The Riviera Country Club is an exclusive private club with a championship golf course in the western United States, located in southern California in Pacific Palisades, a community within the city limits of Los Angeles. It is in the Santa Monica Canyon, just below the Santa Monica Mountains and a block south of Sunset Boulevard. Designed by golf course architects George C. Thomas, Jr. and William P. Bell, it has been the primary host for the Genesis Open (originally the Los Angeles Open), an annual event on the PGA Tour in February; the 2017 edition was the 54th held at Riviera.
Riviera has also hosted three major championships: the U.S. Open in 1948, and the PGA Championship in 1983 and 1995. In addition, it was site of the U.S. Senior Open, a senior major, in 1998, and is scheduled to host the U.S. Amateur in August 2017, and the Olympics in 2028.
History
When the country club and course opened 91 years ago in 1926, it was known as the Los Angeles Athletic Club Golf Course. Alister MacKenzie and William P. Bell helped Thomas in the design and planning of the course. They were in charge of assembling a labor force to build the course from scratch in the Santa Monica Canyon. In 1927 dollars, the entire country club and golf course cost $243,827.63 to build; at the time, it was one of the most expensive in golf history. Golf Course Histories posted on its website aerial comparisons dating back to 1927; notably, the famed 10th hole lacked greenside bunkers. The course has been modified a few times, most notably in 1992 when Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore redesigned the bunkers to look as they did when the course opened.
The country club prospered in the 1930s. It hosted the dressage equestrian and the riding part of the modern pentathlon events for the 1932 Summer Olympics. The Riviera Equestrian Center was where prominent riders like Egan Merz trained younger people like Elizabeth Taylor how to ride; Taylor, then a child star, was preparing for her role in the movie National Velvet.
The movie Pat and Mike, starring Katharine Hepburn and Babe Zaharias, was filmed at Riviera, as was The Caddy, starring Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, with a cameo appearance by Ben Hogan, and Follow the Sun, about Hogan, starring Glenn Ford and Anne Baxter. The club has had many famous members, which included Humphrey Bogart, Glen Campbell, Vic Damone, Peter Falk, Jack Ging, Dean Martin, Gregory Peck, Walt Disney, Hal Roach, Douglas Fairbanks, and Mary Pickford. The actor Conrad Veidt died suddenly of a heart attack in 1943 while playing golf at the Riviera Country Club.
Willie Hunter, the 1921 British Amateur champion and six-time PGA Tour winner, served as the head professional from 1936 to 1964. His son Mac Hunter held the head pro job from 1964 to 1973. Willie Hunter helped save the course from severe flooding in 1939, and helped rescue the club from bankruptcy during World War II.
PGA Tour
Riviera hosted the Los Angeles Open in 1929 and 1930, then nine consecutive years from 1945 through 1953. It returned in 1973, where it has remained, with the exception of 1983 and 1998, for a total of 54 times through 2017.
The course is well known for Ben Hogan, and the course has been called "Hogan's Alley" (a moniker shared with Colonial Country Club in Texas). In the 1940s, Hogan won the L.A. Open three times and finished second once. Other notable winners at Riviera include Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Hale Irwin, Tom Watson, Johnny Miller, Ben Crenshaw, Mark Calcavecchia, Fred Couples, Corey Pavin, Craig Stadler, Nick Faldo, Ernie Els, Mike Weir, and Phil Mickelson. Hogan also won the 1948 U.S. Open at Riviera, and Irwin also won the 1998 U.S. Senior Open. Hal Sutton won the 1983 PGA, and Steve Elkington won the 1995 PGA.
More recent winners at Riviera include Rory Sabbatini in 2006, and Charles Howell III, who won in 2007 in a sudden-death playoff against Phil Mickelson. In 2008, the first as the Northern Trust Open, Mickelson hung on for a two-shot win over Jeff Quinney to win for the first time at Riviera. This win gave Mickelson at least one win in every West Coast Swing event.
