in 1980 before finally coming to satisfy the full membership first envisioned by the founders in the mid-1990s, seventy years after the Club’s founding.
The tradition of allowing spouses of deceased members to retain an affiliation with the club was formalized in December 1976, with the Board agreeing that widows paying dues under new by-laws, “shall be known as Annual Members.”
The original Cypress Point golf register, begun by Glenna Collett’s course record 76 in June 1929, featuring signatures of 1929 U.S. Amateur notables Cyril Tolley, Francis Ouimet, Bobby Jones, and Grantland Rice, among others
Despite seeking to welcome the world — and potential future members — to Cypress Point at the time of the 1929 U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach, when golf celebrities and dignitaries like Bobby Jones, Francis Ouimet, Prescott Bush and Grantland Rice visited, becoming the first signatures in the club’s new bespoke golf register (above), as a social club, Cypress Point has sought to strike a balance between member privacy and sharing one of the great wonders of the golfing world with friends.
Inspired by a letter from Roger Lapham in 1956, the Board confirmed its position that “Cypress Point Club was fulfilling the ambition of its founders by its golf course becoming a mecca for golfers by opening the golf course for the use of greens fee paying guests every morning of the week.”
Through the years, various Boards and minutes have contemplated the many requests for outings, charitable contributions and commercial activities associated with the club and its celebrated golf course. Generally, though not always, the choice has been for the club to prefer privacy over exposure.
Among the countless potential stories of the many distinguished members and guests who have been to Cypress Point, a number of which are profiled in the “Stories” chapters of the book (see p. 239), the club featured briefly on film in a 1947 Bob Hope comedy called My Favorite Brunette, where Hope encountered several eccentric characters. In addition to playing the fifteenth hole against an imaginary golf ball, Hope was filmed below the clubhouse, which doubled as the “Seacliff Lodge Sanitarium” for the mentally ill.
In July 1961, the Board discussed a proposal to host Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf.
“After due consideration, the Directors decided not to permit the Cypress Point course to be played for an advertising campaign, confirming its position against exploiting any of the
facilities or scenery of Cypress Point Club for advertising purposes.” This attitude was adopted despite examples to the contrary from the 1940s and 1950s, or earlier (left), when both the club and Del Monte acutely needed support.
The first mention of the club’s picnic area between the fourth and eleventh holes came in the early 1960s, with numerous ongoing improvements. The area’s informal, friendly nature when used for official tournaments speaks to the social spirit of the club and values of the membership (p. 87).
So a perception remains a century later: that things are as they were intended from the beginning, with a full roster of congenial members who share in the enjoyment of a refined experience on the golf course and in the clubhouse, albeit casual in the picnic area, all supported by a sound financial position — a position that endured great challenges to reach one hundred years as a club.
Above and right: Despite the club’s traditionally private nature, in the mid-twentieth century various advertisements for American Airlines and Southern Pacific railways featured scenes of Cypress Point.
Opposite, clockwise from left (1961-1966): Barbara & Stuart Heatley, Susie-Jane Guittard; Mrs. & Mr. Bill Hutton, Frances de Bretteville, Bobby & Doris Magowan, Charles de Bretteville; Wheeler Farish, Charles de Bretteville, Gen. Robert McClure, Stuart Heatley; Horace Guittard; Jack Westland & Elaine Murray; Roger Lapham & Frances de Bretteville; Ferdinand Stent & Totten Hefflefinger (center)
cypress point has been a social club that exists as the focal point in its members’ lives as much as it has been a celebrated golf course. In the post-war years of the 1950s, members developed the tradition of creating shared menus for dinner parties and staging elaborate gatherings at holidays (above). The club’s picnic area (opposite), used during tournaments since at least the 1960s, has served as an informal contrast to the refined clubhouse atmosphere. Shared meals and buffets in traditional attire are a hallmark of the Cypress Point dining experience. A la carte menus are offered during breakfast and lunch service in the Morse Room for casual attire.
Roger D. Lapham
ROGER D. LAPHAM proudly claimed possession of membership certificate No. 3 at the Cypress Point Club.
“As between the Garden of Eden and the golf courses of the Monterey Peninsula,” wrote his grandson Lewis H. Lapham, “my father and grandfather didn’t make any meaningful distinctions.”
Beginning in 1925, as chairman of the committees that developed the club and course, Lapham was central to supporting Marion Hollins’ organizational efforts. He became the club’s second President in 1928, the year the course opened for play, and held that position for portions of 16 years, longer than any President who followed.
Lapham led Cypress Point from its bright launch in the late 1920s through the economic turmoil of the Depression in the 1930s, and buoyed up the membership during the darkest days of World War II. The only thing that prevented him from continuing his official duties at Cypress Point was being elected Mayor of San Francisco in 1943.
Labeled “San Francisco’s Brahmin of golf” by Game & Gossip in September 1926, Lapham served as Vice President of the United States Golf Association and was responsible for bringing the 1929 U.S. Amateur to Pebble Beach, the first time any USGA championship traveled to the West Coast. He joined the USGA Executive Committee
in 1921 as member of the San Francisco Golf Club, representing the California Golf Association of which he was also president several times.
Prior to hosting the 1929 U.S. Amateur at Del Monte, Lapham led a three-man committee including golf architects
Chandler Egan and Robert Hunter that made significant changes to Pebble Beach Golf Links. Under the co-direction
Egan and Hunter, they added dramatic sand dunes and other distinctive features that helped establish the Monterey Peninsula as a new Mecca for American golf.
Born in Manhattan on December 6, 1883, Roger Dearborn Lapham came from a family whose sons went to sea to seek their fortune. His uncle, George Dearborn,
Opposite: Roger D. Lapham, portrayed in a sketch by A. D. Mills that appeared in Game & Gossip magazine, August 1928
Roger Lapham’s Membership Certificate No. 3, 1928
founded the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company and gave a teenage Roger a ride out to Hawaii on one of the line’s new freighters. Captivated by possibility of the West, after graduating from Harvard Roger began serving various roles in the American-Hawaiian, becoming its president in 1925.
During World War I Lapham volunteered as an infantry Captain in France, noted by the Los Angeles Times as being “one of the first local golfers to join the colors.” In 1918 he suffered a mustard gas attack that caused temporary blindness. During the attack he left the relative security of his trench to pick up a fallen infantryman under his command, carrying him back to safety, under enemy fire. His service to his country didn’t end there.
“Then in his early 60s,” wrote Lewis Lapham of his grandfather’s political achievements, “his round, red face and shock of snow white hair known to every bartender in Chinatown, became mayor of San Francisco.”
plum-colored silk brocade pants and a tent-like Chinese silk wrapper.”
Those who did know him, like his grandson Lewis, said that, “During even the worst years of the Great Depression no two weeks went by without his hopeful presence on the first tee at Cypress Point, a vivid and exuberant figure, usually dressed in at least four colors of the rainbow… willing to play for whatever sum anybody cared to name.” The Laphams owned a house on the ridge overloooking the practice area and first green.
According to a 1946 cover story in Time magazine, Lapham was described even by those who didn’t know him as a “zestful extrovert,” with the author of the profile observing, “On Sundays in his big brick house on fashionable Pacific Heights, Lapham pads around in striped golf socks,
Speaking of bets, shortly after Marion Hollins secured the option on the Cypress Point property in February 1925, one of her first acts was writing a letter on March 9 to Lapham, as chairman of the club’s Organizing Committee. She closed her note with a mysterious postscript.
P.S. Will see Van at dinner. I am staying there. I imagine his $500 bet has looked pretty bad to him this past week.
With Marion a frequent guest of William and Edith Van Antwerp during her visits to Pebble Beach in the early 1920s, perhaps “Van” didn’t believe Marion’s initial enthusiasm for the project would deliver the promise of organizing Cypress Point Club and he decided to make a friendly wager? The answer may be lost to history but it surely was not lost on Roger
TIME magazine, July 15, 1946
Roger Lapham at Cypress Point, 1930
Lapham as, according to his grandson Lewis, “gambling was his passion, on a golf course and at the bridge table, where he deemed it unsporting to look at his cards before announcing a bid.”
The first formal, written account of the early history of the Cypress Point Club dates to a memorandum from March 25, 1925, which read, “Early this month Miss Marion Hollins met Mr. W. C. Van Antwerp and Mr. R. D. Lapham to discuss the organization of a golf club at Cypress Point.”
“I am not certain whether a scheme such as this would go through or not,” Lapham wrote in a March 16, 1925 letter to John S. Cravens of Pasadena, “but if it was put over with the idea that it was to be the best equipped and best run golf club on the Coast, it might succeed, particularly if we can get most of the men who have cottages at Pebble Beach behind it.”
Committee and Lapham’s list identified 21 of the first 100 or so original members, as of 1928.
From Cypress Point’s beginnings Roger Lapham was responsible for identifying a significant portion of early members.
During construction of the course in 1927, Lapham’s 18-year-old son Lewis was volunteered to assist Dr. MacKenzie in determining the carry distances of the holes, a story Lewis recounted in detail in his afterword to a facsimile publication of Golf Architecture in 1987.
Two days later, Roger wrote with typical enthusiasm and flair to Marion, enclosing a list of names and addresses that totaled 67 members of the San Francisco Golf & Country Club, 15 members of the Burlingame County Club and three members of the Pacific-Union Club. Five of the prospective names became eventual members of the club’s first Executive
When, in December 1943, Roger resigned as President of the Club on account of having been elected the 32nd Mayor of San Francisco, the Board resolved unanimously,
“That Roger D. Lapham’s long years of service as President of Cypress Point Club have proved of great benefit to the Club and a joy to its entire membership and that the Board of Directors in accepting his resignation as President of the Club do so with very genuine regret and a sincere feeling of deep indebtedness to him.”
After his death in 1966, at the age of 82, Roger’s ashes were buried in a grove of trees the right side of the first fairway at Cypress Point, just a pitch shot away from the green, entrusted to the care of a silver cocktail shaker, rather than an urn.
Bobby Jones and Roger Lapham, 1929
Letter from Roger Lapham to Robert Hunter, Jr. regarding the successful completion of construction work on the golf course at Cypress Point, August 14, 1928
CENTRAL TO THE MYSTIQUE of the Cypress Point Club is the perception that all is as it was intended from the beginning: a full roster of congenial members who enjoy a refined experience on both golf course and clubhouse, supported by a sound financial position. Of course this is not true, for the health of the club a century on belies the existential challenges faced in its early years. Such challenges nearly spelled the end of Cypress Point before it had a chance to mark its first generation in existence.
Owing to the intensifying effects of the Great Depression begun October 1929, by August 1933 President Roger Lapham and Director William Orrick were appointed as a committee of two to address a worrying increase in resignations. To stem the panic, Board would not accept any further resignations and let open resignations lie on the table, an extraordinary action taken less than five years after the course opened. For context, the club lost ten percent of its initial membership roster over just a few months in the course of 1933. At that August’s Board meeting five members resigned, among them Hollywood star Douglas Fairbanks. By the next Board meeting, five more members would submit resignations, including the founding President, William C. Van Antwerp. Even early member Robert Hunter, the millionaire socialist and co-designer with Dr. Alister MacKenzie of the Cypress Point course (See profile p. 199-203), resigned his membership by January 1935.
Beyond the ongoing threat of member resignations in the early years of Cypress Point, on November 28, 1933, “The Secretary called attention to the large number of members who were in arrears to the Club, both on account of dues and charges.” One profligate member who remains unnamed — a playboy infamous nationwide for marrying rich widows — racked up unpaid debts on his account of $1,188. His membership was canceled.
Opposite: Only twelve of the original 100 certificate holders still belonged to Cypress Point as of September 1, 1944
After beginning with 103 members in 1928, the 1933 roster was down to seventy-seven paying members, with nine listed as “Doubtful” and seventeen “non-golfing” members, pus those in arrears. Within its first decade of operation, half of the early members of the club resigned or died. Soon there were “thirty-four members, all of them charming gentlemen,” according to one recollection, a number that threatened to nullify the agreement with the Del Monte Properties Company. Losses had to be covered and new members were so slow to join that an auxiliary junior category was created.
This tumultuous stretch came to an inflection point in December 1939 when Sam Morse wrote to Roger Lapham regarding the operating losses Del Monte had been subsidizing. “The Company is willing to take another whack at the proposition as it now stands,” said Morse. “But I want to be very frank in stating at this time that, if the efforts are not successful and if the losses continue in 1940, one year from now we will have to make a radical change in the setup along one of the lines I discussed at the Directors’ Meeting.”
Morse remained patient, up to a point. Losing Cypress Point as the crown jewel of his vision for Del Monte would have been worse than any temporary financial inconveniences to the Company.
Exacerbating the economic peril was America’s newfound involvement in World War II by late 1941. As of the following April, additional war-time resignations reduced the active list to less than fifty members, which made it possible for the Company to terminate the agreement with the club and reclaim the course. As the Company still held almost all of the club’s nearly $200,000 in debt associated with the purchase of the land and construction of the clubhouse, it was not willing to continue funding the agreement in the light of the fact that club operating deficits were facing almost certain increases due to war-time losses.
An extraordinary measure had to be taken to preserve the Cypress Point Club.
At the April 7, 1942 Board meeting, Mr. Morse, as Vice President, read a resolution that passed, unanimously: “That the Club House and golf links be closed as of October first of this year and that it remained closed until such time as, in the opinion of the Directors, it is feasible to reopen.”
The Del Monte Properties Company
THE CYPRESS POINT CLUB AND DEL MONTE Properties Company always had their fates intermingled. At least that’s how Sam Morse envisioned it.
Initially, Morse sought to develop a subdivision of homes on the bluff above the sixth, seventh and eighth holes. Though that never came to pass, lots were surveyed and some were sold. In addition to offering roughly 150 acres of land for the course at a deeply discounted price, the Company also financed the sale of the land in 1927 and advanced full construction costs for the clubhouse, which opened in 1930. The founding members paid only for construction of the golf course and an initial down payment on the parcels. The Company eventually waived interest on the loans and underwrote the club’s operating losses during the Depression, taking over management of the club during the World War II closure of the course and clubhouse.
for residents of The Lodge and other unaccompanied guests, with such polices being continually adjusted over time. The Company also arranged for select tournaments to be played at Cypress Point, such as the Swallows. Eventually, as the membership at Cypress Point grew to reach its full allotment of 250, unaccompanied play from The Lodge diminished as members gained control of club finances and gradually reduced access to the course.
To ensure oversight of its investment, the Company provided full bookkeeping on all transactions of the Cypress Point Club from its formation period in 1925 through the satisfaction of its indebtedness in 1966, whereupon the club assumed full title to the property and its own financial accounting responsibilities. Through the years the Company arranged for access to Cypress Point’s golf course
After Sam Morse’s death in 1969 and the subsequent sale of Del Monte Properties Company to a series of thirdparty owners in the 1970s and 1980s, relations with the new Pebble Beach Company in its various forms became understandably less close than they were when Morse served as the Vice President of the club for 28 years.
