This golden age classic by Alister MacKenzie overlooks the Pacific just south of Santa Barbara in Montecito, CA. The golf course occupies two distinct settings. Below the Arts and Crafts-style clubhouse lies an open hillside that contains the first three and last six holes. This area features a few massive and well-placed specimen trees along with sprawling MacKenzie bunkering that match the large-scale of the hillside and broad internal and off-property view corridors. The remaining nine holes are across a road and set in a narrow stream valley containing two centrally located hillocks that function as a hub for the routing - seven of the nine holes use the hillocks as a green or tee site. This portion of the property has an intimate feel and is a nice contrast to the huge scale of what comes next.
A mid-2000s restoration by Renaissance Golf Design saw the course largely restored to MacKenzie’s original design. Over the course of two off-seasons (2012-2013), the club transitioned to Santa Ana bermudagrass fairways, offering an opportunity to address a few small, but important projects while the re-grassing work was being done. The project, overseen by Origins Golf Desingn (Todd Eckenrode), included the restoration of fairway bunkers on the 2nd and18th holes that were left out of the earlier Renaissance-led project, as well as revisions to several tee complexes and bunkering tweaks to accommodate the new grassing lines.