Cal Club:
Willie Locke & Vernon Macan, 1924-25; Alistair MacKenzie 1927; Robert Trent Jones Sr. & Jr., 1966; Master Plans by Robert Muir Graves, 1980s, and John Harbottle, 1990s; Doug Nichols, 1997 (bunker & tee renovation); major renovation/restoration, Kyle Phillips, 2007
The original location was in Ingleside, where a course that had been built for the San Francisco G&CC and then abandoned was leased by the newly formed Cal Club in 1918. Owing to the constraints of a road crossing, the limits of the lease, and activity at a nearby airport, a new site was secured, the club’s present location in South San Francisco.
The terrain chosen for the golf course in 1924 was a 200-acre parcel, bounded on the north by San Bruno Creek. According to unpublished research by club historian Lee Osbourne, the Cal Club’s routing was done in 1924 by a Scottish-born golf pro and occasional course designer named Willie Lock (or Locke) who had done a handful of other courses in the San Francisco area.
Early on in the construction phase, it appears the club brought in Vernon Macan (1882-1964). An Irish-born golfer who had come to British Columbia in 1917, Macan quickly established himself as a fine amateur golfer and as course designer of modest achievement.
Cal Club opened for play in 1926. By the end of the next year, the club responded favorably to a solicitation by Alistair MacKenzie to do some consulting work at the Cal Club. MacKenzie was just in the process of establishing himself in California.
It's difficult to determine how much time he spent at Cal Club. Mr. Osbourne says very little, but there is no question from aerials of the day that pronounced bunkers in MacKenzie‘s style were established in the 1920s on holes 8-18. MacKenzie also publicized his work at the Cal Club in trade industry magazine ads, and in an essay published in 1933 (“Problems in Remodeling Courses,” The American Golfer), claimed that his work there “saved the club(s) the whole of the cost of reconstruction in reducing maintenance every year since the modeling was carried out.”
In subsequent years, the bunkers were dramatically softened in depth, shape and character. A major step in the softening of the course’s character came with road widening in 1966 that led to relocation of five holes, in part or in entirety. The work, contracted out to Robert Trent Jones Sr., was actually undertaken by his son, Robert Trent Jones Jr., based in Palo Alto, Cal. Like much of the renovation work undertaken by architects in the 1960s-1980s, this renovation work at the Cal Club bore no resemblance to the original form or style of the holes. It is not even clear, in retrospect, that the road development required impact on all five holes or that it required reversing the length and par of holes 4 and 5.
Kyle Phillip's work is based, due to open in June 2008, is a recapturing of the style and feel of the old MacKenzie bunkering but with some considerable modification of routing on the first eight holes owing to available land (a 22-acre parcel in the middle) and the decision to move the antiquated range from between 1& 2 to a much larger parcel away from the clubhouse on the grounds of the old eighth hole. He also removed two ponds by the 11th and 18th greens.