With the purchase of the Pebble Beach Company by the Lone Cypress Partners in 1999, a restoration of the original relationship began anew. Given the overlap of mutual interests, Cypress Point has retained its independence as a private members club while supporting the Pebble Beach Company’s facilities and services. Several leaders of the Company over the decades have become members, just as Del Monte Properties employees Sam Morse, Marion Hollins, Byington Ford and Harrison Godwin did in the early days of Cypress Point.
Plaque overlooking the Lone Cypress
Letter to Cypress Point members from Roger Lapham, President, on October 27, 1943 stating that, despite “these difficult days,” Lapham added, “We believe that the Club is worth while preserving”
The club executed an agreement with Del Monte for member use of the Pebble Beach golf course while Cypress Point was closed. Dues were reduced to ten dollars a month and all revenue accruing to the club was paid as compensation for use of the Pebble Beach golf course and care of club properties. Not again until the restrictions imposed during the 2020 Pandemic would the clubhouse be closed to members for an uncertain period.
Morse assured the club that every effort would be made to employ Cypress Point staff and to make members feel The Lodge was, in fact, their clubhouse during the ongoing emergency. On October 27, 1943, President Roger Lapham circulated a letter to the fewer than fifty active members, describing just how imperiled the future of Cypress Point Club had become (opposite).
These were dark days indeed for Cypress Point, as the members could not use the golf course or clubhouse and were unclear when they would be able to do so again. Lapham’s phrases, “We believe that the Club is worth while preserving,” and that “none of us, I feel sure, would wish to see it pass,” demonstrate just how close things came to not continuing.
By May 1944, the situation had stabilized enough for the Board to issue a letter notifying members that, “facilities of the Club in all of its departments are now available to members with only such changes from prewar standards as are made necessary by the war effort.” The golf course was deemed to be in excellent condition and Henry Puget resumed his position as Club Professional, having been furloughed as a machinist at a defense factory in Oakland while the club was closed.
While the Club resumed operations in 1944, it had not yet resolved the substantial debt of more than $183,000 owed to the Del Monte Properties Company, which was the main obstacle to improving the club’s financial position. The Directors had figured how to cancel the remaining property debt of $116,000 owed to the Company by giving up 27 acres unused by the holes on golf course itself, meaning the only debt would be the $67,200 owed on the clubhouse.
To resolve the debt, a proposed land swap was initiated by Sam Morse and Francis McComas as early as 1933 that identified roughly 10 acres unoccupied by the golf course. At Morse’s direction, the
Company credited the Club with approximately $9,000 against the debt owed on the land purchase, lowering the property indebtedness to roughly $116,000. Most importantly, the maneuver established a precedent. The more substantial land swap in 1944 satisfied and canceled the full amount of the property loan due to the Del Monte Company.
The club had paid $25,000 in cash in 1927 to consummate the agreement on the property. Del Monte financed the remaining $125,000 at 6%, with interest meant to begin accruing in 1933.
In essence, the original 103 Cypress Point Members paid only to construct the golf course and fund a small portion of start-up costs for the club.
This is entirely a personal memorandum and will probably never see the light of day except in this office, but I have enough pride in the matter to want to make a record of how the thing was done. During the depression the club got into a lot of trouble financially. Membership went down at one time to less than 50. In order to save the club the Del Monte Properties Company had to waive all the charges on the roads, waived completely the interest charges for the purchase of the property and the money we loaned for the construction of the club house. And the Company had to underwrite all losses in operation. I doubt if there are any members of the club alive who know that this meant a loss to the Company of not far from $300,000. The club, however, survived and has been tremendously important to the final development of this region. In years to come, these figures could be of interest.
S. F. B. MORSE, PERSONAL MEMORANDUM, 1959
Thanks to the generosity of the adjustment, the club began the process of paying down the final $67,200 for the clubhouse loan at a lower rate of 3%, which it did over the coming decade. As the club and the country emerged during the post-war years, several key marker-posts were passed.
In 1955 the club reacquired lots 2–3–7 from the Del Monte Company for $36,895, a figure considerably less than the $116K credited in 1944, and considerably more than was initially paid at $1,000 an acre in 1927. These three lots encompassed:
2 –– 2.660 acres above the 15th green (Cypress Point Grove)
3 –– 2.336 acres between the 14 green, 1st hole and 17 Mile Drive (Staff/Caddie Parking)
7 –– 12.397 acres between 4th, 5th, 11th holes (Maintenance))
As of the June 1957 Annual Meeting, Sam Morse reported that the club was at last in a sound financial position and had no debt. In June 1958, the President’s Report noted earlier that year the club acquired back from the Del Monte Company 2.336 acres, which “practically completed the re-purchase of land sold in former years.”
Finally, the Treasurer’s report from March 1966 noted that, “Upon request from Del Monte Properties Co., payment was made to them on March 18th of $5,000, completing the Club’s purchase of its property.” Later that year, the President’s Letter observed that the club had been required to absorb increases in various administrative costs due to the Del Monte Company no longer providing accounting support and financial oversight of the club. With the debts fully satisfied, financial support that had been provided — or perhaps insisted upon — from 1927 to 1966 was a way for Sam Morse to keep an eye on club finances while the loan to his Company was outstanding.
Letter from Sam Morse to A. G. Michaud, May 10, 1968, describing the club’s relationship with the Company
Confirming that title to the property had been received at last, nearly forty years after it was first agreed to, Charles de Bretteville wrote in his 1966 President’s Report:
“Another matter of interest that has been consummated by the Board of Directors is the final payment to the Del Monte Properties Co. for clear title to the Club’s 152.855 areas and improvements…
This completed the contract of sale purchase dated November 10, 1927.”
Francis McComas
“If California had more painters like Mr. McComas we would not only have art… we would also have an art — an art at once Californian and universal.” — Porter Garnett, Art in California, 1916
FRANCIS M CCOMAS was an Australian artist known for his modernist watercolors and oils of the Monterey Peninsula in the early 20th century. He was also an early member of the Cypress Point Club who, from 1929-1930, helped oversee the development of the clubhouse and served as the Secretary of the club during the 1930s.
McComas (1874-1938) was part of a colony of artists who came to Carmel, entranced by the mystical beauty of the Monterey Cypress trees, native only to Cypress Point and Point Lobos. Two of his many paintings are reproduced in the club’s Board Room, representing colorful expressions of the artistic vision he discovered in the surrounding area.
“Cypress, Monterey” is from the collection of the Monterey Museum of Art, and his original mural of Point Lobos (opposite, above) is in the lobby of the former Hotel Del Monte, now the Naval Postgraduate School. There is also an original McComas drawing of a cypress tree in the Dining Room.
Over the years it was generally known by longtime employees and club members that McComas’s
ashes had been scattered near a granite marker on a headland opposite Cypress Point. In 2019, Robert Pierce, curator of a McComas exhibit at the Monterey Museum of Art, was seeking to discover the marker. Upon touring the likely site, tucked away in a grove of Cypress between the fifteenth green and sixteenth tee, Pierce was asked by then club president Dick Barrett what they were looking for. “A big granite rock,” replied Pierce, adding, “If only there was a sign or something to indicate that this was the spot.”
Barrett was standing over the very rock, looking down at it, as the ‘etching’ on the rock became clear to him. He said to Pierce, “A sign, like maybe Francis McComas’s name etched in the rock?”
Point
McComas’s burial spot was acknowledged obliquely in the club’s 1939 minutes but had been forgotten in the recent decades that followed. Forgotten, that is, until Dick Barrett and Robert Pierce discovered it again, all in pursuit of an upcoming exhibition.
It was McComas who originally described Point Lobos as “the greatest meeting of land and water in the world.”
Francis McComas memorial at Cypress
Though that sentiment has been attributed to other authors and other locales around the Monterey Peninsula, it is to Francis McComas alone that the first quote belongs.
At the January 1939 meeting of the club’s Board of Directors a unanimous resolution was approved upon the news of McComas’ recent passing:
“Resolved, that we the members of the Board of Directors of the CYPRESS POINT CLUB record, with great sorrow the death of our friend FRANCIS McCOMAS. We deeply appreciated his untiring devotion to the Club and remember well how he watched its development as if it were a child of his own, how he spared neither time nor energy to give us a perfect clubhouse and keep it perfect. While we recognize his great ability as an artist, he will be better remembered by those who knew him, for his human qualities, his keen sense of humor, and above all, his interest in life. We are glad that his ashes rest among the trees and near the ocean he loved so well.”
“Mr. McComas saw Cypress Point as a very small and elegant club, with perfect food and service, in which all members could be great and good friends — hence no more than a hundred members,” reported a 1940 story in Fortune magazine on Sam Morse’s development of Pebble Beach. “The place was McComas’s hobby,”
Above: Point Lobos, by Francis McComas, 1926
Francis McComas at his easel, 1926
the clubhouse
simplicity & elegance
FOR MANY PEOPLE — members, guests, and enthusiasts of California architecture alike
— George Washington Smith’s modest clubhouse design at Cypress Point is often celebrated more for what it is not than the spectacular setting upon which it sits. Adjectives like understated, elegant, simple, restrained and refined are far more likely to be applied to Smith’s tribute to the old Monterey colonial style than words like grand, ostentatious, dominant or extravagant. That is not, however, how the clubhouse was originally intended to be.
The dramatic position the building enjoys overlooking the tip of Cypress Point itself to the vast Pacific Ocean beyond is practically an invitation for architectural overstatement and grandiosity. After Marion Hollins secured the funding needed to incorporate the Club in 1927, Santa Barbarabased architect George Washington Smith was engaged as the architect of record. By the spring of 1928 he had submitted a variety of design options for the new clubhouse.
Above and opposite: The Clubhouse opened September 20, 1930
Following pages: The Clubhouse
George Washington Smith’s ambitious preliminary clubhouse plans, 1929
According to photographs and descriptions in the Club’s original prospectus, the site considered for the clubhouse was to be “on a raise that overlooks the forest on one side, Fan Shell Beach and Cypress Point on the other.”
“It is proposed that a very attractive club house be constructed, which will have many comfortable bedrooms, dining room, Sitting rooms, etc.,” the prospectus suggested to potential members — with “many” being the operative word. “While the principal object of the club is the development of a golf links, the club will have an attractive home, which will offer all the accommodations and attractions of a country club. There will also be facilities for tennis, bathing, and other outdoor sports.”
Though such country club amenities never came to be, either in concept or reality, the anticipated cost to build these ambitious facilities, in 1927 terms, was to be equal to the cost of the golf course, with both given a starting budget of $150,000. For comparison, nearly every home available through the Sears catalog at the time cost less than $3,000 to purchase.
Prior to the final design being presented by George Washington Smith in September 1929, at least three comprehensively different layouts were proposed at various points, each far more grand in scope than the ultimate, understated product.
The first “Preliminary” plans provided by Smith envisioned a sprawling compound of four interconnected units set on the edge of the slope, comprising some 31,100 square feet, roughly three times larger than the final design’s 11,300 square feet. The footprint of the four proposed units spanned greater than the length of a football field, some 376 feet of ocean-facing frontage, significantly more than the modest 120 feet the final sections of the main building came to occupy when the clubhouse opened in 1930.
In addition to a comfortable library, living and dining rooms, which were present in every iteration, a total of nineteen guest bedrooms and suites were initially proposed, along with an eight-bedroom dormitory on the second floor, all of which was to be supported by ten permanent staff bedrooms. This elaborate series of structures with radiating wings was connected by Smith’s trademark wraparound terraces, open-air loggias and tumbling staircases that led down to a separate lodging
George Washington Smith
like other characters in the story of Cypress Point, George Washington Smith was an American architect from the East who found his calling in the style of the West.
Born on Washington’s birthday in the year of the American centennial — February 22, 1876 — Smith only practiced architecture for the final twelve years of his life, a period from 1918 to 1930 when Sam Morse was assem bling all the major components of his vision for Del Monte and Pebble Beach.
Raised in Philadelphia, Smith began his education as an architecture student at Harvard, but never completed his studies. He spent his early working years as a bond salesman, amassing enough of a fortune to abandon that career to become an artist, traveling with his wife throughout Mediterranean Europe, settling in Paris in the pre-World War I years. Smith’s exposure to the Spanish architecture of Castile, in particular, remained with him as he traveled to California in 1915 for the Pan-Pacific Exhibitions. He subsequently settled as an artist in Santa Barbara in 1917 to avoid returning to the ongoing conflict in Europe.
revival studio and workshop for himself. The buildings, more so than his art, were so well received by local artist friends that he was commissioned to build Spanish Colonial revival buildings for them and others. Thus in 1919 he was inspired to return full circle to his early architectural training by launching a small firm that would occupy his working life
until his untimely death in 1930 at the age of 54.
Initially working with just one associate, Lutah Maria Riggs, Smith’s office designed some 116 projects in the next dozen years, of which 86 were constructed — a prolific output for a modest outfit. At the outset of Smith’s practice, Spanish architecture was little appreciated in California, having been associated primarily with the historical Missions.
A predominate style of the period had been the Victorian ornament of painted-lady row houses of San Francisco and Pacific Grove.
At the beginning of his new artistic career in coastal California, Smith designed a modest Spanish Colonial
In the early 1920s an emerging new era of post-World War I glamour took hold. An affinity for Spanish Colonial revival architecture developed in fashionable coastal enclaves like Santa Barbara and Montecito, and further up the coast, where Sam Morse was intent on attracting wealthy denizens of Hollywood to build grand houses in Pebble Beach.
Francis McComas to George Washington Smith, December 27, 1929
Smith was the architect of choice for number of leading families, including original Cypress Point members like Helen Irwin Crocker, who secured Membership Certificate No. 1.
By matching California’s temperate coastal climate with elegant, enclosed patios and cool, covered courtyards, he identified a perfect marriage of old and new in a land where having a George Washington Smith house soon became “as
distinctive in its way as a Christopher Wren church.” Smith’s preferred style promoted open-timbered ceilings and wraparound balconies or loggias overlooking life, supporting roofs of both clay tiles and cedar shakes.
A profile of Smith’s work from 1922 suggested, “In architecture (as in conduct), genuine consideration for others is conditioned on scrupulous self-respect.” Toward the
end of his life, Smith’s style was described in 1930 as a having a “distinguished simplicity.”
