Sharp Park Golf Course opened to the public in 1932 on 120 acres of former dunes and artichoke fields along Pacifica's Salada Beach. Golden Gate Park Superintendent John McLaren commissioned Alister MacKenzie in 1930 to design San Francisco's third municipal links, and MacKenzie drafted the routing between his work on Cypress Point Club and Augusta National. Construction was supervised by Robert Hunter Jr., Chandler Egan, and Jack Fleming, who had served as construction foreman at Cypress Point. The Spanish Revival clubhouse, designed by an associate at Willis Polk's firm and built as a WPA project, still stands at the entrance.

On the course

The par-72 layout plays roughly 6,300 yards from the blue tees and routes through Monterey cypress planted by McLaren, with holes wrapping around Laguna Salada, a freshwater lake the construction crew deepened from a brackish lagoon. Sanchez Creek bisects the property, and holes 12 and 16 sit directly against the Pacific behind a seawall built after storms in the early 1940s washed out portions of MacKenzie's original routing. Twelve of the eighteen holes retain their original MacKenzie design, displaying his signature cross bunkering, double fairways, multiple tees, mounded greens, and use of optical illusion. Four replacement holes added in 1934 are reached via a tunnel under Highway 1.

Who it suits

Sharp Park is the only public oceanside MacKenzie course in the United States, a fact that earned it Historic Resource Property status under the California Environmental Quality Act in 2017 and a place on Golfweek's list of America's 50 greatest municipal courses in 2014. Long nicknamed "The Poor Man's Pebble Beach," it suits walkers, history-minded golfers, and players who enjoy wind-affected links shotmaking on a municipal budget rather than those expecting pristine resort conditioning.

Architect: Alister MacKenzie · Opened: 1932