The People’s Pebble
Five miles along the coast from Pebble Beach, golf becomes a little less complicated.
There are no gates to pass through at Pacific Grove Golf Links, no sense of ceremony required. You can walk the course, a round can cost as little as $35, and getting a tee time rarely feels like a chore. There is a newly built clubhouse, but the real luxury is outside: eighteen holes on the Monterey Peninsula, the second nine spilling through dunes towards the Pacific.
It is difficult to imagine a better argument for municipal golf.
Pacific Grove is really two golf courses stitched together. The front nine is green and garden-like, sheltered from the coast and threaded through the town. The back nine feels altogether different. You emerge into an open landscape of sand, wind and sea, with the Point Pinos Lighthouse nearby and the Pacific filling the horizon.
The contrast is part of its charm. So is its pedigree.
Two Nines, Two Great Amateurs
The story begins with H. Chandler Egan, the former U.S. Amateur champion and accomplished course architect. Having worked with Alister MacKenzie on the redesign of nearby Pebble Beach in 1929, Egan returned to the Monterey Peninsula soon afterwards to lay out the first nine holes at Pacific Grove. The course opened for play on May 9, 1932.
Nearly three decades later, another important figure in the history of Pebble Beach arrived to complete the picture.
Jack Neville had designed the original Pebble Beach course with Douglas Grant in 1919. In 1960, he extended Pacific Grove to eighteen holes, working with land around the base of the Point Pinos Lighthouse.
The result is a course with an unusual architectural lineage. Egan provides the opening act; Neville takes you to the ocean.
A Curious Beginning
Changes made to Egan’s original routing to accommodate a new clubhouse in 1960 left Pacific Grove with one of golf’s more unconventional starts.
The first two holes are both par threes: “Little Tombstone” followed by “Big Tombstone.” Before long comes another quirk, with consecutive par fives at the fifth and sixth.
It should perhaps feel awkward. Instead, it establishes the course’s particular rhythm. Pacific Grove has little interest in following the expected sequence.
The opening nine is pleasant, intimate golf, but there is also the sense that the landscape is keeping something from you. Then comes the turn.
And suddenly, there is the Pacific.
Out Into The Dunes
Neville’s nine is where Pacific Grove becomes unforgettable.
The fairways tumble through sandy ground around Point Pinos, with low vegetation, sea air and the lighthouse giving the landscape an elemental quality. The scale expands. The wind begins to matter. On certain holes, there seems to be almost nothing between the golfer and the ocean.
It is often compared with the great links courses of the Monterey Peninsula, but Pacific Grove is better appreciated on its own terms. This is not Pebble Beach in miniature.
The holes themselves are notably modest in length. Of the six par fours on Neville’s nine, only the 383-yard 15th, “Beacon View,” stretches beyond 350 yards. Yet distance has very little to do with their appeal.
The short par fours at 11, 13 and 18 are among the most interesting holes on the property. They ask questions of position, restraint and imagination. The wind can turn an apparently straightforward shot into something far less certain. A small decision on the tee can follow you all the way to the green.
This is golf at a human scale.
The Other Monterey
The Monterey Peninsula is one of the most celebrated pieces of golfing coastline in the world. That reputation inevitably brings expense, exclusivity and expectations.
Pacific Grove offers a quietly compelling counterpoint.
Here, you can carry your own bag. You can walk beside the dunes. You can play holes conceived by architects whose names are entwined with the history of Pebble Beach, while the same Pacific air moves in from the west. And you can do it without turning a round of golf into a once-in-a-lifetime production.
Perhaps that is why the place stays with you.
There is something refreshing about finding extraordinary golf presented so ordinarily: a municipal course, open to anyone, sitting on an absurdly beautiful piece of California coastline.
Five miles from Pebble Beach, Pacific Grove Golf Links reminds you that sometimes the most memorable courses are the ones that simply let you turn up, put a bag over your shoulder and walk towards the sea.