Smith himself once stated his hobby was, “Eliminating all useless ornament from a design,” which in many ways describes the understated forms and high standards of craftsmanship present in the Cypress Point clubhouse — Smith’s interpretation of an old Monterey
dwelling. George Washington Smith’s greatest contribution to the California aesthetic of Spanish Colonial revival is an architectural style that seems to have been tailor-made for this Mediterranean climate, but until he invented it nobody had thought to bring it all together.
structure perched above the cliffs overlooking the 16th tee, and consisting of nine bedrooms and a sitting room with its own outdoor patio.
Perhaps the most notable feature of Smith’s “Preliminary” plans, beyond their ambitious scope, was the positioning of the 18th green directly under the clubhouse itself. This appears to be at a variance from the original Raynor and MacKenzie routings from 1925 and 1926, both of which had the green set lower and more to the golfer’s right of the present green. Both golf architects also anticipated an island 18th tee on a rock outcropping reached by a suspension bridge, which was never built. When the 18th green was finally constructed in late 1927, it was done so in its current location closer to the top of the hill and to the south of the clubhouse, rather than facing to the west.
Using Smith’s own price-per-foot estimates from a 1929 letter to Francis McComas — the Club’s Secretary who oversaw the building and furnishing of the clubhouse — construction costs alone to build the ambitious four-unit design could have been as much as $165,000, well in excess of the total $150,000 clubhouse budget before any thought of furnishing such a vast structure was considered. After that plan was abandoned a new, still-extravagant-but-slightly-more-restrained series of options emerged.
Starting in April of 1928, Smith presented the first of three new iterations of the clubhouse plan. Rather than radiating out in wings spread along the hillside, the new designs at first centered on a series of internal garden courtyards in the Spanish style favored by Smith. Instead of some 37 beds for guests and staff there were six guest bedrooms and four rooms for servants, plus a steward’s apartment. That design quickly evolved and grew into a larger, second iteration that included even more enclosed courtyards to connect to a “caddy house” near the first tee. Neither design progressed any further.
By September of 1928, with the golf course open for play and the location of the 18th green firmly established, a new plan emerged. It was a kind of half-way point between the original preliminary design and the final product. The clubhouse proper became a more restrained 12,800 square
Clubhouse hallway, from Board Room to MacKenzie Library
Letter to members on October 1, 1930 announcing the opening of the clubhouse (See Rule 7 on p. 78)
feet, but several new elements were introduced: A pair of standalone cottages, two and four bedrooms each, set on the bluffs overlooking the 16th tee and in the grove of Cypress trees on the point between 15 green and 16 tee; also featured in this new plan was a standalone “Caddy House” near the first tee.
The “Caddy House” would be the first structure to be built at Cypress Point, as it served the immediate needs of the golf course, which had opened in August. This is confirmed by Sam Morse in his unpublished memoirs from 1959, when he wrote, “I do not recall the exact time that the course was first played. We built the caddy house and started the first year or two without any club house at all.”
Correspondence between the architect and construction foreman, obtained from the G.W. Smith archive at U.C. Santa Barbara, indicates that by late October 1928 the Caddy House was nearly completed. Still, construction on the clubhouse itself would not begin for another year.
On August 10, 1929, just a few weeks before Pebble Beach was due to host the U.S. Amateur, Smith wrote to McComas, saying “I am sending you blue prints of the first and second floor plans of the new scheme at Cypress Point Club. You will note this is very much cut down.”
This was to be the fourth and final major iteration of Smith’s design.
There was still an ongoing question as to how much the building would cost, with McComas responding to Smith in late December stating that $50,000 was to be the price of the building, not closer to $60,000 as Smith suggested. McComas confirmed that the total budget for the furnished clubhouse had been adjusted to $75,000 and concluded his post-Christmas letter by writing to Smith, on a personal note, “I am sorry you are still out… I hope you could eat your share of turkey even on your back.”
Smith never lived to see the completed clubhouse. He died after a lengthy illness on March 16, 1930 at age 54, leaving the clubhouse to be completed by his associate from Santa Barbara, William H. Horning.
First page of register, featuring signatures of Dr. Alister MacKenzie (October 18; December 8), Marion Hollins (October 20) and Roger Lapham (December 8), among others
Clubhouse details
“The club house site is on a raise that overlooks the forest on one side, Fan Shell Beach and Cypress Point on the other.” — Club Prospectus, 1926
Above: The Clubhouse, 1942
“The Club House opened up last night on time,” McComas wrote to Horning on September 20th of that year. “I see it as a very fine result. Everybody seemed very happy — I know I was. Therefore I am not feeling so gay this morning.”
To give a sense of how the new clubhouse at Cypress Point was first received, an unidentified 1931 clipping from the archives of the Monterey Public Library described the building thusly:
“The responsibility of putting the late George Washington Smith’s ideas into concrete form was accepted as a sacred trust by William Horning, who carried out the design of his former associate, with the result that the completed clubhouse forms one of the most perfect examples of its type.”
In the years since, the building has been studied by architectural critics and profiled in books about both George Washington Smith and the interior designer, Frances Elkins, for it was not just the envelope of the building that mattered.
Elkins, a fixture in the Pebble Beach social scene, had been responsible for designing the interiors for numerous friends who commissioned grand Pebble Beach homes. Her popular interior design practice in Monterey, called The Casa Blanca, was housed in the famous Casa Amesti, former home of author Robert Louis Stevenson. For the Cypress Point clubhouse, Elkins chose a French provincial style, favoring neutral shades and comfortable furniture in the public spaces, reserving more color for the private bedrooms.
The aforementioned 1931 architectural review offered a comprehensive take on Elkins’ work:
The supreme triumph of the interior decorator’s art, however, is achieved in the living room. The unrestrained outburst of pleasure and admiration on the part of members and guests who had the privilege of attending the opening event testified to this fact. Recessed windows overlooking the ocean on one side and green fairways on the other are framed in yellow hangings that enhance the beauty of both to the observer within, while luxuriously upholstered chairs are a constant invitation to remain and enjoy the combined offerings of nature and man. A huge provincial table, graceful despite its vast proportions, occupies the center of the room.
Frances Elkins
george washington smith may have been the architect of Cypress Point’s Clubhouse, but the timeless style of the Club’s interiors can be attributed to the original interior designer, Frances Elkins.
Born Francis Adler in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1888, she and husband Felton Elkins moved to Monterey in 1918, where she purchased and began to renovate a dilapidated 1830s adobe called Casa Amesti as a showpiece for her new interior design business. Elkins lived in the house for 35 years, until her death in 1953, and in the process became one of most influential interior designers on the West Coast during that period.
“A stunning achievement in interior decoration,” noted Monterey County Historical Society, “Casa Amesti is one of the best examples of Monterey Colonial architecture.” The celebrated building eventually became the home of the Old Capitol Club.
wrote of her work at Cypress Point, “For the club’s living room, she used quiet tones of beige, yellow and melon, and furniture such as overstuffed sofas and French provincial pieces, including a large antique table, which seventy years later is still the primary focus of the room.”
In one particular note from the Club to Elkins on September 2, 1930 from Assistant Secretary H.F. Howland, explained how members themselves supported the Club’s early development.
“You probably know,” Howland wrote, “that some members have promised to pay for the furnishing of certain rooms, and I expect to bill them in due course; therefore it will help a lot if items like this one are divided between the rooms.”
Elkin’s business, “The Casa Blanca” operated out of the Robert Louis Stevenson House on Houston Street. Archives from the Elkins Collection are housed at Monterey Peninsula College and a selection of relevant records are currently displayed in a leather binder for perusal in the Club’s living room, which remains much as at was when Elkins completed her design in 1930. In 1999, Architectural Digest named Elkins a “Design Legend” and
A letter from November 21 of that same year (see p. 133) shows that furnishings for Rooms 1-4, along with the Ladies Room and Lobby were underwritten by six female members. Elkins herself became a member of the club, which she maintained until her passing in 1953 at the age of 64.
Frances and her frequent design collaborator, her brother David Adler, contributed significantly to what would become known as the cosmopolitan American style, marked by an eclectic mix of modern and traditional that still prevails as a hallmark of sophisticated decor.
Opposite: The Dining Room, as pictured in Fortune Magazine January 1940, with Frances Elkins in the center Following pages: The Living Room
MacKenzie Library details
“The main dining room just beyond the private dining room, elevated a few steps from the rest of the building, is in a color scheme of green and white, varied only by the rich deep brown tint of the mammoth sideboard, also old French provincial, which fills most of one side of the room.
“Four bedrooms, with dressing rooms and baths, occupy the entire second floor, reached by an outdoor stairway and opening upon both balconies. Each suite is distinguished by its own color motif, one having a dominant blue note, another yellow and green, a third red and ecru, and the fourth a rich plum color. Pleasing effects have been attained by variations of tones and use of contrasting colors. In the bedrooms, as elsewhere throughout the house, the effect is that of a discriminating private residence, rather than usual ‘clubhouse’ or hotel atmosphere.”
While today the four clubhouse bedrooms are known only by their number, originally each of the rooms was associated with the name of one of the founding members, each of whom, according to archival records is believed to have sponsored the costs of the furnishing each room.
Further underscoring the longstanding role female members have played at Cypress Point throughout the Club’s history, Room 1 was assigned to Mrs. Edith Chesebrough Van Antwerp, wife of William, the Club’s inaugural President — who herself was California amateur golf champion numerous time and served on the Club’s organizing committee with Marion Hollins. Room 2 was sponsored by Mrs. Celia Tobin Clark, heir to the Hibernia Bank fortune — who was listed in the first roster as the proprietary member, rather than her husband Charles. Room 3 was attached to Mrs. Huanna Hoyt Noyes of Napa, wife of lumber merchant Frank G. Noyes, the Club’s founding Treasurer — and a major philanthropist in her own right. Room 4 was attributed to Mrs. Helen Abbot Lapham, wife of Roger, founding Director and the longest-serving President of Cypress Point — she was a lively personality and author of the book “Roving with Roger,” about his time as Mayor of San Francisco.
In addition to the four bedrooms, Miss Marion Hollins, who by that point had struck oil at Kettleman Hills, was responsible for contributing to the costs of numerous furnishings that decorated the original Lobby, to the left as one enters the building today.
Letter describing the Clubhouse rooms furnished by leading members, November 21, 1930
Dining Room and
Terrace Room details
Given the pressures on the Club to remain solvent during the 1930s and 1940s, little was done in the way of clubhouse improvements during that time. Not until 1957 did the first notice appear in the Board minutes of a discussion about enlarging the Dining Room due to increases in the membership and the emerging tradition of private parties. The idea was even floated that perhaps the brick terrace behind the Dining Room could be glassed in. A new dining room, now known as the Board Room, was added in 1958, along with a modified brick terrace. The distinctive yellow chinaware
Clubhouse and U.S. Navy Sea Watch Tower, 1946
that features in the Board Room was commissioned by Col. Allen Griffin in 1976. Eventually, the expanded brick terrace was fully enclosed and converted into the Terrace Dining Room in 1984, with occasional refinements and updates in the years since.
In 2001, a new, casual dining experience was introduced in what became known as the Sam Morse Room. Adjacent to the putting green and parking lot, the Morse Room offered luncheons to members in casual or golf attire. As this was a departure from the tradition of wearing more formal dress to dine in the clubhouse a reasonable amount of debate ensued before ultimately being endorsed by a large majority of the members. In 2013, the administrative offices near the 18th green —originally the Ladies Locker Room— were converted into the MacKenzie Library to provide additional social space. Every few decades or so the bedrooms have been updated and redecorated to remain current with the preferred tastes of the membership.
The largest single update to the clubhouse since its original construction in 1930 took place from 2020 to 2022. Over the course of several years, every room in the clubhouse was renovated and the buildings were structurally reinforced to address deterioration. This included the rebuilding of the kitchen and office wings, which allowed for the creation of a wholly new Morse Room and Hollins Terrace, overlooking the 16th hole and Cypress Point itself. The work was overseen during the presidency of Dick Barrett, which provides a historical note of minor and amusing coincidence.
In the late 1990s, Cypress Point member Frank Smith proposed the creation of a “Sea Watch Patio” at the Club. Combining two point-and-shoot photographs into a single panoramic image, Mr. Smith noted in his hand-typed proposal, “During World War II the promontory just west of our clubhouse was judged by the United States Government to be the best place to watch for any Japanese submarines that might threaten the mid-California coast. A tower was built for that purpose and the concrete foundations are still there.” Smith asked rhetorically, “How could we have overlooked this since then as one of our greatest scenic assets? The area lends itself to becoming a Sea Watch Patio, or by any other name, for lunches, receptions, or barbecues, quite apart from the mainstream of other
Morse Room details featuring Walker Cup replica (1981, 2025) and replicas of Curtis Cup (1932) and U.S. Women’s Amateur (1921) in tribute to Marion Hollins
the morse room
Hollins Terrace details with plaque recognizing the presence of Marion Hollins’ original headstone, paid for by Sam Morse in 1944 and donated by the Hollins family in 2020.
club activities. It is a hidden asset for meeting the demands of members’ activities in the 21st century, to which our Cypress Point Club must be responsive.”
The Hollins Terrace, which opened in 2021 without any knowledge of the history of this suggestion, occupies the very space proposed by Mr. Smith as a “Sea Watch Patio” and has proven a great success. The amusing coincidence? Frank Smith was the former owner of the home next to the eighteenth fairway at Cypress Point, since occupied by Dick and Gail Barrett.
Site of former Morse Room from 2001-2021
Perhaps the greatest achievement of George Washington Smith’s tribute to the old Monterey colonial design style is the way in which the building has come to exemplify the values of the Cypress Point Club itself: an elegant, understated structure that reinterprets old-world values in a new-world setting. Despite George Washington Smith’s original concepts for a sprawling campus of buildings, provided at the direction of the founders, the restrained nature of the final product remains what contemporary critics in its day first said about the building: it has the quality of being at one with its surroundings. As an expression of the Club’s ethos, it sets a tone for those who have enjoyed “the combined offerings of nature and man” in the decades that followed. How different might the culture of the Cypress Point Club have become, had another more extravagant clubhouse been built?
View from Clubhouse Terrace
Designed by George Washington Smith and updated numerous times since to expand the Locker Rooms and facilities for both men and women, along with the extension of the Golf Shop and storage facilities, the building’s main room was renamed the “Hook & Eye Room” in 2018. That simple room, with its fireplace and comfortable chairs overlooking the compact, brick terrace behind the first tee and putting green, remains essentially as it was in 1929, when it welcomed new members to begin their rounds at the Cypress Point Club. the locker rooms
Before the opening of the clubhouse in September 1930, the first building constructed at Cypress Point was the Locker Room and Golf Shop, originally called the “Caddy House.”
