The History of Golf in San Francisco
In 1998, Sports Illustrated looked back at San Francisco and wrote that not so long ago, the city was the center of the golf universe. It wasn't hyperbole. Within a few square miles around Lake Merced, one city produced U.S. Open, PGA, Masters and Open Championship winners, staged five U.S. Opens, and has run the country's oldest municipal golf championship for more than a century. This is the story of how that happened — and where you can still play it.
The first courses (1895–1913)
San Francisco golf begins at the Presidio. In 1895, the post's commander allowed the San Francisco Golf and Country Club to lay out a nine-hole course on army land — among the first golf holes in California (Historic Hotels of America). The San Francisco Golf Club, founded that same year and one of just seven clubs west of the Allegheny Mountains at the time, migrated from the Presidio to 19th and Ocean in 1904 and finally to its present site in 1915 (Wikipedia).
The city's own golf followed quickly. Lincoln Park opened three holes above Land's End in 1902 and grew to eighteen by 1913, giving San Franciscans a municipal course with views no private club anywhere could match (OpenSFHistory).
The City Championship (1917– )
In 1917 San Francisco inaugurated the San Francisco City Championship — the oldest municipal golf tournament in America. It kept playing straight through the Second World War, which is why it can also claim to be golf's oldest consecutively played championship. Its fields have included Ken Venturi, Harvie Ward, George Archer and Juli Inkster, and its home has always been the city's munis: Lincoln Park and, later, Harding Park.
Harding Park and the Lake Merced cluster (1925)
Harding Park opened on July 18, 1925 — a Willie Watson and Sam Whiting design named for President Warren G. Harding (TPC Harding Park). It completed a remarkable cluster around Lake Merced: Harding, the Olympic Club, the San Francisco Golf Club, Lake Merced Golf Club, and the old Ingleside course all within walking distance of one another (OpenSFHistory). Down the coast in Pacifica, Alister MacKenzie's Sharp Park opened as one of the most ambitious municipal courses ever attempted.
The golden age (1950s)
By the mid-1950s, San Francisco's caddie yards and munis had produced a generation that could beat anyone. Sports Illustrated dates the peak to the rivalry between Ken Venturi and Harvie Ward — reigning U.S. Amateur champion Ward against hometown hero Venturi in the 1956 City final at Harding, played in front of an estimated 10,000 spectators (PGA Tour). That same year the two amateurs took on Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson in a private four-ball at Cypress Point — the game chronicled in Mark Frost's The Match.
The generation that came out of those years won everything. Between 1959 and 1969, players raised on San Francisco Bay Area golf claimed every leg of the professional Grand Slam: Bob Rosburg the 1959 PGA, Venturi the 1964 U.S. Open, Tony Lema the 1964 Open Championship, and George Archer the 1969 Masters.
Olympic's U.S. Opens: the Graveyard of Champions
The Olympic Club's Lake Course has hosted five U.S. Opens — 1955, 1966, 1987, 1998 and 2012 — and buried a legend in nearly every one. Jack Fleck denied Ben Hogan a record fifth Open in a 1955 playoff (Wikipedia); Billy Casper erased Arnold Palmer's seven-shot lead over the final nine in 1966 (Wikipedia); Scott Simpson held off Tom Watson in 1987; Lee Janzen caught Payne Stewart in 1998; Webb Simpson came from four back in 2012. Hence the nickname: the Graveyard of Champions.
Decline and rebirth
The second half of the century was harder on the city's munis. By the late 1990s Harding Park had deteriorated so badly that it was used as a parking lot during the 1998 U.S. Open at Olympic, right across the road (TPC Harding Park). Its rescue came from Sandy Tatum, the former USGA president who rallied city leaders, the USGA and the PGA Tour behind a multimillion-dollar restoration completed in 2003 — with the Fleming nine preserved as a permanent home for First Tee San Francisco.
The verdict came fast: Tiger Woods outdueled John Daly in a playoff at the 2005 WGC-American Express Championship, the Presidents Cup came in 2009, and in 2020 Collin Morikawa won the PGA Championship at Harding Park (PGA Championship). The course celebrated its centennial in 2025 (SF Rec & Park). Even the city's smallest course got its rebirth: Jack Fleming's 1951 par-3 layout in Golden Gate Park was renovated by Jay Blasi and reopened in 2023 (Golf Club Atlas).
The people behind this story get their own pages: start with the most influential figures in Bay Area golf and how San Francisco became the voice of American golf.
