In 1925, the Los Angeles Athletic Club set out to create a first-rate golf course on what were then the outskirts of the city. LAAC struck a deal with oil baron Alphonzo Bell to purchase a 290-acre property in and around the Santa Monica Canyon and engaged local golf architect George Thomas. Thomas insisted that his associate Billy Bell be brought on as construction superintendent, and starting in January 1926, the pair transformed the flattish floor and sheer sides of the canyon into a stunning course. They took advantage of the site’s natural features—which included a smattering of sycamores and a dry wash that has evolved over time into a barranca—but also spared no expense in manufacturing fairways, greens, and hazards. Their budget of $243,827.63 was an immense sum for the time. While the brilliance of Thomas and Bell’s work has since been dulled by influences both natural (the flood of 1938) and manmade (the neglect of many architectural nuances, the over-planting of eucalyptus trees), The Riviera Country Club, as it was rechristened early in its history, remains one of the most fascinating examples of Golden Age golf course design.
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Take Note…
Catbird seats. So you’re going to the Genesis Invitational and would rather not spend the entire tournament walking. Where should you post up? Fried Egg Golf’s Cameron Hurdus recommends the area around the 16th green, where you can watch action not only on 16, an attractive and exacting par 3, but also on a pair of all-world par 4s (5 and 7) and one of the most famous par 3s in the world (the donut-green sixth). Another neat spot is the rise behind the second green—which provides views of the 10th tee, the third tee, and the 18th green—but be warned that it’s often congested during the event.
How could ya, kikuyu? Kikuyu—the sticky, spongy grass that dominates the fairways, roughs, and green surrounds at Riviera—was not originally found on the site. An oft-repeated theory holds that it was tracked in by horses at the neighboring polo fields during the 1932 Olympics. The more likely case is that Riviera’s staff introduced the deep-rooted turf to stabilize damaged sections of the golf course after severe flooding in 1938. In any case, kikuyu is so tenacious that eradicating it from the property would probably be impossible.
The Mashie Course. Along with the championship course, Thomas and Billy supplied Riviera with a “Mashie Course”—that is, a par-3 or pitch-and-putt course—on the site of today’s driving range. The course featured nine holes ranging from 40 to 100 yards and was heavily bunkered. “There is nothing easy about this test,” Thomas wrote of the design; “in fact, great skill will be required to score an average of 3 per hole or 27 strokes for the round.” The course was abandoned in 1943 as a cost-cutting measure during World War II. However, the basic earthworks stayed in the ground until a little over a decade ago, when the PGA Tour requested that the driving range be graded flat. Thanks, Ponte Vedra!
Beef. Speaking of the Mashie Course, Thomas’s contemporary Alister MacKenzie was not a fan. “I recently played over an approach and putt course in Los Angeles which was said to have been laid out by an architect who had written a book on golf, a statement which I can hardly believe,” MacKenzie wrote witheringly in the manuscript that would eventually be published as The Spirit of St. Andrews. “Almost every hole was a monotonous pitch on to a small green completely surrounded by bunkers. Can one imagine anything more dull and uninteresting? The good players would soon tire of playing the same shot time after time, while on the other hand the course was impossible for the average golfer.” Why was he so hard on Thomas? Geoff Shackelford’s theory, which he outlined toward the end of this podcast episode, is that when MacKenzie visited the Riviera site before construction, he must have been under the impression that he had been hired as architect. Of course, George Thomas already had the job, and MacKenzie seems to have nurtured a grudge from that point on.