Above: Practice putting green
Opposite: The first tee
Proposed version of George Washington Smith’s “Caddy House,” which was the first building constructed at Cypress Point
Golf Shop and Locker Room
Above and opposite: Hook & Eye Room details
Below: Original Caddy House interior, 1930
The Hook & Eye Club
THE 1929 U.S. AMATEUR AT PEBBLE BEACH marked golf’s debutante ball on the Pacific Coast.
jim langley
Among the firsts achieved at the inaugural USGA national championship held in the west, it was a coming-out party for Sam Morse’s vision for Del Monte as golf’s new Mecca and the introduction for leading golfers to the exciting new course at Cypress Point, which opened the year before — though the club didn’t yet have a clubhouse.
Roger D. Lapham was both Vice President of the USGA, President of the California Golf Association, and the President of the Cypress Point Club. As the de facto Chairman of the Del Monte host committee, Lapham had his hands full welcoming the golfing world to the Monterey Peninsula.
Prohibition remained the law of the land until 1933, so the password for the hosts became, “Who Can I Get A Drink For?” and the password for guests was, “Who Can I Get A Drink From?” After a drink or two those secret phrases began to sound very much like “Hook and eye…” and the hospitably venue became known as the “Hook & Eye Club.”
Edwin M. Eddy, President of the Northern California Golf Association at the time, inscribed in a handwritten note to 1929 U.S. Amateur Champion Jimmy Johnston, on the back of a photo of The Lodge hospitality scene from that week (opposite), “This 19th hole was a hard one to beat.
Hook and Eye Club, Del Monte, California, September 2-7, 1929.”
With Cypress Point needing members, Lapham organized a “Pebble Beach Entertainment Fund” subscribed for by sixty-six of his friends, most of whom were from Cypress Point, who donated more than enough money to provide ample assets — “liquid and frozen” — for the hospitality of tournament guests in The Lodge.
Letter from Roger Lapham to Dean Witter, December 5, 1929, discussing what to do with excess Hook & Eye Club funds
No records exist to suggest how much each member of the
Hook & Eye Club contributed or consumed, but at the end of it all, Lapham had a surplus of some $6,500 in the “Pebble Beach Entertainment Fund.” On December 5, 1929, Lapham wrote to Dean Witter to “decide what to do with the Hook and Eye Club funds.”(Above)
As captured in the Lapham family archives, a detailed correspondence ensued — “We could have a most congenial party,” wrote Dean Witter in response — resulting in the inaugural meeting of the “Hook & Eye Club” in 1931 at Cypress Point for a two-day tournament, with dinners and a Calcutta pool. The gathering was such a success it continued annually until World War Two brought an end to it. The Hook & Eye was revived in 1968 as a replacement for The Swallows and thrives as one of the highlights of the club’s annual calendar: a member-guest where everyone is invited
by the President of the Cypress Point Club. Festivities begin with an optional Thursday dinner for early arrivals that has been held at some spectacular venues, a Friday practice round and opening dinner at the clubhouse with wonderful food and wines on display, followed by rounds of better-ball golf on Saturday-Sunday and a concluding picnic lunch.
The makeup of participants has evolved to maintain the spirit of a congenial gathering of friends from throughout the world of golf and other fields of interest, including business, sports and culture, inspired by the 1929 gathering.
Scene of the original “Hook & Eye Club” at The Lodge in Pebble Beach, hospitality venue for the 1929 U.S. Amateur Edwin Eddy signed a hand-written note to Jimmy Johnston, the champion, on the back of this photo, which is displayed in the Hook & Eye Room
Mens’ Locker Room details
Ladies’ Locker Room details
“Here amid the fantastic age-old trees and against a background of glistening white sand and the deep blue of the Pacific has been recreated a charming bit of old Monterey.
White walls reflecting the warm California sunshine and green shutters suggesting cool and restful rooms within repeat the dominant note of the setting and make the new Cypress Point clubhouse one with its surroundings.”
Compass Rose inlaid in clubhouse terrace
the golf course
discovering the course
“We shall play over inlets of the sea, turn into the pine woods, and then into high dunes and back again to a club looking into the endless expanse of a great ocean.
Five holes skirting the sea or flirting with its waves, five holes in the pine woods and eight greens in the dunes.
Where else shall we find all this?”
DR. ALISTER MACKENZIE, MARCH 1927
CAN A GOLF COURSE be as enjoyable to walk without clubs as it is to walk with them? In the case of Cypress Point the answer is unequivocally “yes,” as throughout the world of golf it is regarded as one of the most beautiful walks in the game. What ingredients combine to shape the soul of the course? Is the setting so dramatic as to be evocative no matter how the designers approached it? Or, by carefully choreographing how the land is revealed, did they elevate Cypress Point to an altogether higher plane by routing the holes to build in anticipation, offering introductions to scenes of sea, sand and forest, before delivering a climactic experience along the crashing surf of Cypress Point itself?
Opposite: Robert Hunter and Alister MacKenzie at the fifteenth hole, January 1928
Previous pages: Remnant of The Loop on Cypress Point, 1942
Albert Barrows’ drawing of Alister MacKenzie’s original concept design for Cypress Point, 1926
The founders intended to have a clubhouse that reflected the name of the club, situated, according to the original prospectus, “on a raise that overlooks the forest on one side, Fan Shell Beach and Cypress Point on another.” Therefore the course needed to start and finish close to a suitable building site on a bluff that looked, in Alister MacKenzie’s words, “into the endless expanse of a great ocean.” Given the position of the clubhouse, there are only two ways for a golfer to navigate the ocean frontage of Cypress Point: clockwise to begin the course or counter-clockwise to complete it.
Dating to the 1880s when Seventeen Mile Drive was established, most historic photographs of Cypress Point were taken from the headland looking out toward the point, for this is the most inherently dramatic view. From the first published reports of Marion Hollins’ design efforts with Seth Raynor in 1925, and later confirmed when Dr. MacKenzie accepted the design commission following Raynor’s unexpected passing in January 1926, it was decided the course would be played counterclockwise to finish around Cypress Point.
“From the forest lane the links will lead down to the water’s edge along mountains of that glorious white sand which particularly belongs to that district — as do the cypress trees.”
SCOTT CHISHOLM, LOS ANGELES EVENING EXPRESS, SEPTEMBER 24, 1925
Given the L-shaped plot of land offered by Sam Morse and the Del Monte Properties Company, the only other holes predetermined by the site were an opener leading away from the clubhouse to Fan Shell Beach and another hole connecting the course back to Cypress Point, holes which became the first and fourteenth. The majority of the course beyond Fan Shell Beach, which led up the ancient drainage ravine, skirting the dunes and into the forest, was entirely up for debate.
To discover the soul of the course, one begins at the brick terrace behind the first tee, which forms an amphitheater of sorts. Intersecting with the simple golf shop and locker rooms, a putting green, the caddie yard, and the traditional four green canvas director’s chairs situated behind the tee, it exhibits a bustle that the tranquil setting of the clubhouse, by comparison, does not feature,
being well removed from the commotion of golf. From the outset, protection and exposure emerge as alternating themes of the golf course.
At the time the club was formed, the clearing of land from the clubhouse site looking down to Fan Shell Beach was devoid of all but a few individual trees. There were no clusters of cypress to the right or left, protecting the practice areas or golfers on the fourteenth hole. Those came in the 1960s and beyond. Over time, a few low posts were installed on the edges of Seventeen Mile Drive to keep cars in their lane and off the course, but the vista was always broad. There was no hedge directly in front of the first tee, required to protect unsuspecting passers-by. That came in the mid-1980s. It was one vast, tumbling fairway.
Though the area around the first tee evolved to become more cocooned than in earlier decades, once the golfer crosses Seventeen Mile Drive and begins to walk down the first hole everything opens up, just as it did from the beginning. The unexpected width of the fairway is a welcome gesture given
The first hole, 1929
the gravity of the moment — for many golfers it may be their only visit. This is where you start to hear the roar of the ocean for the first time, often able to taste its salty spray. Curiously, about a hundred yards short of the first green the golfer senses he or she might somehow be below the level of the ocean just a few steps away.
As a pacific welcome, the initial impression of the course is peaceful and inviting. From the opening moment, the course introduces each of three ingredients central to Cypress Point: sea, sand, and forest. All are visible on the first hole, and every subsequent hole is defined by some combination of these elements. Though a first-time golfer might be unsure where to go next, all is soon revealed. From rise of the first green a perspective presents itself, leading up into the forest, towered over by encroaching dunes. The secluded cove at Fan Shell Beach may not first spring to mind when people envision the more famous holes along Cypress Point, but it embodies the spirit of the club itself. There’s a pleasing, understated rhythm here that the chaotic waves of the point don’t possess.
The first hole
You feel the ocean on a smaller scale as the gentle, rolling surf rises to meet you. Fan Shell Beach offers a merciful opening reprieve in contrast to Cypress Point’s starker sense of final judgment.
Perched atop Fan Shell Dune, the second tee serves as an exclamation point to the welcome. The golfer gains an uninterrupted vista where the cobalt blue of a deep ocean meets aquamarine breakers below, contrasted with sun-bleached dunes above, all framed by the deep green of the valley ahead. It is a hinge moment, leaving behind a final comforting view of the clubhouse before heading off into the unknown forest. Seeing the thirteenth green set down below the second tee implies an eventual return to this spot, though the inexperienced golfer may not yet know how.
Like any self-assured magician, MacKenzie’s intent was to hide his work in plain sight.
His object in setting the first green and second tee into Fan Shell Dune was to fulfill his overarching desire as a golf architect that, “It would take an artist to be able to tell where nature ended and the artificiality of man began.”
The rugged surrounds help maintain the illusion that the course’s architect merely nestled the greens and tees into the slopes of existing dunes and other features. In actuality, a great deal of shaping work was required to make it all appear so natural.
“At Cypress Point,” MacKenzie wrote in November 1928, just months after the course was opened, “it is difficult to realize that most of the greens and fairways have been artificially contoured.”
Opposite: Fan Shell Dune, where holes one, two, thirteen and fourteen meet Following pages: The first green on Fan Shell Dune, with Alister MacKenzie, 1928
Originally separated, the second and fourteenth teeing grounds were flattened and combined in the mid-1960s to create more tee space and be more easily maintained. The native dune surrounds MacKenzie sought to highlight at this opening junction of four holes were restored under the direction of consulting golf architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw in 2024, which re-established MacKenzie’s precedent for blending half-maintained bunkers into the edges of dunes. This theme occurs on nearly half the holes, for wherever a feature touches a dune it is meant to be connected by a naturally contoured bunker.
Each of the course’s interior moods — the pacific welcome of the Fan Shell Dune, going into the woods with the forest holes, the brilliant dunescape — remains to be experienced multiple times from a variety of perspectives, as opposed to the finishing holes along Cypress Point that the golfer only experiences once. This is the magic of the routing that Alister MacKenzie and Robert Hunter mastered — and which Seth Raynor did not, at least according to his initial February 1925 routing, where he chose to go merely along the mountains of sand rather than incorporating them.
Another element of the playing experience distinctive to MacKenzie was his belief in offering the challenge of an heroic carry from the tee whenever possible. This theme is introduced dramatically when driving across the ravine on the second hole and is repeated throughout the course. Survey maps from the 1860s (see p. 8) emphasized the primeval feature of the ravine that dominates the central portion of the property.
Raynor’s preliminary routing began with the second hole at the start of the current fairway, foregoing the carry that MacKenzie preferred. The exposed sandy ridge on the second became a feature that influenced lines of sight visible from the eighth and twelfth tee shots, as well, an example of MacKenzie’s interest in camouflage technique.
The question MacKenzie sought to ask the golfer again and again from the tee at Cypress Point was: do you wish to pay the price now and gain an easier subsequent shot, or do you want to err on the side of caution and make your next shot that much harder?
Second tee details, including Alister MacKenzie during construction, 1928
Dr. Alister MacKenzie
“Cypress Point has interested me more than any land I have ever had to deal with. For the sake of my reputation, I should like to make you the best golf links in existence.”
DR. ALISTER MACKENZIE, CYPRESS POINT CLUB PROSPECTUS, 1926
WHEN DR. ALISTER M ACKENZIE first set foot on the land for a proposed golf course at Cypress Point in early February 1926 he had been preparing for the opportunity for more than twenty years.
Born in England in 1870 with the given name of Alexander, Alister MacKenzie was a man of contradiction and paradox. “He hailed from Leeds, England but was a Scotsman through and through,” according to his biographers Haddock, Scott and Doak. “He always proudly used the title of ‘Doctor,’ but his practice as a physician was small and unfulfilling.” MacKenzie’s interest in the study of camouflage developed during his time as a British Army surgeon in the Boer War at the turn of the century and led to him becoming a published expert in the field.
After returning home from war, he abandoned his medical practice to pursue the design of golf courses, adopting the deceptive landscape construction techniques he studied on the battlefield. MacKenzie started his design career with his home club of Alwoodley in 1907 and gained renown by winning an ideal hole design contest in Country Life magazine in 1914, along with the publication of his book Golf Architecture in 1920, one of the earliest specialist
volumes on the subject. By 1926 the 55-year-old MacKenzie had designed several dozen courses in his native England and Scotland — if not the many hundreds that his blustery promotional quotes suggested — but he was yet to construct a golf course in America.
The purpose of his inaugural visit to California in the winter of 1926 was to advise on a variety of courses throughout the state. As fate would have it, Dr. MacKenzie departed England on the S. S. Homeric on January 13, 1926, bound for New York. From there, he proceeded directly on a cross-country train journey en route to San Francisco, arriving on January 29, 1926 — just six days after Seth Raynor’s death — to meet his U.S. design partner, Robert Hunter.
After the initial flush of excitement at Cypress Point, by early 1926 Marion Hollins’ efforts to develop membership interest had not advanced far enough to fund course construction. With Raynor’s unexpected passing, apart from a proposed routing plan, she had no architect to design or build this proclaimed “wonder” course. The commission of a lifetime presented itself to MacKenzie at precisely the moment of his arrival on the West Coast.
While Sam Morse and others gave credit to the welltraveled Marion Hollins for providing the introduction to Dr. MacKenzie, it should be noted that Robert Hunter was already a Pebble Beach resident whose own book on golf course architecture, The Links, was published in early 1926 and who was well-known in California golf. The Club’s original prospectus describes the transition quite matter-of-factly, “The land was first laid out for a golf links by Mr. Seth Raynor, Associate Golf Architect with Mr. Charles B. Macdonald. After Mr. Raynor’s death, Miss Hollins was fortunate in securing the services of Dr. Alister MacKenzie of England to complete the plan of the links.”
No known record exists of the invitation Marion Hollins made to MacKenzie or Hunter in the winter of 1926, but whatever the circumstances resulting in the hiring of MacKenzie, it is the fortuitous timing of his arrival, in combination with everything he professed to believe about the importance of naturalism in golf course design, that makes his engagement feel slightly more providential than coincidental. MacKenzie wrote in his posthumously published book, The Spirit of St.
