Golf As It Should Be Files: Santa Anita GC
;)
The San Gabriel Mountains and just some of the clever man-made undulations at Santa Anita Golf Course (click image to enlarge)As much as travel, luck and effort will allow, I'm going to try and highlight more of the places in golf that define (for me) what the game is all about. This week I had the pleasure of teeing it up at Santa Anita Golf Course in Arcadia. It was the first time I had played there in over 20 years and while I knew it was a marvelous public golf course by including it in this L.A. Times piece of SoCal architectural gems, but I really never imagined just how idyllic it is as a model for what a golf course should be.
Not just a public course. A golf course of any kind.
Photos won't do the 6,400 yard course full justice. And I can only rave so much about the $23 green fee, excellent maintenance or the construction genius of the undulations before you start scrolling to the next post. So here goes.;)
Wild undulations on the par-5 13th (click on image to enlarge)
A product of Works Progress Administration finances and crews, Santa Anita reopened in October of 1938 as a full length golf course next to the famed race track of the same name. According to an LA Times story, finances were apparently too lean to hire an architect, so a young county engineer named James Harrison Smith was given the task of designing the holes. He devoted a year to studying great holes and accumulating information. Assuming this was his only project, what transpired is one of the great one-hit wonders in golf architecture history.
;)
The 14th fairway and elevated green. Wonderful contours make the short second shot to the elevated green that much trickier (click on image to enlarge)Crafted out of dead flat land, Santa Anita offers some of the wildest but most artfully constructed man-made undulations imaginable. Yet with Smith's engineering eye for drainage, they all work to also surface-drain the course. There isn't a catch basin to be found and when we played the golf course it had only a handful of wet spots just a few days after heavy rains. The bold, elevated green complexes had drained perfectly and rolled a stout 10 on the Stimpmeter. Most modern architects accustomed to littering land with catch basins should study Santa Anita for the combination of clever contouring that affects strategy and function.
Smith's replica holes and homages are fresh but still respectful. He put his own stamp on each and named them (the names remain on the scorecard and tee signs). There's a Redan, a "Maiden, a "Thomas" (the boomerang first green in honor of George C.'s old 9th at Griffith Park-Harding) and assorted other themes.;)
The wacky undulations under the 434-yard 18th fairway. The tee is to the right of this view and tee shots try to land over the mounding. Local legend suggests old trolley cars sit underneath, but no evidence confirms that (click to enlarge image)
While the course is short and over-landscaped for today's game, the undulating fairways and elevated, cleverly crafted greens expose poor shots to give the elite player plenty of trouble while still letting the average hack get it around. Old photos show that the course once had more hazards with great flair in their presentation, though the grandeur and funkiness of the contouring is actually highlighted by their depature.
Still, it would be fun to see the course with the kind of dramatic bunkering that it deserves both to heighten the experience and to attract more attention to this model of what a golf course should be about: fun, fun, fun.;)
Historica aerial viiew of the 9th, 18th and 10th fairways shows dramatic bunkering and fewer trees! (click on image to enlarge)In a grand southern California tradition, Santa Anita is largely unnoticed and unappreciated by the area's golfing elite. Perhaps it's the lack of wild hazards or a high-end fee burning a hole in their pocket or just the general SoCal ignorance of interesting architecture and history (btw, Lloyd Mangrum won the first two Santa Anita Opens).
Either way, don't despair. The combination of a smooth operation, low prices, excellent maintenance (no rough!) and the course's subtle charm has developed a loyal following and profits for all involved. I just wish there were many more Santa Anita's in the world of golf.
Friday, January 2, 2009 at 11:29 AM
Reader Comments (18)
Geoff, how far is Santa Anita from Rustic Canyon? Maybe we should put together the Shack Open this spring and make it a two day event???
I haven't played there in a looooong time, but it would be fun to go back and give a spin with newer technology. I left the area ten years ago. For the last five years before I left, I worked at another county course (Altadena), so if we were going to play somewhere cheap, we just played where we worked. If we wanted to play somewhere else, we usually made a drive to play somewhere different. I probably haven't played it since before Titleist Professionals came out.
