Number 3: Cypress Point Club

Ceiling: 98.5

Rating: 96.5

Trend over Time: 6

We’re now getting to the courses that are flat difficult for me to try to write about and do any justice to, but here goes. Cypress Point, one of the most eerily cool places on earth to swing a golf club. The 16th hole is one of the 3-5 most famous holes in the world, with the 15th and 17th not far behind. As someone who has competed for a long time, I don’t really get nervous in any casual form of golf, but the first time I played CPC, I was a nervous wreck on 16. No one wants to screw that shot up. It’s a long-held belief of mine, and not a hot take, that to create really good golf, a top-notch architect needs only good land and can work their magic from there. However, to create truly great golf, you must start with great land, and by that measure, Cypress is built on one of the best plots of land any architect will ever see.

Culture:

Cypress is a relatively low-key place to play in the context of the few most exclusive and revered clubs in the world. Much of this is due to how little play it gets and how few people are there daily. If you are ever so fortunate, you likely won’t be joined by more than a dozen other golfers around the same time frame you are playing. There is very little fuss. Along with that, everyone respects the place and it’s lore so much that there is a feeling of every person on property falling in line and preparing to be as stimulated by a golf experience as they perhaps ever have been and ever will be. This may be crazy, but I have one time been skydiving and parts of that experience feel similar to what is like being around a group that is preparing to have their crack at Cypress. The words that come to mind are anxious, excited, and impatient. Everyone is equal parts so ready to get the thing going, but knows as soon as it ends, they’ll have crossed off a bucket list experience that likely won’t come around again for a long time. The place is that good. Grown men can barely sip a coffee before heading out to play given their excitement.

Competition:

Cypress has hosted the 1981 Walker Cup, was a co-host to the Pebble Beach Pro-Am for a number of years up until 1991, has been hosting the Cypress Point Intercollegiate 8-team match play event every handful of years for a while, and has the 2025 Walker Cup on the schedule. The Walker Cup is a perfect event for Cypress. Match play, a highly revered event, intimate. A match made in heaven. Having been lucky enough to get my crack at the Cypress Point Intercollegiate, I can say that it is a strange place to compete on as playing Cypress is so antithetical to competition for me. In competition I am locked in and focused on performance and not so much the architectural merits of a golf course. Playing Cypress doesn’t exactly feel that way, needless to say. It’s almost like having a pre-marathon meal at French Laundry. Hard to focus on macronutrients and proper nutrition when TK is cheffing it up.

Architecture:

Here’s my take on Cypress… 15-17 are stupidly magical. The sky is also in fact blue. We got it. Holes 1-2 are wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but I feel like they “get you into the property” so to speak. Where I go to a place of nirvana at Cypress is with holes 3-11. Jumping forward, 12-14 are the final few steps on the stairway to heaven with the second shot/green on 14 being maybe my favorite on the course, but at that point in the round you are starting to struggle to be in the present as you know you are getting close to the holy grail. Back to 3-11. This is the part of the routing where I feel like I am sitting down for a cup of tea with Dr. Mackenzie. The OG Mackenzie bunkering. The intimacy of holes 4-6 back through the forest of Pebble Beach. The dunes of holes 7-9. This to me is the truest form of Alister Mackenzie’s genius and a stretch of holes where you feel like you are among the luckiest few people to have a golf club in your hands at that very moment. My favorite thing about CPC is a 12 handicap can go out and shoot their best round on what will probably be the best course they ever play. That’s pretty cool.