Andrews, “The chief object of every golf architect or greenkeeper worth his salt is to imitate the beauties of nature so closely as to make his work indistinguishable from Nature herself.” At Cypress Point, Dr. MacKenzie would have an ideal laboratory to test his theory.
As MacKenzie began his work at Cypress Point, he inherited from Raynor a preliminary 18-hole routing plan dating from the prior February (see p. 62). In the span of just a few days from February 2nd to 9th — among visits to other courses in the area — MacKenzie and Hunter made significant modifications to Raynor’s routing. They abandoned a number of Raynor’s early concepts and added a topographical routing that better incorporated Cypress Point’s distinctive dune landscapes into the playing experience (see p. 178). Their new routing focused on bringing a greater concentration of holes intersecting multiple times with a central land feature — in this case a dune that became home to the 7th, 8th and 9th holes (see p. 192) — a routing strategy found on subsequent MacKenzie and Hunter courses like The Valley Club. Next came the sophisticated design of the holes themselves, clearly detailed in MacKenzie’s own hand (see p. 196).
Above: Alister MacKenzie inscribed a copy of his book Golf Architecture as a gift to the Cypress Point Club on the occasion of the opening of the clubhouse, September 20, 1930
That undated draft plan is believed to have followed the 1926 visit because it features intricate shapes for greens, bunkers and fairway contours that were reproduced in an aerial map dated 1926 published in the Club’s original prospectus (see p. 160). “This aeroplane [sic] view of the proposed course was drawn by Albert Barrows,” a caption in the prospectus explained, “from the sketches and plans prepared by Dr. MacKenzie.” The 1926 date on the Barrows map means this early drawing had to have been completed prior to MacKenzie’s second visit — which was not until February 1927, following his famous tour of Australia — when he and Hunter met again to plan the construction of the course slated to begin later that year.
MacKenzie was famously photographed by Julian Graham playing the completed course (see p. 200). Within a few months of that visit, MacKenzie had relocated to California to undertake the building of Pasatiempo, which opened in September 1929. The press reported that Cypress Point Club had made him an honorary member.
By the time of MacKenzie’s third visit to Cypress Point in January 1928, construction had been ongoing since October 1927 under the direction of Robert Hunter and his team (see profile p. 195), with all eighteen greens shaped and ready for seeding. A year later, during his fourth recorded visit to the Monterey Peninsula,
MacKenzie attended the opening of the Cypress Point clubhouse on September 20, 1930, at which he presented a signed copy of his book Golf Architecture (opposite), inscribed, “With best wishes from the Author, Sept 1930, Cypress Point Club, Pebble Beach, California.” In the years leading up to his death in Santa Cruz on January 6, 1934, as noted in the club’s daily registers, he would visit the club regularly.
Nearly a century after his death, increasing numbers of publications chronicle the life, works and writings of Dr. Alister MacKenzie. He is justifiably celebrated for his pinnacle achievements at Cypress Point, Royal Melbourne, and Augusta National, among dozens of other leading courses in Great Britain, Ireland, Australia,
Above: Hilda and Alister Mackenzie on the fifteenth green, 1930
178 and North and South America. His courses on four continents are memorialized by the Alister MacKenzie Society, even though he never saw many of them completed. He died in relative financial distress, unable to collect fees on several prominent commissions due to the Great Depression.
In the mid-1970s, Lewis Lapham, son of Cypress Point co-founder Roger Lapham and himself a member, developed an interest in recalling memories from when he was a young man, having helped MacKenzie determine the position of tees during construction. He wrote to leading architects and figures throughout golf, like Clifford Roberts and Robert Trent Jones, to begin preparing an early history of Cypress Point. This history was later assembled in part by his brother, Roger Lapham Jr., and published by the club in 1996 (see p. 285). Along the way, Lewis assisted Herbert Warren Wind with an article published in The New Yorker around the 1981 Walker Cup. Lapham also supplied his research files to the USGA
for a profile of MacKenzie that featured on the cover of Golf Journal in April 1977.
At the time, as Lapham discovered, information on MacKenzie was scant. “I have been interested in MacKenzie ever since I met him in 1928 or ’29,” Lapham wrote to a fellow member in April 1980. “I would make you a small bet right now that at least half the members don’t know who laid out the course.”
At that time, course designers from the so-called “Golden Age” of the 1920s had become unfashionable when compared with contemporary architects. Lapham claimed in a 1972 letter to British golf journalist Henry Longhurst that he was only able to name three courses in America associated with MacKenzie. Later, when writing to P. J. Boatwright, former executive director of the USGA, Lapham mentioned Frank Hannigan’s 1974 Golf Journal profile of A.W. Tillinghast — now credited with starting a revival of interest in that period of architecture — hoping Hannigan “might have run across the MacKenzie trail.”
Following the 1981 Walker Cup, appreciation for MacKenzie’s work at Cypress Point and elsewhere revived. The Classics of Golf, led by publisher Robert MacDonald and editor Herb Wind, reprinted a facsimile of MacKenzie’s Golf Architecture in 1986, with a memorable afterword by Lapham. In his recollections, Lapham described how he worked with MacKenzie to determine distances for various tees following construction. “Sometime during the summer of 1929,” Lapham had written to a friend in 1978, “after
Above: Alister and Hilda MacKenzie first stayed in the Cypress Point clubhouse on October 18, 1930. They occupied Room 3.
the greens and fairways were planted, the traps dug, etc., MacKenzie had still not finally decided on his tee sites at these holes. Anyway, he got me out every morning for a week or so in that summer of 1929 to hit trial balloons for him.”
The creation of the Alister MacKenzie Society in 1987 was soon enhanced by the discovery and 1995 publication of MacKenzie’s lost manuscript, The Spirit of St. Andrews. Then came volumes by Geoff Shackelford (2000) titled Alister MacKenzie’s Cypress Point Club and a 2001 biography by Tom Doak, Dr. James Scott and Raymond Haddock called The Life and Work of Dr. Alister MacKenzie. In 2020, Josh Petit published an anthology called The MacKenzie Reader, and in 2024 Australian historian Neil Crafter published an illustrated anthology called The Good Doctor’s Prescriptions, with other volumes proposed to follow.
A century after Alister MacKenzie designed Cypress Point with Robert Hunter, surely every member now knows who the architect of their course is, with historic photographs of the architect and his creation present throughout the clubhouse. The publications chronicling MacKenzie’s ideas, writings and contributions, and meetings of the MacKenzie Society at Cypress Point in 2007 and 2024, encourage an ongoing appreciation for what MacKenzie himself said of Cypress Point upon its completion.
“Not only is it the best golfing terrain I’ve ever had to deal with,” MacKenzie wrote for The Fairway, a Californiabased golf magazine in November 1928, “but it is the only course I’ve ever been associated with which has given
me complete satisfaction in regard to the details of the construction work.”
“For years,” as MacKenzie concluded in that same article, “I have been contending that in our generation no other golf course could possibly compete with the strategic problems, the thrills, excitement, variety, and lasting and increasing interest of the Old Course, but the completion of Cypress Point has made me change my mind.”
At the time of MacKenzie’s passing in January 1934, Herb Graffis wrote in Golfdom magazine, “You’re taking a long chance when you say a man was the ‘greatest’ artist in any line, but there are plenty who would hang ‘greatest’ on Alister Mackenzie as a golf architect and hold up their end of any ensuing argument.”
Dr. Alister MacKenzie was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2005. Marion Hollins joined him when she became a member of the Class of 2021.
Above: Alister MacKenzie’s beloved DeSoto Six convertible accompanied him wherever he went, even overseas to the United Kingdom.
The eighth fairway as viewed from the third green
The third hole, 1929
This is the essence of strategic architecture. To have success the golfer must pay the price eventually; when he or she chooses to do so is entirely up to the individual, as stated by the eighth of MacKenzie’s famous thirteen principles:
“There should be a sufficient number of heroic carries from the tee, but the course should be arranged so that the weaker player with the loss of a stroke or portion of a stroke shall always have an alternative route open to him.”
DR. ALISTER MACKENZIE, GOLF ARCHITECTURE, 1920
Of the fourteen holes beyond Seventeen Mile Drive from the clubhouse, all employ a common feature: playing to a green set near a dune, or from a tee set on a dune. The lone exception is the forested fifth hole at the far end of the property, as every other hole plays to or from the opening Fan Shell Dune or the Central Dune that crests above the ninth green.
When walking along the second or third holes the golfer is introduced to the full scope of the dunescape looming to the north across the valley. Taking in the breadth of the feature and seeing a ribbon of green fairway on the eighth hole may lead the observant player to wonder, “How am I going to I make my way up there? Or, “Is that as wild as it looks from down here?”
The third hole provides the first transition point to a new environment, leading the golfer fully into the woods, though not before being introduced to the Central Dune looming behind the green. The course becomes quieter at this point. From the tee, you often don’t feel the prevailing wind coming up the ravine that pushes tee shots into the bunkers right of the third green, nor do you hear the ocean so clearly as you did on the second tee. Here, the golfer enjoys the last meaningful glimpse of the sea until the seventh tee, emphasizing a shift into a new landscape.
Going into the forest the attentive golfer begins to pay greater notice to MacKenzie’s intricate bunkering schemes. The Monterey Cypress trees surrounding the third green take on shapes not unlike the bunkers — irregularly formed with extending fingers; silhouettes of steely gray-white
seth raynor’s proposed routing 1925
The original routing of Cypress Point proposed by Seth Raynor in 1925 has remained in the Club’s archives. History may only presume how different the course’s features might have been under Raynor’s direction, but the two architects adopted differing approaches to routing the inland holes at Cypress Point.
MacKenzie placed four holes (1, 2, 13, 14) on Fan Shell Dune to begin, whereas Raynor’s “first nine holes will lead into the virgin forest.”
MacKenzie used the Central Dune that crests above the 9th green to affect play on nine individual holes. Details of property lines shifted prior to construction, but Raynor elected to route more holes deeper into the forest in a distinctive “W,” largely avoiding the Central Dune, only engaging with it on two holes — his 9th and 10th.
Both MacKenzie and Raynor chose to route the ocean holes counterclockwise around Cypress Point to finish, mirroring the natural locations of the 14th through the 18th holes.
tale of the tape
In March 1927, before construction on Cypress Point began later that October Alister MacKenzie described the key design features he found in his “golf ideal.”
Seth Raynor’s proposed routing from February 1925 chose to go “along mountains of that glorious white sand” rather than over them.
skirting the sea
MacKenzie: Five Holes
14, 15, 16, 17, 18
Raynor: Five Holes 14, 15, 16, 17, 18
the pine woods
MacKenzie: Five Holes 4, 5, 6, 10, 11
Raynor: Ten Holes
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
greens in dunes
MacKenzie: Eight Holes 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13
Raynor: Three Holes 9, 12, 13
surrounded by a green fringe. Cypress Point’s most artistic bunkers occur in the forest, not in the dunes or by the sea. The possible exception to this comes at two of the most photographed holes, the thirteenth and the fifteenth, so frequently documented perhaps because they display both beautiful bunkering and a striking seaside setting.
“We removed about fifteen acres more of trees than were necessary from a golfing point of view,” MacKenzie wrote in 1928, “for the purpose of opening out fresh vistas to the ocean and sand dunes, and increasing the beauties of the place.”
Despite being fully enclosed in the forest, the golfer sees nothing but sand from the fourth and fifth tees — with little fairway to suggest the way. Yet standing on the green of each hole and looking back, as members frequently point out to guests, one can see nothing but fairway — with no bunkers
Alister MacKenzie playing the fifth hole, 1928
in the woods, a place where the temperature always seems warmer than on the ocean holes, where wildlife appears more prevalent. Instead of the coastal cypress hunkered low against the elements, the slender, vertical Monterey pine dominates. There’s a freshness of the pine needles that the sea air masks when closer to the water. This may seem like familiar golf that can be found elsewhere, yet the artistry of the bunkers and contouring of the greens reminds golfers they are in an unusual place.
Three of the par-5s come early, from the second through the sixth holes. However, in Mac-Kenzie and Hunter’s initial routing they did not intend to have consecutive par-5s. Their original sixth hole was meant to be a par-3, according to the prospectus, where, “From the sixth tee the player drives directly into the face of one of these magnificent white mountains of sand.” This changed during construction when Hunter and MacKenzie realized the property lines allowed them to position the seventh green even further up into the dunescape than once thought, which allowed for
Following pages: The sixth and seventh holes
The fifth hole
the addition of a sharply angled carry on the tee shot of the short par-4 eighth, transforming the hole and adding greatly to its strategic challenge. The consequence was that the sixth hole now stretched down to meet the Central Dune, creating a new green site at its base, thus altering it from a one-shot hole to a second consecutive three-shot hole.
Like the third, the sixth provides a transition moment, leaving the forest and establishing the first real introduction to the Central Dune as a fulcrum point around which half the holes pivot. Though there was an initial taste of this dune on the third hole, it now looms front and center, with its wall of sand behind the green leading to the true dunescape that begins at the seventh.
A glimpse toward the ocean through the saddle of the dune at the back of the seventh tee reveals the shared fairways of the eighth and ninth holes, and a preview of how you are meant to navigate the dunes you first saw from the second fairway. This is also how you will make your return to the sea at the thirteenth. Here you are introduced to the novel smell of the dunes, with their aromatic decay fed by new species of plants and shrubs like juniper. There’s a peculiar scent that distinguishes this area from the forest. The sea air returns for the first time since you last sensed it on third green, mixing with the continual decomposition of the flora unique to the dunes.
A veteran caddie once said the greatest golf shot he ever saw at Cypress Point came after Jim Langley, the golf professional from 1971 to 2005, hit an uncommonly bad tee shot on the par-3 seventh that somehow ended up in one of the fairway bunkers down to the right on the sixth hole. Forced to play golf with only one functioning arm as a result of his car accident in 1987, Langley then played his second shot, one handed, out of the sixth bunker up to the seventh green, leaving the ball stone dead to secure his par. Being a one-armed golfer may have caused Jim to hit a horrible tee-shot, but being a one-armed golfer made it possible for him to hit the most improbable of recovery shots.
Unexpected crescendos are constantly occurring in MacKenzie’s routing. Everything builds. At first a feature appears from afar. Then you encounter it. Then you have to tackle it before departing, perhaps to return.
The routing introduces and re-introduces you to the golf course multiple times, all of which is in preparation for the point to come.
On the eighth tee, the golfer is only two greens removed from the forested fifth, yet feels transported to a comprehensively different environment. The smells are different, the views are different. Prior to this moment the golfer has seen the dunes, and subsequently tasted and smelled the dunes, but now is left with no choice but to take on the dunes. The distant ridge on the second hole provides perspective for the forced carry of the tee shot. There is composed layering and camouflage at work. Unlike the more framed surrounds of the forest, the land from up here appears to be moving in so many directions.
