Life is made up of decisions, big and small. Each day includes countless choices that impact us and those around us and some of the simplest decisions wind up having a profound impact on the course of lives and generations that follow. We can all look back on decisions we have made, and we do, and assess whether they were the right ones and if we would do anything differently. What if the Green Bay Packers chose not to hire the offensive coordinator of the New York Giants to become their head coach in 1959? Would Vince Lombardi have made some other city Titletown? The history of the NBA would look profoundly different if the Portland Trailblazers drafted Michael Jordan second in the 1984 NBA draft, like Bobby Knight implored them to do. What if Tom Butters, the then athletic director at Duke University, succumbed to the pressure to fire Mike Kryzewski after his third season as head coach in 1983 when the Blue Devils were losing to the likes of Wagner College? If a different direction had been taken or the previous course hadn’t been abandoned the industries of those sporting enterprises would be consequentially different. Which brings us to the Sistine Chapel of American golf courses, Cypress Point.
You don’t play Cypress Point, you experience it. That is what I did this past Friday alongside my three fraternity brothers from Vanderbilt with whom I’ve taken some memorable walks at some of golf’s great haunts. Cypress Point is not a fair fight, like Augusta National, but for different reasons. Augusta has historic shots to reference on virtually every hole which provides anyone experiencing the golf course with a catalog of moments that no other course in the world can match. Coupled with the security and the gate at the beginning of Magnolia Lane, ANGC is golf’s true forbidden city. Cypress Point resides on the most extraordinary stretch of northern California coastline and by the time you arrive at the modest entrance right off 17 Mile Drive you’ve already experienced sensory overload. Not only is there no other golf course with the surrounds that Cypress Point enjoys, its simply unfathomable that a course of its reputation and locale could ever be replicated in the United States today.
Augusta National and Cypress Point also have another significant thread they share that makes their stature and lore in the game unapproachable by other historically great golf courses in America. That common thread is Dr. Alistair Mackenzie. But what if the opportunity to complete the work of Seth Raynor who was hired to design Cypress Point was not given to Mackenzie after Raynor’s death from pneumonia at the age of 51 in 1926? Would Bobby Jones’ first impression of Cypress Point in 1929 after losing in the U.S. Amateur been less enthusiastic? These thoughts were running through my mind as I took in Cypress Point again on an overcast and eerily still day on the Monterrey Peninsula.
It seems unfathomable that the routing of Cypress Point which was started by Raynor and completed by Mackenzie would have left Jones uninspired. Raynor was commissioned to design Monterrey Peninsula’s Dunes course as well as Cypress Point, and upon his death, Robert Hunter completed the work at MPCC. Raynor was C.B. MacDonald’s right-hand man, the father of golf course design in America, and Raynor became prolific after MacDonald’s desire to build courses started to wane. Raynor’s background as an engineer and freelance land surveyor made him an expert in moving earth. He was a superior tactician in shaping natural topographies and the application of those skills on a site like Cypress Point make it easy to presume the finished product would have been as breathtaking as the eventual work of Dr. Mackenzie. But consider what that might have meant for the presentation of Cypress Point today if the template of “template holes” had been carried out by Raynor? That’s what was racing through my mind as I traversed the epic dunes, the del monte forest and the rocky coast of Cypress Point with three dear friends. Also suspend reality a little further and ponder what would have become of Augusta National if Seth Raynor was the one who completed Cypress Point and his work had overwhelmed Bobby Jones as Jones began to envision his own course in North Georgia.
But back to Cypress Point… as I was soaking in the genius of what it IS, I was simultaneously trying to visualize the application of an Eden, a 
Redan, a Punchbowl, a Biarritz, an Alps, A Short, and a Road Hole. I know, it’s crazy but is it really? It was supposed to be Raynor’s place, and it only became time for Mackenzie because Raynor died. Some people have a thousand swing thoughts, I try to focus on one simple swing key and the rest of my mind drifts toward looking at landforms and geeking out about the people who formed these clubs and the conversations that were had almost 100 years ago. Cypress Point bathes in its simplicity as a club and overwhelms you with its understated celebration of its history. The photos on the walls of the modest men’s locker room are a rolodex of king makers and golf afficionados. From Samuel Morse to Sandy Tatum, to Bing Crosby, who made the 2nd hole in one on the majestic 16th hole in 1947, to Eddie Lowery, the pint-sized caddy for Francis Quimet in 1913 at Brookline. All these men had rich history at Cypress Point. The famous match pitting Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson against Ken Venturi and Harvey Ward in 1956 that produced the wonderful book by Mark Frost titled, “The Match” was a topic of conversation at dinner the night before our round. My boys I was with have all read the book multiple times, and Bill Bunce, an elite amateur in Northern California presently, still seems mystified that the quality of play that day could have been that good. What Cypress Point lacks in on camera moments it makes up for in almost mythical anecdotes.
The Walker Cup will return to Cypress in 2025 and we devoted time to surveying where they might manufacturer teeing grounds to offset the unrelenting length of today’s young elite amateurs. Our caddies insisted the club is going to play it from the yardage they have and as a match play competition it presents countless scoring opportunities. And not that I needed to get the fellas lathered up for our day at Cypress, but I sent them Golf Digest’s, “All 18 holes at Cypress Point” narrated by Jim Nantz. There are other experiences that have a tapestry of historical elements to lean into while also possessing a modesty of public exposure like National Golf Links, Seminole, and Chicago Golf Club. These types of experiences, with great company, who possess golf bonafides are the days I cherish most.
As for why Cypress Point, designed ultimately by Alistair Mackenzie, is so good is because the thing so often overlooked by most everyone when talking about why we play the game is because it’s so damn fun. From the opening tee shot over the hedge that fronts 17-mile drive to the sandy ridge that you play alongside on the par 5 second to the walk into the forest on the 4th you are presented many early opportunities. Three par 5’s in the first 6 holes and two short fours to close the opening nine, that play in opposite directions along one of the most pronounced landforms on the property makes the front a fun factory. It’s the opposite of formulaic. Holes 11, 12 and 13, into the prevailing wind is the sternest stretch on the course and then you get to the greatest walk across the street in all of golf. Once again, defying convention, Mackenzie created back-to-back par 3’s on 15 and 16 that utilize the rocky coast in the most singular way ever conceived. Coupled with the different directions and pronounced dispersion in yardages, the two holes embody contrast. The 17th is your final consumption of heaven on earth before turning up the hill and the finish. As for the 18th, its quirky and for more than a few it is deflating, but I’ve always been good with the home hole. Cypress Point shouldn’t end with something overly long and the cozy corridor up the hill has always felt good to me after the kaleidoscope of color, sound and scale you experience on 15, 16 and 17. In totality it’s the antithesis of conformity which is why it may be the closest thing to the best way to ever experience the game.
You likely know by now that it’s about the time not the score for me. The plaque on 17 tee, with the words of long time member Clarke
Bearden titled, “Boney’s pulpit” reads, “Gentlemen, I suggest we pause for a moment, admire the beautiful view and count our blessings. Very few of us are privileged to pass this way”. The plaque almost seems too contrived that someone could express what everyone likely feels at that stage of the round but it’s simply the truth. Hitting it out of the center of the face still matters and executing a competent plan is somewhat important but the reward of having an experience that makes your mind race is exponentially more redeeming. One thing that has always been true about a round at Cypress Point is the affirmation that we all were at the right place at the right time, at least on that day.