Notable exceptions to the list of winners are Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. Nicklaus' best finish was at age 38 in 1978, two strokes back as solo runner-up after an uncharacteristic stumble late in the final round. As a high school sophomore from Cypress in neighboring Orange County, Woods played his very first PGA Tour event, on a sponsor's exemption (as an amateur) at Riviera in 1992; he shot 72â€"75 and missed the cut. His best finish at L.A. was in 1998, when the Nissan Open was held at the Valencia Country Club (Riviera was being prepared for the U.S. Senior Open). Woods shot 65â€"66 on the weekend, but lost in a playoff to Billy Mayfair, one of only two playoff losses on tour (15â€"2 through February 2014). Woods finished tied for second in 1999 and had top-10 finishes in 2003 and 2004. The 2005 event had only two rounds due to rain; Woods finished 13th. He last played at Riviera in 2006, also rain-plagued, but withdrew after two rounds due to illness.
Major championships held at Riviera
Bolded years are major championships on the PGA Tour.
General information
The greens at Riviera are Poa annua, common for the West, but the fairways and rough are Kikuyu grass. A tough, dense pasture grass imported from Africa, it had been used at a nearby polo field in the 1930s and was also planted on hillsides to prevent erosion. Over the years, it gradually invaded the course and became the dominant species. Kikuyu provides optimal lies on close-mown fairways, but is very challenging in the spongy rough.
Guests at Riviera must play the course with a member. For the dress code, denim is not allowed; a collared shirt and either Bermuda shorts or slacks are required.
The course
The course is a par 71, at a length of 7,013 yards (6,413Â m) from the back tees (which has been lengthened to 7,322 yards (6,695Â m) for Tour play), 6,531 yards (5,972Â m) from the middle tees, and 5,907 yards (5,401Â m) from the forward tees. The men's slope ratings are 74.6/135 and 72.2/130 for the back and middle tees, respectively. The ladies' slope rating is 74.3/142 for the forward tees.
The course record for competitive play is 61, ten under par, shot by Ted Tryba in 1999 in the third round of the Nissan Open, and included a bogey on 18. Tryba was the runner-up that year to Ernie Els. The course record for the lowest nine holes is 28 (seven under par on the front nine), shot by Andrew Magee in the opening round in 1991 (followed by a 38 on the back nine for a 66). He finished the tournament four strokes back, tied for eighth.
Front nine
The first hole, a short par five, is an easy beginning hole. The tee is elevated 75 feet (23Â m) above the fairway, tempting players to hit driver, but out of bounds on the left side and a barranca crossing the fairway make players think twice. Scores range from eagle to double bogey. The second hole is a long par four that plays uphill and into the wind. It is the number one handicap hole. The third hole is a medium-length par four that plays into the wind.
The fourth hole is a long par three, which Hogan called the "Best par three in America." The par four fifth hole plays into the wind and is almost on the side of the hill. The par three sixth hole is world-famous for having a bunker in the middle of the green. If a player is on the wrong side of the green, he or she will have to make a tough decision to either putt around or chip over the bunker.
The fairway at the seventh hole, a par four, is difficult to hit. The eighth hole, a long par four, has two fairways separated by a dry ditch. The ninth, a long par four, is known for its well-placed fairway bunkers.
Back nine
The tenth hole is a very short par four known as a risk-reward hole. Longer hitters can try to drive the green, but an accurate drive will be needed as several bunkers surround the green. The eleventh hole is a long par five where eucalyptus trees and barranca come into play. The twelfth is a long par four, often into the wind, that plays to a narrow green surrounded by the barranca, bunkers and trees. One tree, Bogey's Tree, is named after Humphrey Bogart.
The thirteenth hole is a tough driving hole, with the barranca on the left side and eucalyptus on the right side. The fourteenth is an easy par three with the largest green on the golf course, but the green is multi-tiered, making putting difficult. The fifteenth hole is a dogleg par four to the right that features the largest green on the golf course, but the green is two-tiered, so one must make sure that his or her ball is on the proper tier. This hole plays into the breeze of the Pacific Ocean and it is a pivotal hole in the tournament.
The sixteenth hole is the last par three on the course and can yield birdies, however players will need to hit the small green that it surrounded by bunkers. The seventeenth hole is a long, uphill par five that is the longest hole on the golf course. The eighteenth hole is a world-famous par four. The tee shot is blind, and the ball must find the fairway to have any chance of reaching the green, which is surrounded by a natural amphitheater with a beautiful view of the clubhouse.
Scorecard
References
External links
- Official website
- Virtual tour of the golf course from the official site
- Historical tour of the course from the official site
- Official PGA Tour website for the Northern Trust Open
- Golf Course Histories aerial comparison 1927 v 2013