The rustic qualities of the course’s features (right) complement MacKenzie’s natural design motifs. Intricate branches become fences and railings. Stumps are repurposed as retaining walls. Half-sawn tree trunks are transformed into benches. Rather than relying on manufactured elements, the illusion of naturalism continues beyond the design of the course. Just as MacKenzie sought to shape the land so the hand of man would be indistinguishable from nature, presenting the built environment as plausibly natural perpetuates this ideal.
The left side of the eighth green is one of the few areas of putting green on the course that has minimal contour or slope. This is because it was originally built as the ninth tee (above), before that particular tee was relocated down and to the right in 1963 to offer greater protection from incoming shots to the eighth, with that section then incorporated into the eighth green. The back right lobe of the green, lost to the encroaching dunes over time, was restored in the mid-1980s.
The celebrated dune holes provide an exhilarating and largely foreign environment unlike anything in American parkland golf. Holes seven, eight and nine as created by MacKenzie were never part of Raynor’s preliminary routing.
Only two of Raynor’s proposed holes played to or from the Central Dune. By comparison, MacKenzie’s final routing identified nine holes, fully half the course, that in some way engage the Central Dune as a feature. This dune creates a kind of Maginot line, running vertically north-south
Above left: Alister MacKenzie and companions playing the eighth hole, 1928. Above right: The ninth green, 1928
Above middle: A photo recreation of the combined eight and ninth holes, with Alister MacKenzie on the ninth tee, 1928
from the third green through to the seventh green. Everything east of this line plays as forest; everything west plays as dune. At the midway point in the round, from the tenth tee one can see portions of fourteen holes, or every hole inland of Seventeen Mile Drive.
A close analysis of the design of Cypress Point begs the question whether the course is ultimately about the dramatic, truly original holes along the point or whether there is some mystery to discover among the more conventional inland holes that have a kind of hidden genius to them? The objective answer is that Cypress Point really is about the dramatic holes yet to come — the holes that could exist nowhere else. But the more familiar holes, and especially the dune holes, have a role to play in preparing the dramatic holes to shine. All great compositions need space to breathe.
MacKenzie and Hunter’s original routing of the course proposed both the second and twelfth holes as par-5s, chewing up the maximum amount of land on arguably the least interesting portion
mackenzie’s central dune
THE NINTH HOLE is not only one of the world’s great short par-4s, it is the site of a design element central to Alister MacKenzie and Robert Hunter’s inspired routing of the inland holes at Cypress Point. Nine holes, fully half the course, in some way play to, from or across this natural dune feature. From the tenth tee (right) at the top of the dune, the eagle-eyed golfer can spot portions of all fourteen holes on the inland side of Seventeen Mile Drive. The round’s midway point presents both panoramic views and a moment to reflect on how MacKenzie’s routing and construction techniques allowed Cypress Point’s golf holes to merge seamlessly with their setting, making it indistinguishable where the hand of man began.
features that engage mackenzie & hunter’s central dune ridge
Half the holes at Cypress Point — four greens and five tees — play to, from, or across the Central Dune that crests at the marked spot above the ninth green.
third green
The golfer’s introduction to the dune looms large behind the green.
fourth tee
From the base of the dune the golfer departs for the forest.
sixth green
Here the golfer appreciates the full span of the dune’s width.
seventh tee
The first of three tees sited atop the dune ridge.
eighth fairway
Ambitious golfers must challenge the long carry over the dune.
ninth green
The climax of the dune’s routing, to a naturally sited green.
tenth tee
From the most elevated tee, broad views frame a dramatic shot.
eleventh green
A final encounter, playing into the face of the towering dune.
twelfth tee
From the dune’s southern edge the golfer returns to the sea.
The twelfth tee, 1929
of the property. Those holes were changed by Robert Hunter during construction as a result of the re-routing of Seventeen Mile Drive around the fourteenth green; the knock-on effect was that the thirteenth hole evolved from a par-3 to a par-4, and the twelfth became a two-shot hole with a green positioned further up into the dunes.
Upon returning to Fan Shell Beach at the thirteenth hole, the golfer’s senses have become attuned to having passed through constantly shifting environments. There’s a familiarity in being reacquainted with the smells and sights and sounds first encountered on the opening hole. However, the mellow intensity of these sensations in the shelter of Fan Shell Cove is often blown away by the strong breezes of Cypress Point itself.
The architects of Cypress Point, Alister MacKenzie and Robert Hunter, 1928
Robert Hunter
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Original Cypress Point routing, undated, with design features created following Hunter and MacKenzie’s first site visit in February 1926
ROBERT HUNTER
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ROBERT HUNTER
Robert Hunter to Sam Morse, regarding the re-routing of Seventeen Mile Drive and changes to the routing of holes twelve through fifteen, October 26, 1927
julian graham’s october foursome, 1928
Around the time he checked into The Lodge at Pebble Beach on October 4th, 1928 for a stay of several days, Dr. Alister MacKenzie and three companions played a famous round at Cypress Point, documented hole-by-hole by official Del Monte photographer Julian P. Graham (left). Accompanying MacKenzie were his design partner, Robert Hunter (pictured above, driving at the thirteenth hole), along with two Englishmen: G. C. Cassels and F. H. “Frank” Bickerton. A photograph of the foursome walking up the eighteenth fairway appeared in the November 1928 issue of The Fairway magazine (see p. 234). Cassels, manager of the Bank of Montreal in London, was in Pebble Beach accompanying Lady Mabel Coke, daughter of the Dowager Countess of Leicester, the kind of glamorous clientele Sam Morse
hoped to attract to Del Monte. Bickerton, a pioneering Antarctic explorer and early member of the Royal Air Force in World War I, became MacKenzie’s design associate at Pasatiempo. Beginning in the 1990s and continuing to the present, Graham’s numerous, detailed images of each hole from that day and other visits to Cypress Point, on display in the Locker Rooms and Morse Room, influenced restoration of the golf course.
As the official photographer of Del Monte Properties Company from 1924 to 1963, Graham’s first-hand record of the development of Pebble Beach through more than 40,000 photographs forms the lasting impressions of Sam Morse’s vision and people like those in MacKenzie’s October group who came from around the world. Graham’s legacy lives on through the active archive of his photography at Loon Hill Studios, which kindly provided permission for all the historic Graham photographs appearing in this book.
As the Cypress forest tightens near the approach to the fourteenth green, it not only becomes challenging to navigate, it pauses any expectations created by recent panoramic ocean views from the tee. Just for a moment, a new theme is introduced — one of the refuge experienced when passing through the narrow canopy of ancient trees that lend their name to this point of land. Even veteran members gape in astonishment at the sprawling tendrils of the Octopus tree, or pause to admire the strength of sentinel Cypresses overlooking Fan Shell Beach, trees from before recorded memory, long pre-dating the course itself. This theme of refuge is repeated on the walk to the fifteenth tee, the even-longer walk to the sixteenth hole, and the longest path of refuge of all, returning through an arboretum of specimens on the eighteenth hole below the clubhouse.
Yet despite the modern refuge present in the fairway, MacKenzie and Hunter intended the fourteenth green to be exposed to the ocean on all sides, as growth over time has obscured the view. For a golf course with an opening tee shot that carries over cars and buses on Seventeen Mile Drive,
Original sentinel Cypress trees on Fan Shell Beach overlook, with horse-drawn carriage resting, circa 1890s
there’s a surprisingly secure feeling one has within of the course. The challenge faced by MacKenzie, Hunter and Morse a century ago remains the same today: only on the fourteenth hole does one feel exposed to the steady stream of public access in a way that no other hole does, due to its proximity to the sharp curves of the road and the popularity of the parking area overlooking Fan Shell Beach. The hole features one of the few original MacKenzie bunkers that has not been restored, a central feature with a forced carry that affects primarily shorter hitters, which was removed in the mid-1960s.
On the inland side of Seventeen Mile Drive everything seems to be quieter, warmer.
The eye is drawn to artistic bunkers, undulating greens and ribbon fairways. You tend to see docile animals at leisure, wandering through an enchanted forest with golf holes like those you think you know, but somehow quite different. Once you cross the road from fourteen to fifteen and turn the corner out by the ocean, every bit of stimulation that preceded suddenly falls away as the dial is turned up to maximum sensory overload.
The fourteenth green and Fan Shell Beach overlook, exposed to the sea, 1929
“Cypress Point is a dream — spectacular, perfectly designed and set about white sand dunes and a cobalt sea, and studded with the Monterey Cypress so bewilderingly picturesque that it seems to have been the crystalization of the dreams of an artist who has been drinking gin and sobering up on absinthe.”
O.B. KEELER
Rounding the corner, you catch your first full glimpse of the grandeur of Cypress Point in the distance, before your eyes turn to the intimacy of the fifteenth green, nestled in a cove in the foreground. The temperature drops as the warmth of the forest subsides and the chill of the sea air pervades. The deep blue that was once in the distance now surrounds you. The waves become louder and bigger, the wind blows harder. You strain to raise your voice so your companions can hear you.
The life of the forest is replaced by the life of the ocean. Bobbing seals, barking sea lions, floating pelicans and black oyster catchers. Ice plant. Cypress. Granite cliffs. The smell of kelp. The taste of iodine. Everything heightens. Somehow, despite every effort to the contrary, anticipation has been building, rising to match the waves. Is there anything that can fully prepare you for what you experience when you cross the road?
The road is one of the many forced pauses on the golf course that provide the opportunity to reflect, if interested, on what you’ve just experienced and what you are about to encounter. Having a path that long gives you time to think. Not only are you arriving upon a famous scene. This is a pivotal moment in the round, in a match, in a first-timer’s experience. It comes far enough into the round to allow the golfing nerves to have settled but not so close to the end that you miss the opportunity to savor it all. Cypress Point has a reputation for being a well-routed course in the sense that each tee is as close to the previous green as is reasonable. In some instances, the tees are immediately adjacent, like on Fan Shell Dune or in the forest. In some instances, there’s a transition from one feature to another, allowing the golfer to climb a ridge to gain a view or enter a new environment.
When such transitions occur, a moment of pause prepares you for what you’re about to experience. They’re such different stories, each hole, each mood.
Approaching the lower tee on the fifteenth, the first cue that you’ve arrived is the sight of a rustic wood railing. The sharpest curve on Seventeen Mile Drive occurs between the fourteenth and fifteenth holes.
Though made of natural parts, it was still assembled by man. Defining the cliff’s edge may be a safety issue but it is done with sympathy to its surrounds. So many other choices could have been made for a railing, but every other approach would seem to be wrong, marring the landscape and distracting from the thrill of the setting. The fifteenth is really the only hole where you can’t see any other hole being played. It exudes intimacy.
For all the justifiable praise the short fifteenth receives for its beauty, an overlooked aspect is that the tee shot many golfers play into the green is not one Alister MacKenzie ever knew. The original tee on the upper portion of the cliff plays as more of a drop-shot pitch than the longer, flatter shot from the 1950s-era tee. Equally, it’s a different sensory experience. Instead of walking around the corner from Fan Shell Beach and seeing Cypress Point in the distance, the original experience approached the fifteenth tee from the cliff above, not around, introducing the golfer to the grove of the fifteenth green, and only then to the distant point beyond.
It’s quieter on the upper tee. More refined, more arranged. The lower tee is raw, more exposed. The upper tee feels like a golf hole that was composed. The lower tee feels like playing from the edge of the earth. It’s a subtle difference, but a different experience, and a different emphasis because of the sequence of what is revealed.
The fifteenth hole being so much shorter than the sixteenth makes the same basic shot — a carry across the precipice of a great ocean — less daunting. This invites the golfer to summon courage with an iron in hand rather than be overwhelmed by the immense challenge of doing so with a wooden club. From the forested quiet to the roaring surf, the decibel levels of the different environments change dramatically as you move through the property. Part of the necessity of having experienced Fan Shell Dune, going into the woods, and then traipsing across the dunescape, is to prepare you for an environment where words can’t capture the grandeur or the spectacle of the point.
Alister MacKenzie overlooking the fifteenth green, 1928
Many golfers who walk along the path to the sixteenth tee for the first time are silent.
There’s a sense of apprehension, as you really can’t understand the scale of what you’re about to witness, even though you’ve had hints of it. You may have seen countless pictures or videos, but then you come around the corner and see the immense challenge and beauty of the moment, the confluence of ambitions, man-made and natural. There’s nothing like it. When the waves are climbing the cliff walls, or the pelicans are circling, or the sea lions are barking, it only gets better.
The sixteenth is the opposite of the fifteenth in so many ways. There is nothing intimate about it. It is the essence of grandeur. If you hit the shot the way you want to, and hit it well, it creates the most beautiful tracer to follow. What could be more thrilling than to see the line of the ball as it chases toward a target across the water?
This is such a photographed place because there are so many elements present. The depth and layering of rock as you approach the green. When big waves are rolling in, it appears as though the green is surrounded by whitewater. The sea arch to the left causes water to shoot up. There’s usually wildlife floating everywhere and amongst the turmoil you see otters or seals playing like schoolchildren. It’s one of those few places where you don’t have to know what you’re doing to take a good photograph. There’s so much to look at. Your eye can’t possibly take it all in, so you rely on the camera to do the work for you. The goal of a great photograph is to overwhelm the senses and create awe — “Can you believe this exists?” — the image presses us to ask.
Though the setting could never be created by a human, it is a testament to the idea that when people do their best to partner with the land, it can inspire others to want to experience that place — and to ensure that such a rare setting remains intact. So many circumstances had to line up, so many historical contingencies had to click into place for a century’s worth of golfers to be able to stand in that one place and hit a shot out across and over the edge of the ocean — it’s staggering to contemplate the unlikelihood of it.
Yet a few golfers, at a key moment in time, understood how good it could be.
To give honor where it is due, I must say that, except for the minor details in construction, I was in no way responsible for the 16th hole.
It was largely due to the vision of Miss Marion Hollins.
It was suggested to her by the late Seth Raynor that it was a pity the carry over the ocean was too long to enable a hole to be designed on this particular site.
Miss Hollins said she did not think it was an impossible carry.
She then teed up a ball and drove to the middle of the site for the suggested green.”
DR. ALISTER MACKENZIE
The scale of the space is so much bigger than we are, both of the golf course and of nature itself, that the only understandable feeling, the only relatable feeling, is one of being grateful to be here. We today have the good fortune that those few people came before us, and did what they did at a time when they could, because it’s likely they could not do so again. They had a window of opportunity and seized it, before it closed. The best thing about many of our favorite places — in golf as in life — is that they could never be recreated today.
