Washington Road in Augusta, Georgia, with its fast-food clutter, and the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and the Santa Monica Freeway just a long par-5 from Beverly Hills are as different as they are far apart.
But not unlike the way Augusta National sits tucked peacefully and privately away from the noisy commerce outside its boundaries, Los Angeles Country Club occupies one of the most valuable pieces of undeveloped urban property anywhere, surrounded by high-rise buildings overlooking a golf club that is, to borrow a Hollywood term, ready for its close-up.
If you weren’t looking for LACC driving down Wilshire Boulevard, you likely wouldn’t know it was there. There is no sign, just a road leading to a white guard house that offers access to one of the most exclusive clubs in the country.
Up a gentle slope is a white clubhouse that is as elegant as it is understated. In a city where big and splashy sells, Los Angeles Country Club doesn’t need flash. Whether having a drink on the Reagan terrace on the backside of the clubhouse (yes, it’s named for the late former president whose locker remains in the men’s locker room) or going out to play 18 holes on one of the two courses, LACC radiates style.
With Sunset Boulevard bordering the back side of the property, you’re not in Kansas anymore.
When the U.S. Open is played at LACC’s North Course next month, it will be a revelation to golf fans and, in particular, course architecture aficionados who, unless they watched the 2017 Walker Cup matches at LACC, have gotten only rare glimpses of the George Thomas design tweaked more than a decade ago by Gil Hanse.
“It’s a little slice of heaven in this ‘City of Angels,’ ” is how Jon Bodenhamer, chief championship officer of the USGA, describes the place where the U.S. Open will be played in Los Angeles for the first time in 75 years.
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