Pasatiempo Golf Club

Alister MacKenzie's 1929 course above Santa Cruz, founded by Marion Hollins and restored by Jim Urbina. One of the few top-100 courses that takes public tee times.

Pasatiempo was the project of Marion Hollins, a champion amateur golfer and developer. She hired Alister MacKenzie to design a course in the hills above Santa Cruz, and it opened on September 8, 1929, with Bobby Jones in the opening exhibition. MacKenzie liked it enough to build a house beside the 6th fairway, and he called it his best layout. The club still calls the course his final resting place.

The course moves from open, rolling ground into wooded barrancas, steep ravines that cut across several holes on the back nine. MacKenzie's bunkers, with jagged edges and flashed sand, were softened over the decades. Tom Doak and later Jim Urbina have spent more than 20 years restoring them from old photographs and the writings of MacKenzie and Hollins. The 16th, which MacKenzie named his favorite hole, plays uphill and around a blind corner. The approach then crosses a barranca to a large green on a slope.

At 6,495 yards from the back, Pasatiempo is short by modern standards and still tough. The greens are fast and sloped, and the course finishes with a par 3 over a ravine. It hosted the 1986 U.S. Women's Amateur and the 2004 U.S. Senior Women's Amateur, along with the long-running Western Intercollegiate. It also takes public tee times, unlike nearly every course around it in the rankings.

Holes to know

16

Par 4 · 392 yd

MacKenzie's stated favorite: a blind uphill drive that must turn left, then a mid-iron across a barranca to a big green on the next hillside.

3

Par 3 · 222 yd

The longest par 3 on the card, an early test that asks for a long iron or more from the back tees.

18

Par 3 · 173 yd

A par-3 finish over a penalty area to a well-bunkered green, an unusual way to end a top-100 round.

Championships

• U.S. Women's Amateur 1986
• U.S. Senior Women's Amateur 2004
• Western Intercollegiate (college) annual

Design history

• 2007: Tom Doak's first restoration phase, including the 16th's front-right bunker
• 2010–present: Jim Urbina leads ongoing restoration of MacKenzie features
• 2023–24: Urbina restoration project with newly rebuilt greens