So much emphasis is placed on the sixteenth tee shot, but being on the sixteenth green may actually be the most under-ratedly wonderful place on the course. After all, what’s more implausible? That you get to hit a shot from the sixteenth tee to the sixteenth green, or that you can actually stand on the sixteenth green playing golf? At this moment, you haven’t yet hit the tee shot on seventeen, so you don’t have to leave the point. You’ve managed to negotiate the great fear of the tee shot. You’re just on the point, surrounded by nothing but ocean, trying to get the ball into the hole.
How implausible is that?
The sixteenth hole, 1929
The Sixteenth Hole
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Holes in One on the sixteenth at Cypress Point
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Original proposed scorecard, 1928
Standing on the seventeenth tee elevates grandeur into spectacle. The dramatic coastline of Big Sur looming to the south, the pelicans, the marine life, the yelps of sea-born mammals, the avian smells, the utter remoteness of it all is neither intimate nor grand — it is a breathtaking spectacle the greatest artists could never create. After all this, how could you not be emotionally spent?
Beginning the course with the elements of sea and sand, the senses are invigorated. Venturing deep into a forest you encounter some of the most beautiful bunkering and green contours you could ever see, even if there’s no ocean. Then you are thrust into a lunar dunescape that makes you wonder how someone could ever fashion a golf course upon it. A final taste of the forest, a final taste of the dunes, a final encounter with the sheltered cove, and then exposure to the point. At first, an intimate experience, followed by an expression of grandeur you’ve long anticipated, and then the sheer spectacle of playing the seventeenth hole.
The seventeenth hole
Above: Photograph in January 1925 edition of The American Golfer featuring a marker placed for the eighteenth tee on a rock outcropping
Below: G.C. Cassels, Frank Bickerton (driving), Robert Hunter and Alister MacKenzie on the eventual eighteenth tee, October 1928
From the earliest days of the idea for the club, the final punctuation mark on the golf course was intended to be a tee shot unlike any in the world. Coming first with the preliminary routing by Seth Raynor in February 1925, then subsequently endorsed by Alister MacKenzie in February 1926, both architects wanted their eighteenth hole to begin on a rocky outcropping some fifty yards off shore, in the middle of the ocean cliffs. Such an audacious idea was only possible at the irrationally exuberant height of the Roaring ‘20s.
The first photo of a proposed tee appeared in The American Golfer issue of December 1925, with a caption that read, “A golf architect has just erected a little marker. It looks like a stick at the top of a stony cliff at the right, and it denotes the location of the eighteenth tee of the new Cypress Club course. Here’s happiness for the golfer who loves a seething sea and a rock-bound coast.” Two bridge designs to access such a tee were proposed as late as October 1931 — a suspension bridge and a pier bridge — though due to the financial challenges of the club at the time, nothing was ever built. Nor is it certain, had it been built, that it would have survived the frequent winter coastal storms.
a bridge too far
“I also recall before the links were finally laid out, spending a whole day with Chan Egan, Mackenzie and Bob Hunter, trying to figure out how the last four holes should be laid out. We had Chan driving to and fro in all directions; decided the 16th hole couldn’t be improved upon, the 17th was good and if the 18th was a bit weak, what the hell. We even thought of building a bridge 50 yards beyond the present 18th tee to lengthen that hole.”
ROGER LAPHAM, PERSONAL MEMORANDUM, 1963
What makes for a fitting conclusion to the golf course that is worthy of the name of the Cypress Point Club? It would seem require as the key feature the presence of Cupressus macrocarpa, the species of tree that occurs in its greatest native density on this piece of land. Bringing the golfer home is a return into the woods, into the refuge of the forest and the confines of the clubhouse itself.
The sculptural beauty of the trees on the eighteenth hole may prove maddening on occasion for golfers, but they are inspirational works of Gothic natural art. After the heightened thrills of the point, it would be easy to fall asleep on the final hole. Precision and patience, not stimulation, are what is required to secure a match.
Many dramatic points of land jut out into an ocean. However, only one, for more than 250 years, has been known as Cypress Point. What gives that point of land its distinctive name is the grove of Monterey Cypress, a forest of refuge that the golfer returns to once again on the final hole.
Can a golf course be as enjoyable to walk without golf clubs as it is to walk with them? If you are a member or a guest of the Cypress Point Club you already know the answer is yes.
Above, opposite and following pages: Details of Monterey Cypress and clubhouse, with historic photograph of Alister MacKenzie and companions playing the eighteenth hole, 1928
leaders & characters
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Left: Frank D. “Sandy” Tatum Jr. labeled Cypress Point “The Sistine Chapel of Golf” in the early 1970s
Right: The director’s chairs behind the first tee are a tradition dating back to the Raincheck tournaments of the 1940s
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It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem.
Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat
magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur? It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur? Ibus maio volendunt elit volor maxim dolupidel etus net ommodicid quidest quae pra voluptatur rest, commolum fuga. Necum etur, sita sitaquia vollaccusa sunt dolorep restia ni que ex ero evenet eiur? Serrovid et quis et que consequo conserro corepudic tet molorpor autem. Leseraerest, sequidebit, corepuda ducient voluptios dis seniminciis alitiis tiorionse exerspe volorec tureici odignih illabor umquis dem alitibus dolorem conserupta natem ut prae velis voluptiist, volo te arum atatem velitis tioriIt que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem.
Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur?
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem
reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature
name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur? Ibus maio volendunt elit volor maxim dolupidel etus net ommodicid quidest quae pra voluptatur rest, commolum fuga. Necum etur, sita sitaquia vollaccusa sunt dolorep restia ni que ex ero evenet eiur? Serrovid et quis et que consequo conserro corepudic tet molorpor autem. Leseraerest, sequidebit, corepuda ducient voluptios dis seniminciis alitiis tiorionse exerspe volorec tureici odignih illabor umquis dem alitibus dolorem conserupta natem ut prae velis voluptiist, volo te arum atatem velitis tiori
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur?
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque
atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum laborerum et vent, esedis aliquam hici aute audae.
ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati
dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur? Ibus maio volendunt elit volor maxim dolupidel etus net ommodicid quidest quae pra voluptatur rest, commolum fuga. Necum etur, sita sitaquia vollaccusa sunt dolorep restia ni que ex ero evenet eiur? Serrovid et quis et que consequo conserro corepudic tet molorpor autem. Leseraerest, sequidebit, corepuda ducient voluptios dis seniminciis alitiis tiorionse exerspe volorec tureici odignih illabor umquis dem alitibus dolorem conserupta natem ut prae velis voluptiist, volo te arum atatem velitis tiori
Urerfern
Ommo cum venimus,
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati
Head professional Henry Puget and Hank Ketcham, artist and creator of a tribute to Clark “Boney” Bearden, 1997
temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur? It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti.
One of two sketches by Hank Ketcham displayed in the halfway house at the eleventh tee
A non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur? R Ibus maio volendunt elit volor maxim dolupidel etus net ommodicid quidest quae pra voluptatur rest, commolum fuga. Necum etur, sita sitaquia vollaccusa sunt dolorep restia ni que ex ero evenet eiur? Serrovid et quis et que consequo conserro. Serrovid et quis et que consequo conserro. It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. 249
caretakers & caddies
DUMMY FOR THE CHAPTER Ibus maio volendunt elit volor maxim dolupidel etus net
ommodicid quidest quae pra voluptatur rest, commolum fuga. Necum etur, sita sitaquia vollaccusa sunt dolorep restia ni que ex ero evenet eiur? Serrovid et quis et que consequo conserro corepudic tet molorpor autem. Leseraerest, sequidebit, corepuda ducient voluptios dis seniminciis alitiis tiorionse exerspe volorec tureici odignih illabor umquis dem alitibus dolorem conserupta natem ut prae velis voluptiist, volo te arum atatem velitis tiori
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur?
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se
Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum laborerum et vent, esedis aliquam
Jim Langley
THE CHAPTER et ad qui simin nonsed quibus accae nobitio officitam volupta vit, qui omnimin totaspedis doloribus in nihillessi as soloriam re velluptatur? Qui coriorese nimus inctassi num ea siminvelia enimend ipsunditam quis nessi quodi num eos essi dis incid quatem ad ulles inte nonempe lectiis veris eum es nonsequam facest eum ipietur?
jim langley
Vendis et late et alita nimod magnam eos necto ommo blatur reicabores erspere consequatur, nus.
Rum ius sus isqui ut haribus.
Idit, con corem. Et ea ius es comnia simpor autecea preictatus pa nobit, quae pellest et int, vitae. Nem. Nam es del im sedissequid mos sum, nonsenis asimagni velluptas serios sequid que net harum eaquis essitem rerchil laborep ersped magnimin rem facitat eceperi beatem que asimolectati nus ento que nonse exere idi ulparum ulpa quisimi llaborem ent.
Rorum quasi aditatus que preiurem rerovit ionecup taspero maximus ad earios sinis vidus nimpores eum vendae nis dolupta pelent int, odit utatus atquas eum acia consequi ut voluptati aut erfero dolecto rundicimi, nos incia coritaque similisquam repersp erorrore vidias re vent volenimi, atum imusapisquia quam alignat quid modicitas aut reiciet pore, coribus aut mi, ipsaepratiis sinulla borporeici consectorem nulpa dolo corum laborat uribus pores eum re nonet, utae nisinvel maio. Evelibusam ad es et et quae natur aut eos quiassundi dolupta iur? Rum volorerae. Ratecti inis in coreium aboriatentus serum con rem.
Tum nulpa dolo molupta simusa volupta sinctibus ditaquia que soluptus modias simendam rem quaes ius non re es dus.
Et maiorporem volorupta sitia eris
Bus ereic to ent, sitiore cuscil eumendundem fugiam arci si que num eturemporit quasit eum cus.
Im sequibusae lant ut es ullaccusae iniet estions equiber natur? Quis quodipi tatectemos estis es ipitis aped et il intum venihit platur, apicia pro dolo dem aut audam fuga. Cidel eicia nobitatio blacero reroriossi tem ini sus, tem.
aut quam nimus, nihicimillam aut volectust landundi qui volorer spisiti ut ratus deroreh endelessume cuptat ut aciet, qui dolorem qui blaccat emolorestia nat a quodi abo. Neque verum litam fuga. Ro odipis as maximi, optatent antecabore impor magni berupta cum audae conse sum elibus aut venimpo ssendi ipidipsa volo di beruptiis re prori as eum accaeceperum evendustia dunt.
Sum quatenest in consequia doluptatur sum aspicit,
simpori onestiones cus escias excepelentem quas iliamusdae.
Rae consed utem aborumendis essim acea eum velliquo vit
illaut re praes dolupta eprae. Impore volorpos untis aut elibus magnamendant doluptat eum inum eum inci volenis coratiu mendus erum acculligenis nobitis ma sectotas eturit alibus aut ex evellor atectore vel everferemque plic to omnihic ienieni scitae vit pa veles quis arumquatur am faciunt exerro odit abo. Ut et aut ipsuntis accum doluptatures eos earum quam qui rem iuntemp oruptatem repuditat.
Ihicill ecture lis volupta iunt.
Uptae volore cus ab isimper natium re etus di nonesse pel Et maiorporem volorupta sitia eris aut quam nimus, ni-
hicimillam aut volectust landundi qui volorer spisiti ut ratus deroreh endelessume cuptat ut aciet, qui dolorem qui blaccat emolorestia nat a quodi abo. Neque verum litam fuga. Ro odipis as maximi, optatent antecabore impor magni berupta cum audae conse sum elibus aut venimpo ssendi ipidipsa volo di beruptiis re prori as eum accaeceperum evendustia dunt.
Et maiorporem volorupta sitia eris aut quam nimus, nihicimillam aut volectust landundi qui volorer spisiti ut ratus deroreh endelessume cuptat ut aciet, qui dolorem qui blaccat emolorestia nat a quodi abo. Neque verum litam fuga.
Ro odipis as maximi, optatent antecabore impor magni.
Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum laborerum et vent,
sam’s special
Faceatur restiore iumquos autem dollant.
It et denihit es derios est, conest, eos consent.
Odi corio. Itatias doloritatem delestrum am que doluptur, eatias earionem enda comnihiciis sincia dic to beaque sitatus apedignis dolupid usaperspero tem volest, non est, quis es dolorrumquia cusant, corundae nonsequo tempor soloreprat porerias si ipsum eaquunt erchic tem rem et voloreribus erati apic tet faceperis ari dernatur re velecte ssequunte volor ace
nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur? Ibus maio volendunt elit volor maxim dolupidel etus net ommodicid quidest quae pra voluptatur rest, commolum fuga. Necum etur, sita sitaquia vollaccusa sunt dolorep restia ni que ex ero evenet eiur? Serrovid et quis et que consequo conserro corepudic tet molorpor autem. Leseraerest, sequidebit, corepuda ducient voluptios dis seniminciis alitiis tiorionse exerspe volorec tureici odignih illabor umquis dem alitibus dolorem conserupta natem ut prae velis voluptiist, volo te arum atatem velitis tiori
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui
debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem.
Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur?
Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem.
Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur? R Ibus maio volendunt elit volor maxim dolupidel etus net ommodicid quidest quae pra voluptatur rest, commolum fuga. Necum etur, sita sitaquia vollaccusa sunt dolorep restia ni que ex ero evenet eiur? Serrovid et quis et que consequo conserro corepudic tet molorpor autem. Leseraerest, sequidebit, corepuda ducient voluptios dis seniminciis alitiis tiorionse exerspe volorec tureici odignih illabor umquis dem alitibus dolorem conserupta natem ut prae velis voluptiist, volo te arum atatem velitis tiori
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute
nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem
trum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati
dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati
temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur?
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem.
Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum
Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur?
Ibus maio volendunt elit volor maxim dolupidel etus net ommodicid quidest quae pra voluptatur rest, commolum fuga.
Necum etur, sita sitaquia vollaccusa sunt dolorep restia ni que ex ero evenet eiur? Serrovid et quis et que consequo conserro corepudic tet molorpor autem. Leseraerest, sequidebit, corepuda ducient voluptios dis seniminciis alitiis tiorionse exerspe
- 1935 - Greenkeeper Joe Benoit salary increased from $175 to $200 a month
Superintendent Jeff Markow and Golf Professional Jim Langley, circa 2006, studying Julian Graham’s original photographs to restore Dr. MacKenzie’s bunkers on the fifth hole
The Caddies
“Joey and Sam Solis are legends at Cypress Point. Joey was the power behind-the-scenes, the ‘king maker’ in so many ways. His brother Sam was the general manager in the clubhouse. The Solis Brothers had a lot to do with how the club was run.” – Jim Langley
WORKING FROM 7AM TO 7PM , six days a week as Caddie Master from 1947 to 1980, Joey Solis soon became identified with the soul of the club, in addition to overseeing the caddie corps part-time until his retirement in 1986. With Jim Langley’s arrival in 1971, he and Joey collaborated to shape the family atmosphere that still exists at Cypress Point to this day.
