Crystal Springs Golf Course opened in 1924 on the wooded ridgeline above San Francisco's Crystal Springs Reservoir in Burlingame. The 18-hole layout was designed by William Herbert Fowler, the British architect best known for the Old Course at Walton Heath (1902) and Eastward Ho! on Cape Cod. Fowler, born in 1856, was an early advocate of routing courses to follow the natural lay of the land rather than imposing manufactured features, and Crystal Springs is one of only two California courses he designed, the other being Del Paso in Sacramento.

On the course

The course meanders along the Buri Buri Ridge of the old San Mateo Rancho and sits inside the 32,000-acre San Francisco watershed lands, a protected wildlife refuge owned by the city's water department. From the fairways, players look down on the 20-mile-long Crystal Springs Reservoir, which fills a portion of the rift valley created by the San Andreas Fault. Deer, turkey, and other wildlife are common sights on the property, and the watershed setting means no surrounding development intrudes on the routing.

Who it suits

The par-72 layout plays 6,628 yards from the back tees with a slope of 124. Rolling hillsides, well-bunkered greens, and a generally gentle slope down toward the reservoir define the character of the round. Most of Fowler's original routing remains intact, though some holes were rerouted in later decades, with Donald Knott and Gary Linn credited with subsequent revisions.

Crystal Springs suits intermediate and better players who appreciate a classic, terrain-driven design over a modern manicured one. Higher-handicap golfers can play it comfortably from the middle and forward tees, while low handicaps will find the back tees a legitimate shot-making test.

Architect: William Herbert Fowler · Opened: 1924