Free previewStop 2 of 17-Mile Drive: Pacific Grove to Pebble Beach
A Scottish Links Out of a Sand Pit
You've just come through the Pacific Grove Gate, and you're now at Spanish Bay, at the northern tip of the 17-Mile Drive. Look past the buildings toward the ocean, at the low, rolling, open ground that runs down to the water. It doesn't look much like the rest of California. That's on purpose.
Before it was golf, this was a sand-mining operation. When it ended, what remained was vast sandy wasteland, the sort of ground most developers would look at and sigh.
In the early 1980s, three men looked at it and saw Scotland. Robert Trent Jones Jr. was a golf course architect. Tom Watson was one of the great players of his era. He had won the U.S. Open just down this road at Pebble Beach in 1982. Sandy Tatum was a San Francisco lawyer who had served as president of the United States Golf Association.
That's the opening. The rest plays at stop 2 of 17-Mile Drive: Pacific Grove to Pebble Beach (2 min in all). Unlock the tour to hear it all, or try stop 1 free first.
