Cypress Point Club
Private
Golf facility nameCypress Point Club
Coordinates36.58°N 121.974°W
LocationPebble Beach, California
Establishment1928 (age 98)
Elevation80 feet (24 m)
Holes18
Designer 1Alister MacKenzie and
Robert Hunter
Par 172
Length 16,554 yards (5,993 m)
Rating 173.1
Slope 1141 [1]
Record 163 – Jim Langley, Ben Hogan,
 and others[2]

Cypress Point Club is a private golf club located in Pebble Beach, California, at the northern end of the Central Coast. Its single 18-hole course has been named as one of the finest in golf, best known for a series of dramatic holes along the Pacific Ocean.[3][4][5][6]

History

The course was designed in 1929 by golf course designer Alister MacKenzie, collaborating with fellow golf course architect Robert Hunter. It opened on August 11 that year.[7]

The Cypress Point clubhouse was designed by George Washington Smith of Santa Barbara and decorated by artist and member Francis McComas and Frances Elkins. It opened in 1929 and is mostly unchanged from the original design. The club has 250 members. [8]

Cypress Point is one of five golf clubs that participates in an annual rotating-venue members-only golf tournament known as SCAPS; the other clubs are Seminole Golf Club, Augusta National Golf Club, Pine Valley Golf Club, and San Francisco Golf Club.[9]

Golf course

Set in coastal dunes, the course's front nine enter the Del Monte forest, reemerging on the rocky coastline for the back nine. The signature hole is #16, which requires a 230-yard (210-metre) tee shot over the Pacific to a mid-sized green guarded by strategically placed bunkers.[10][11]

Cypress Point Club was ranked #1 on Top100GolfCourses.com list of best golf courses in the US[12] and #3 on Golf Digest's 2025 list of America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses.[13]

The golf course is considered one of the most exclusive in the world.[14] Non-members require the invitation of a member to play.[14]

PGA Tour

From 1947 through 1990 Cypress Point was on the PGA Tour as part of the multi-course AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, founded by entertainer Bing Crosby. It was dropped from the rotation because it had no non-white members and refused to admit one to comply with the tour's anti-discrimination guidelines.[15][16] Since then, Condoleezza Rice was admitted as a member of the club.[17]

While no longer part of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, many of the players continue to visit the course in the week leading up to the tournament.[18]

Scorecard

Source:[1]

References

  1. ^ "Course Rating and Slope Database™ - Cypress Point Club". USGA. Retrieved January 15, 2021.
  2. ^ "Cypress Point Club". Northern California Golf Association. Retrieved January 16, 2021.
  3. ^ "The 50 Best Holes In The U.S". Golf.com. November 19, 2013.
  4. ^ "Best 18 golf holes". Golf.com. September 20, 2012.
  5. ^ "The 18 undisputed, unchallenged, scientifically-factual best golf holes in the world". Golf Digest. Retrieved April 6, 2020.
  6. ^ "Golf's best par 3 holes on the planet". CNN. May 8, 2018.
  7. ^ Routing the Golf Course: The Art & Science That Forms the Golf Journey, Forrest L. Richardson
  8. ^ "Cypress Point – The Alister MacKenzie Society". Retrieved 2025-08-14.
  9. ^ Sens, Josh (April 9, 2025). "15 things you didn’t know about Augusta National". Golf.com. Retrieved 2 March 2026.
  10. ^ "Cypress Point Club". MontereyPeninsulaGolf.com. Retrieved March 6, 2012.
  11. ^ "Toughest golf hole stymies great in Crosby's Open play". Spokane Daily Chronicle. Associated Press. January 10, 1958. p. 12.
  12. ^ "USA Ranking | Top 100 Golf Courses". www.top100golfcourses.com. Retrieved 2025-08-14.
  13. ^ "USA Ranking | Top 100 Golf Courses". www.top100golfcourses.com. Retrieved 2025-08-14.
  14. ^ "The incredibly unlikely story of how one golfer got onto ultra-private Cypress Point". Golf Digest. Retrieved 2021-11-09.
  15. ^ Diaz, Jaime (September 18, 1990). "Cypress Point Drops PGA Tour Event Instead of Changing Its Rules". The New York Times. Retrieved February 11, 2017.
  16. ^ Diaz, aime (February 10, 1997). "Off-limits: What's stopping Cypress Point from rejoining the AT&T?". Sports Illustrated. p. G10.
  17. ^ Ostler, Scott (2013-02-08). "Condoleezza Rice changing face of golf". SFGATE. Retrieved 2021-11-09.
  18. ^ Matuszewski, Erik. "Cypress Point Still Has Presence (Unofficially) At Golf's Pebble Beach Pro-Am". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-11-09.