From Sandy Tatum interview re: Cypress Point
You are a long time member at Cypress Point. Please describe a favorite hole.
Really it’s every hole but one can’t think of Cypress Point without thinking of the 16th hole. It’s the signature hole. There is something mystical about the hole and how Marion Hollins saved it when Mackenzie was concerned that it was too difficult with the hickory shafted club and the 1926 golf ball that she used, teed up in the dirt, she hit it onto the green area. I think if she had not hit that shot, he (Mackenzie) might have created some funky 4 par.
One of the world's great half par holes - the sixteenth at Cypress Point Club.
In picking another, I would also say the 9th, which has the same frame of reference that the 10th at Riveria has. I think any great golf course should have a drivable 4 par that makes risk rewards factors play so interesting. If you choose to lay it up, the 2nd shot is so difficult especially if the pin is up on the upper level.
I was playing there with Tom Watson a number of years ago and after we had played the hole he turned to me and said it was the best short par 4 he had ever played. It is absolutely perfect.
What are your thoughts on the eighteenth hole at Cypress Point?
I think it’s the most ridiculously maligned golf hole that I have ever played. I think it’s a wonderful golf hole. Jimmy Demaret is the one that said that Cypress was the best 17 hole golf course that he had played. If you really study that hole you realize that you have to be very careful in hitting that tee shot. The brilliance of that hole is the construction of the area where the tee shots lands. Depending on whether you take the risk of hitting the drive on the right hand side or you have to contend with that tree that guards the left approach and decide whether to go over it, around it or under it.
Discuss how the ball and technology has effected Cypress Point over the past thirty years.
It’s just not viable as a championship course anymore. As you know, there is plenty of room to add distance at Cypress Point. Holes 4,6,8 could be lengthened and 9 if the tee is moved down. Furthermore you could go back as far as you wanted on 12 and 13.
There was a serious movement to do that and I wrote a letter to the board saying to do that would eliminate a Mackenzie design. I added that if Cypress wanted to have an influence on the game then keep it is as it is and have it used as a clinical example of why the ball should be rolled back. As a practical manner, lengthening it was only going to accommodate a very small percentage of people. I have a friend who is a member and he disagrees with me. His argument is he saw Tiger Woods play the 2nd hole with a driver and 4 iron. Others have seen him try and drive the 17th hole. My argument is that when a player can do that, he takes every single design element that the architect puts in the hole, out of play.