Established 1966, 51 years ago Owned by Pebble Beach Company Total holes 18 | Type Public Operated by Pebble Beach Company | |
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Location Pebble Beach, California, United States | ||
The Spyglass Hill Golf Course is a links golf course on the west coast of the United States, located on the Monterey Peninsula in California. The course is part of the Pebble Beach Company, which also owns the Pebble Beach Golf Links, The Links at Spanish Bay, and the Del Monte Golf Course.
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Golf Digest has ranked Spyglass Hill as high as fifth on its list of "America's 100 Greatest Public Courses". It has also featured in the popular Tiger Woods PGA Tour series of video games, along with "sister" course Pebble Beach.
History
Spyglass Hill was designed by Robert Trent Jones, Sr., and opened 51 years ago on March 11, 1966, after six years of planning, design, and construction. The course has been in the rotation for the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, a February tournament on the West Coast Swing of the PGA Tour, since 1967. It plays at 6,960 yards (6,364 m) to a par of 72 from the championship (blue) tees, with a course rating of 75.5 and a slope rating of 144. The first five holes all have views of the Pacific Ocean, and the other thirteen wind through the Del Monte Forest. The course record of 62 is jointly held by Phil Mickelson and Luke Donald. The back tees at Spyglass Hill were called "Tiger tees" when it opened, long before the birth of Tiger Woods.
Originally called Pebble Beach Pines Golf Club, the course was renamed to Spyglass Hill by Samuel F. B. Morse (1885–1969), the founder of Pebble Beach Company, after the place in the 1883 novel Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) who had spent time in the Monterey area in 1879. All the holes at Spyglass Hill were named by Bob Hanna after characters and places from the novel.
Layout
The first hole is called Treasure Island, and is a downhill 595-yard (544 m) par 5, which doglegs almost 90 degrees to the left. One of the more renowned holes is the fourth, a 370-yard (338 m) par 4 named Blind Pew, which Robert Trent Jones called his favorite par 4. The green is the most photographed on the course, and is surrounded by ice plant. Other hole names include The Black Spot (3rd), Captain Flint (10th), and Long John Silver (14th).