Thomas was the visionary and design strategist who appeared once or twice a week during construction. He was just as interested in deep sea fishing with Zane Grey off Catalina Island or hybridizing roses on his Beverly Hills estate. Thanks to an inherited family fortune, Thomas took only select projects and never charged for design services. For the Griffith Park courses he designed in 1923, Thomas financed their completion when the city of L.A. ran out of funding.
The proposed Riviera club was part of Garbutt's grand dream to build a chain of clubs stretching from downtown to the sea. An avid boxer, yachtsmen, handball expert and auto racer who designed his own car, Garbutt amassed a fortune through royalties derived from inventing innovative oil drilling tools.
As Riviera's construction moved along at a normal pace, the energetic Garbutt drove from his 35-acre Silver Lake mansion for frequent visits. He persuaded the LAAC board to fund additional manpower and machinery to speed the construction process. The price tag for the project, including the clubhouse, was about $1 million, a huge sum at the time.
Garbutt insisted on making design suggestions even though he was not a golfer. This forced Thomas and Bell to devise a plan to chat continuously whenever Garbutt visited the site, making it difficult for their non-golfing friend to enter design-related conversations.
Rave reviews
Because the clubhouse was still under construction, the invited guests and opening foursome had convened on the members' tee down the hill. With members of the press and dignitaries such as U.S. Sen. L.C. Phipps of Colorado looking on, the 6,910-yard course was turned over to the city's finest for the exhibition match. Two amateurs, Paul M. Hunter and George Von Elm, took on local pros Vic D'Alberto and Willie Hunter.
Paul Hunter was a former state and Southern California amateur champion; Von Elm, who became one of the first to join Riviera, had become the second-most famous amateur golfer in America when he stunned Bobby Jones in the 1926 U.S. Amateur final at Baltusrol. That same year, Jones became the first golfer—amateur or professional—to win the U.S. Open and British Open in one season.
D'Alberto, from Los Angeles Country Club, was announced by match referee Scotty Chisholm as "rather crownless at present." Willie Hunter was the 1926 British Amateur champion and later Riviera's "Pro Emeritus." A mainstay at Riviera from 1936 until his death in 1968, Hunter played in every Los Angeles Open from 1926 to 1961.
With striped ties tucked into their white dress shirts and flamboyant checkered socks exposed by their beige plus-fours, the foursome initiated Riviera with three birdies on the par-five first hole. But D'Alberto and Willie Hunter dominated the match, winning, 5 and 3, and carding a best-ball 67 to Von Elm and Paul Hunter's 71. The lowest individual round was 73.
In his post-opening day review for the athletic club's Mercury magazine, Chisholm suggested that Riviera's second hole was "one of the greatest par-four creations in the country." Chisholm made no reference to the 238-yard par-three fourth hole that Ben Hogan later called "the greatest par-three hole in America."
Nor did Chisholm write anything about the par-three sixth with its bunker set in the middle of the green. Perhaps with the $800 memberships ($10 a month dues) and $2,500 dues-free lifetime memberships moving slowly, Chisholm avoided any descriptions that might intimidate prospective members.
A friend and photographer of golfing legends Old Tom Morris, Alister MacKenzie and Hogan, Chisholm predicted a rich future for Riviera's short par-four 10th: "I believe golf architects will copy [the hole] throughout America because of its uniqueness of design."
Jack Nicklaus has ranked the 10th and 18th holes among his favorite 18 in major championship golf. Nicklaus, who came close to several tournament wins at Riviera, frequently says the 10th has inspired some of his designs.
In the next morning's Herald Examiner, columnist Maxwell Stiles wrote that the course was "artistic in design" and that Riviera "was Southern California's newest and in many ways finest amphitheater of golf."
George Clark, a gallery member for the opening and an athletic club official said: "I hope to see the day when the landscaped sides of the canyon will be dotted with spectators looking down upon the players in the $10,000, maybe more, Los Angeles Open tournament, being played over two 18-hole courses of the Riviera golf club."
Forty-one Los Angeles Opens, two PGA Championships and one U.S. Open later, Clark's prognosis for Riviera as a storied tournament venue is blemished only by the expectation for a second course at Riviera, which was scrapped not long after opening day. In its place evolved the Riviera Polo Club, a playground for Will Rogers, Walt Disney, Elizabeth Taylor and host to 1932 Olympic Equestrian events.
But it was the kilt-clad Chisholm, later famous for his 18th-green announcements at the Los Angeles Open and a cameo in the movie on Ben Hogan, "Follow the Sun," who prophesized Riviera's place in the world of golf.
"It will prove to be, mark my words, the training grounds of future champions whose names will emblazon the golfing records of two continents and bring credit and glory to the state of California," Chisholm wrote. "Some may curse it, but they will remain to love it, because, like Old St. Andrews, it beams over with character. The name Riviera will be known throughout the universe of golf as the Pine Valley of the Western coast."