I've never played Lake Merced. I've played the Cal Club once, Olympic twice and SFGC twice. Most recently (about 12-14 years ago) I played the Cal Club and Olympic (Lake) on successive days in September when it was hot and clear in San Francisco, an amazing treat. Course conditions on both courses were to die for.
I first acquired a golf course picture book in the early 1970s, several years before I began to play the sport. "100 Greatest Golf Courses...and Then Some" is a Golf Digest book that featured short descriptions and handsome photos of many great courses. In this book, a photo of the par-4 10th hole at San Francisco Golf Club made an early impression of the ideal golfing ground.
The subtitle of this two-page spread is "San Francisco: From tragic duels to a stellar membership today."
I don't think I've ever seen a golf course which presents itself to the visitor in a more impactful fashion. You head down this small, nondescript lane and park your car. As you approach the small pro shop, you begin to see holes 1, 9, 10 and 18 as part of a spacious field where the golf begins and ends. It's magnificent.
It's been a long time since I've played any of these courses, so I really can't talk authoritatively about any of them. I don't remember much of it, frankly. I played SFGC before and after the major renovation which restored the Tilly Hole, the small par 3 13th which replaced the medium length par 3 15th in the old design. This allowed the restoration to add considerably more variety to the par 4s (14-17) that traverse the northeast part of the property.
What I do remember is that I loved the new/old 13th, a little postage stamp of a hole with sand all around. And since I also like the medium-length par 3 11th and dogleg-right par 4 12th holes a great deal, I think the four-hole stretch from #10 to #13 is really good. Other than that, I probably liked the front nine better, and I remember the par-5 9th hole as being my favorite hole on the course.
Finally, when viewing the course on Google Maps and thinking about things to say, it occurred to me that SFGC may have the most symmetrical course layout among all great courses.
Despite the fact these three courses are all considered to be in the top 50-60 in the U.S., it does seem obvious that the best front or back nine in the vicinity is the back nine at Pasatiempo. The only argument that I could imagine against that assessment is that the 16th is simply too wild. If I had to make a call based on my fuzzy memories, I'd probably vote for the front nine at Olympic (Lake) as the best in San Francisco, on that glorious day when the temperature was in the mid-eighties, the greens were fast and smooth and the rough was only 1-1.5 inches long.