Sharp Park Golf Course exists because Honora Sharp bequeathed this stretch of coast to San Francisco in 1917 with the condition that it remain a public park. In 1930, Golden Gate Park superintendent John McLaren commissioned Alister MacKenzie, then working between Cypress Point and Augusta National, to lay out a municipal links on the dunes, wetlands, and artichoke fields beside Salada Beach. MacKenzie's partners Robert Hunter and H. Chandler Egan oversaw construction, and the course opened in 1932 alongside a Spanish Revival clubhouse from Willis Polk's office that still holds WPA-era murals.

On the course

Storms in the early 1940s washed out the holes closest to the ocean, so the city built a seawall and folded in four upland holes that Jack Fleming had designed in 1934, reached through a tunnel under Highway 1. Twelve of today's eighteen remain MacKenzie originals, including mirror-image versions of his famous Lido hole, the only place he ever built the pair. The 6,416-yard, par-72 routing plays flat and open, wrapping around the Laguna Salada wetland with the 12th and 16th running right along the seawall, and fog and ocean wind routinely make the modest 120 slope feel generous.

Who it suits

The practical case is history at municipal prices. San Francisco Recreation and Parks runs the course, the dead-flat ground makes for an easy walk, and Golfweek ranked it among America's fifty greatest municipal courses in 2014. Reviewers say the greens have never rolled better, though fairways can grow shaggy and hold water in wet months. A federal Endangered Species Act lawsuit over the resident garter snake and red-legged frog was dismissed in 2012, and golf continues alongside habitat work.

Facilities include a driving range, a practice putting green, and a chipping area, plus a pro shop and a restaurant and bar inside the old clubhouse. Sharp Park is the pick for golfers who care about Golden Age architecture, walkers who want a true links rhythm, and anyone curious what a MacKenzie design costs when a city owns it. Bring layers, because Pacifica fog arrives on its own schedule.

Architect: Alister MacKenzie · Opened: 1932