THE SEVENTEENTH

For everyone on the soggy East Coast:

The back nine at Cypress Point is about as good a nine as there is in golf, but to me it is also the most beautiful landscape that I have ever spent time in. We were blessed to tour the back nine in the evening of a spectacular, early fall day. (Video after the jump)

The sunlight swirled and danced with the Pacific Ocean mist, creating an enchanted aura on the rich and varied coastal flora. The sound of the surf crashing against the rocks, broken by the staccato calls of the sea lions, engages the sense of hearing in away that is extremely rare in the world of golf. Words can not do justice to this experience so I will let the video do the talking.

For the front nine click here.

Cypress Point Club

This video is a quick tour of the front nine at Cypress Point. The images and video were taken in the fall of 2007, shortly after the greens had been punched. They show the recently restored bunkers, which were a little too cleaned up for my taste.

Looking at old pictures of Cypress Point, it is clear that MacKenzie tried very hard to tie the bunkers into the natural dunescape. Now there is often a strip of turf between the edge of the bunker and the dunes. Royal Melbourne is probably the best example of bunkers that go from a clean, maintained edge and flow into the natural vegetation. Hopefully over time Cypress will once again regain this look.

Overall, I was blown away by the scale and beauty of the place. As sublime as the place is, I may have been even more impressed with MacKenzie’s routing and strategic placement of bunkers. Working at Pasatiempo and then touring Cypress really gave me an appreciation of the level of detail that MacKenzie put into his courses. It is clear that he thought about every contour, every angle, and every bunker. While tree plantings have eliminated a lot of these angles, it is still amazing to study his thought process.

Click here for the back nine.

N.B. For more on Cypress Point, don’t miss Geoff Shackelford’s great book Alister MacKenzie’s Cypress Point Club.