About 15-20 years ago, they traded spots for the driving range and first fairway. The fifth hole was always tough because the green seemed to slope front to back. Nine used to be a really tough par four, but last time I was there, it had been changed to an easy par five. 17 was a nice spot for a birdie between the tough 16th and 18th holes.
The seventh hole, a dogleg left, is probably responsible for my current pre-shot routine. It's a slight dogleg left with a wide and shallow green. I used to always line up too far to the right. One year I decided that on that hole, I'd take my practice swing, quickly step behind the ball to make sure I was lined up properly, then address the ball. To this day, I do that before every shot.
And after walking every inch of that course, I can't believe the land used to be flat. It's very, very undulating.
Speaking of county courses, Geoff, have you ever played Mountain Meadows in Pomona?
How was the pace of play,so often a bane of public golf?
So, if your short on time and have little patience then Santa Anita is not your course. Oddly the wait wasn't that bad, but only on the par 3 holes and a few of the shorter 4's and 5's. If you can put up with that, take note of Geoff's excellent writing and go seek out what I feel is one of the best courses in Southern California, despite the obvious warts.
You might just find that your having a lot of fun!
Furthermore, holes varies in length, making golfers use every club in the bag and allowing for more creativity and options on both tee and approach shots -- a sign of a truly great, versatile, and eternally fun golf experience.
Not one to be missed!
Geoff, your article is well written and captures the heart of Santa Anita. Just a cool old school course with a lot of strategy built into the holes, especially the short par 4's. This course shows what little valleys in the fairway can do and that you do not need water or a bunch of bunkers to make a fine course.
Having grown up in Arcadia and talked to old timers they confirm the land was absolutely flat as it was an old army air balloon fiield prior to the course being built in 1938. When you know that and then play the course it is amazing how well this one time architect but together this little gem.
Being a muni budget constraints clearly prevent the course from being everything it should be but I have played over 200 rounds there and can't get enough. Would love to see what an increase in budget would do.
Mark, I'm glad you mentioned the Brackenridge Park Golf Course. It was good enough for a tour event at one time, and it is where the sweet-swinging Duke football star and former Oakland Hills Head Professional, Mike Souchak, set the PGA Tour scoring record that stood for decades until broken by Mark Calcavecchia just a few years ago.
Check out Qualicum Memorial (9 holes, Macan) next time you go to Union Bay.
You were kind enough to recommend this course to me for a short visit I made to LA in 2007. It was very fun to play (once we passed the Asian ladies with the umbrellas on their push-carts that were playing at a 5 1/2 hour pace).
Thanks again,
The Big K
This is a great idea for 2009! Let me know when you're in Philly for the Walker Cup at Merion or TW's home away from Congo at Aronomink so we can go play a little public Ross gem near King of Prussia caled Jeffersonville!
Great article. Not sure how I missed that when it came out. How about expanding the series nationwide and making it your next book?
-Mark
The historical image really struck me. Many older courses need to cut down trees and not plant more. But I see much more tree planting than removal. Why hasn't the Oakmont model caught on?
I agree most courses could do with some significant tree removal but playing most of my rounds at Santa Anita, a good number of the trees at Santa Anita are for pure safety. Just like at Pasatiempo between holes six and seven. While it would be nice to have it back to the original with no trees there is simply no way to remove them and not have the suing half of the world go crazy.
Clearly though there are areas where the number of trees could be reduced.
Damon Groves
I appreciate your point. And certainly at the courses I play, a few strategically-placed trees between fairways makes sense from a safety perspective. Nevertheless, tree-lined fairways make no sense. And I see lots of tree planting to fill in the gaps in tree-line fairways. I also see tree planting behind greens or near greens where short approaches tend to end up, and it makes no sense: it slows play beyond the geologic pace that already exists.