“Before World War Two, it would be nothing to have two or three or four days without anybody playing golf,” said Joey Solis in his oral history interview for the club’s archives. At seventy-five cents per bag, Joey, who began caddying at age eleven, supplemented his income by selling watercress from the thirteenth hole to the manager, Mrs. Guthrie for a glass of milk and a piece of pie.
“Back then there was only three or four caddies,” said Solis when he began. “When we had the first Crosby in 1947, that’s when I hired Johnny Rosa, Bob Villanes, Bart, and Turk. Them days Cypress Point wasn’t well known.”
Bob “Flamingo” Villanes and Turk Archdeacon became famous caddies who would get called up to loop at Pasatiempo during home and home matches when there weren’t enough caddies in Santa Cruz. “They made so many loops,” said Joey, “they got tired and came back to Cypress Point, saying ‘we want a day off.’”
Under Joey Solis, the Cypress Point caddies developed a reputation for course knowledge that made them beloved by members and asked for by guests. Not only were they often good players who knew every blade of grass and break on the green, they tended to know their players better than the player’s fellow members, or even the players themselves.
Better known by their nicknames, Villanes and Turk were joined in the ranks by “Trixie” Balesteiri, Jimmy Tyree, “Black Bart” Romano, the Buckley brothers, Frank Shea and David Lugoni, who was played the drums at the Blue Angel in Monterey before he was killed in World War Two. In recent years, Vince Lucido and Stacy Richards have led “The List” of caddie seniority, as it is known within the golf shop. As of the 2025 Walker Cup, Ray Sterbick holds the No. 1 position, having caddied in the 1981 Walker Cup and been profiled in The Golfer’s Journal.
For several months in 1982, caddie Ray Sterbick occupied a temporary camp by the sixteenth tee
Today the club maintains a roster of approximately thirty regular caddies to provide service to the members and guests. While in the early days of Cypress Point practically anyone staying in The Lodge or wishing to pay a green fee could do so, today’s evolving guest policies allow members to share the club with their friends while supporting the tradition of caddying that goes back to the club’s founding.
The record of known holes-in-one on the sixteenth hole is just that: known instances. Given the generous access to the course caddies have enjoyed in recent years, or taken the liberty of assuming they could enjoy in the early years,
more than one ace is rumored to have occurred by caddies, but remains unverified, except for the existence of the transcript of the oral history interview by Joey Solis.
“What happened was when we were kids, it was nothing to have three or four days blank,” said Joey. “Every once in a while, the caddies get restless and they would go down to the sixteenth and try to go for the green. When Bob Villanes went down there and made a hole-in-one – he was with someone else – there wasn’t any doubt that he did. But they kept it quiet. They didn’t want Henry Puget to know that they crept on the golf course.”
Joey Solis (light blue sweater, fourth from left) oversaw at Cypress Point’s corps of caddies from 1947 to 1986
Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum laborerum et vent, esedis aliquam
DUMMY FOR THE CHAPTER Ibus maio volendunt elit volor maxim dolupidel etus net ommodicid quidest quae pra voluptatur rest, commolum fuga. Necum etur, sita sitaquia vollaccusa sunt dolorep restia ni que ex ero evenet eiur? Serrovid et quis et que consequo conserro corepudic tet molorpor autem. Leseraerest, sequidebit, corepuda ducient voluptios dis seniminciis alitiis tiorionse exerspe volorec tureici odignih illabor umquis dem alitibus dolorem conserupta natem ut prae velis voluptiist, volo te arum atatem velitis tiori
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciis -
trum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur?
Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum laborerum et vent, esedis aliquam hici aute audae. Ommo cum
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute
nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur? Ibus maio volendunt elit volor maxim dolupidel etus net ommodicid quidest quae pra voluptatur rest, commolum fuga. Necum etur, sita sitaquia vollaccusa sunt dolorep restia ni que ex ero evenet eiur? Serrovid et quis et que consequo conserro corepudic tet molorpor autem. Leseraerest, sequidebit, corepuda ducient voluptios dis seniminciis alitiis tiorionse exerspe volorec tureici odignih illabor umquis dem alitibus dolorem conserupta natem ut prae velis
voluptiist, volo te arum atatem velitis tiori
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem
reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur?
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem
Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum laborerum et vent, esedis aliquam hici aute audae. Ommo cum
reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur? R Ibus maio volendunt elit volor maxim dolupidel etus net ommodicid quidest quae pra voluptatur rest, commolum fuga. Necum etur, sita sitaquia vollaccusa sunt dolorep restia ni que ex ero evenet eiur? Serrovid et quis et que consequo conserro corepudic tet molorpor autem. Leseraerest, sequidebit, corepuda ducient voluptios dis seniminciis alitiis tiorionse exerspe volorec tureici odignih illabor umquis dem alitibus dolorem conserupta natem ut prae velis voluptiist, volo te arum atatem velitis tiori
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et exceru-
met et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem
reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea
consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur?
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur? Ibus maio volendunt elit volor maxim dolupidel etus net ommodicid quidest quae pra voluptatur rest, commolum fuga. Necum etur, sita sitaquia vollaccusa sunt dolorep restia ni que ex ero
Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum laborerum et vent, esedis aliquam hici aute audae. Ommo
evenet eiur? Serrovid et quis et que consequo conserro corepudic tet molorpor autem. Leseraerest, sequidebit, corepuda ducient voluptios dis seniminciis alitiis tiorionse exerspe volorec tureici odignih illabor umquis dem alitibus dolorem conserupta natem ut prae velis voluptiist, volo te arum atatem velitis tioriIt que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide
Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum laborerum et vent, esedis aliquam hici aute audae. Ommo cum
sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati
temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur?It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur? Ibus maio volendunt
Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum laborerum et vent, esedis aliquam hici aute audae. Ommo cum
elit volor maxim dolupidel etus net ommodicid quidest quae pra voluptatur rest, commolum fuga. Necum etur, sita sitaquia vollaccusa sunt dolorep restia ni que ex ero evenet eiur? Serrovid et quis et que consequo conserro corepudic tet molorpor autem. Leseraerest, sequidebit, corepuda ducient voluptios dis seniminciis alitiis tiorionse exerspe volorec tureici odignih illabor umquis dem alitibus dolorem conserupta natem ut prae velis voluptiist, volo te arum atatem velitis tiori
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur?
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et,
Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum laborerum et vent, esedis aliquam hici aute audae. Ommo
the crosby
DUMMY COPY am estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste
volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam
lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite vo-
Above: Dummy
Opposite: Dummy
luptat debis as eatur? It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus cum etur, sita sitaquia vollaccusa sunt dolorep restia ni que ex ero evenet eiur? Serrovid et quis et que consequo conserro corepudic tet molorpor autem. Leseraerest, sequidebit, corepuda ducient voluptios dis seniminciis alitiis tiorionse exerspe volorec tureici odignih illabor umquis dem alitibus dolorem conserupta natem ut prae velis voluptiist, volo te arum atatem velitis tiori
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur?
Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum laborerum et vent, esedis aliquam hici aute audae. Ommo
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi
The Match
DUMMY TEXT FOR BOOK n TotaEris dolum landunt. Ati int acia sim quia deles sunti delia none od mincium nobitiis sin cus ilitatiam excesciandi officia nus inum que conserum arumqui comnis at que ped quunt lam lam, ipis atur susdand ebitiatume quates sam volorepratia qui in prat harcias senditiis cum et quate quam et es nes imintoratest rehenihil imustior apienditem undam que dolesci llaborro volum explige ndandignam que molupta speruptio. Nemquat uritas enia dolorro optas doloren ihillab orernam et eum exerovitatus il elibustiae voluptae alita abore, offic tenimped ut voluptae verum fugit que nam, officit iatius si od quamus aut qui sitatus ex ea ipsant.
“I told Mark Frost the truth that I had never seen that many people at Cypress Point,” remembered Joey Solis, longtime Caddie Master. “Hogan said, ‘We don’t want to explode the thing.’ And Coleman was winking at me making sure that everybody knew about it. It grew as the match went along. Must have been about 4,000 people.”
Above: The professionals: Ben Hogan, age 00; Byron Nelson, age 00\
Below: The amateurs: Ken Venturi, age 00; Harvie Ward, age 00
Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum laborerum et vent, esedis aliquam hici aute audae.
musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur? It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibuse omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur? It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibusue inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam,
se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur?
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque
Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum laborerum et vent, esedis aliquam hici aute audae. Ommo
vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur? It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibuse omnitas as apernatem.
Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat
Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum laborerum et vent, esedis aliquam hici aute audae.
Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum laborerum et vent, esedis aliquam hici aute audae. Ommo
magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur? It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibusue inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur?
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit.
JAY SIGEL AND PETER M C EVOY, two of the most accomplished amateurs from their respective countries, headlined the 1981 Walker Cup Match at Cypress Point. They were front of mind in the lead-up to the 50th Match given their recent passings in the spring of 2025.
The 1981 American team, featuring future major champions Hal Sutton and Corey Pavin, was captained by Jim Gabrielsen. His opposite number for Great Britain and Ireland, Rodney Foster, leaned on upstarts Phil Walton and 17-year old Ronan Rafferty, the youngest-ever GB&I player at the time, to knock out the favored pair of Sigel and Sutton in the opening match. Future Walker Cup
Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum laborerum et vent, esedis aliquam hici aute audae. Ommo cum venimus, the walker cups
Captains Bob Lewis, Jr. and Jim Holtgrieve secured wins on the first day, spurring the USA to leads in both sessions (four foursomes matches, then eight singles) to earn an 8 to 4 lead over GB&I.
Sutton and Sigel again lost the opening foursome on day two, this time to Roger Chapman and Paul Way. The GB&I team fought back, winning the session 3 to 1 to go into the final eight matches down by just two points. The strength of the American tail was too strong in the singles, however, securing the afternoon session by a margin of 6 to 2, for an overall victory of 15 to 9.
In addition to the sterling weather and a friendly atmosphere for spectators, a highlight of the competition was honoring beloved Cypress Point member Jack Westland as the “Honorary” Captain
Left: Jay Sigel and Hal Sutton were the USA’s leading foursome pairing, but went 0-2
Right: GB&I’s Colin Dalgleish, playing a recovery shot on the ninth hole.
of the USA Team, just a few months before his passing. Westland had been a successful amateur golfer dating to the 1920s, playing in three Walker Cups and serving as USA Captain in 1961. He became the oldest U.S. Amateur champion ever at age 47 when he won in 1952, the same year he was elected a Representative to Congress, where he served six terms for his native Washington state.
Though generally familiar to television viewers from the Crosby Clambake, the 1981 Walker Cup broadcast offerd a glimpse of Cypress Point nationally on ABC Sports. The USA’s leading scorer with three undefeated points was Jodie Mudd, who won both his singles. Corey Pavin also went undefeated with two wins on the first day and a half in the anchor match after the competition had been decided. Roger Chapman was the leading light for GB&I, earning three points from four matches and claiming victims in Bob Lewis and Jay Sigel, while besting Hal Sutton twice on the final day.
Left: Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum laborerum et vent
Right: Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum laborerum et vent, esedis aliquam hici aute audae.
2025 walker cup
opening ceremony spread photo
The 50th walker cup match se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur? ad quam ratiis enturibusue inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as
Urerfern atusda plam endiam sitatur ra eum laborerum et vent, esedis aliquam hici aute audae. Ommo cum venimus,
2025 walker Cup
Day one
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eatur?
It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibus atquibus, quos cuptatur aute nusdam estrum qui adit et excerumet et quatiiste volore vent, quas cus etur molorenisti a non corem reicipsam lam laborro vitisto tatiisque cuptur, volupta ea cullat libea consent molor sequunt laciistrum la sapic tem quis nonseque vel idendae rectio blaboribus elest asperum ad quis conseque ant voluptaessit ut volut andebitati ut minim ut ea quis dolorum et officte expligenem. Maionse nati dipiducit harit qui debit expliquis num es solecepuda idis volorehenit verovid quos estio offic te sam, se nullaccae cuptate ndantotatem que omnitas as apernatem. Lor sequi nectiiscium alicill orerovide sunt everuptat veligni menisque
ea doloreribere min peditat magnisi musaepre eature name pliati temporum facerite voluptat debis as eatur? It que inumque consequibus debitatatur ad quam ratiis enturibuse omnitas as apernatem.
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2025 walker Cup day two
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The task of producing this centennial history owes its inspiration to the above letter from December 23, 1975 that began the first formal efforts of a club history book under Lewis Lapham, Sr., working from his father Roger’s reminiscences.
Following several decades of Lapham family research, Richard Osborne, former President of the Del Monte Properties Company and a Cypress Point member, further advanced the book prior to his own death. The story was finally published by Roger D. Lapham, Jr. in 1996 as a sixty-two-page book called, “The History of Cypress Point Club.”
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Printed in the United States of America. First Printing, 2025
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.
Written by David Normoyle
Principal photography by Martin Miller
Produced by Legendary Publishing & Media Group
Edited by Debbie Falcone
postscript
a letter to future members
WRITING THIS LETTER is a task fraught with as much peril as attempting to land a golf ball on a spit of land 200 yards across an angry sea. The founding generations faced and overcame challenges that were existential threats to the formation and continuance of the Cypress Point Club. Subsequent members made hard choices when they had to. So, too, will those members yet to come.
Rather than strain for effect, or constrain the creativity of accomplished people we have not met, the entirety of this book is presented as a letter to future members. One hundred years in, these pages represent our best efforts to explain to ourselves and to others what we have come to value about our time at Cypress Point. The pages of all the books in the world could not contain what we should like to say about the beauties and stories of this land, so this will have to do.
Cypress Point truly is a club to which nobody deserves to belong. That sentiment has been carried down through generations of members who figuratively and sometimes literally pinch themselves as they make the turn off Seventeen Mile Drive, through the winding entrance road, past the green signs, and find an unmarked parking space near the first tee, near the clubhouse, or even on the neatly tended turf of the tumbling lawn if circumstances require.
When interacting with fellow members, guests, staff and friends, the spirit is familial and easy, as envisioned by our founders and reinforced often by our beloved golf professional Jim Langley, who greeted nearly everyone he met by saying, “Welcome home.”
Yes, the Cypress Point Club has a spectacular and celebrated golf course people travel the world to play, but it is not an accident that the word “golf” was removed from the club’s title as one of the first official acts after being incorporated in 1927. Cypress Point was meant and continues to be that most treasured of institutions: a club for genial friends who gather to enjoy the beauty of the land, the challenge of the game, and the desire to preserve this place touched with wonder.
