Lake Merced - Daly City, CA (Willie Locke with revisions by Alister MacKenzie; Modified restoration to that version from previous Rees Jones redesign by Gil Hanse, 2022)
If that architect description above doesn’t make it clear, the design history out at Lake Merced is a bit of a jumbled mess. Scotsman Willie Locke originally designed the course in 1922, but Alister MacKenzie came in for a redesign later on that decade. The scope included a bunker reduction and redesign as well a complete rebuilding of the famous lost par three 17th hole (13 on today’s new Hanse routing). Eventually though the course suffered the same fate as many California courses (especially ones where MacKenzie was, coincidentally), being forced to truncate in footprint due to an encroaching adjacent highway. This led to redesigns, re-routings, and a complete loss of all the MacKenzie and Locke elements. Ever since I moved to this region in 2010, I’ve been shown the old photos of this course, and we would all agree while looking at them wistfully, “that would be so cool to restore some day.”
Thankfully the club hired Gil Hanse, who has the skills and recent design pedigree to convince a club like this to make such a leap to the past. Gil came up with a “new” routing that restores a majority of the holes in their original corridors, re-added original elements in some new locations, and allowed for the creation of a couple new holes that could be done in MacKenzie’s style—all while also providing area for a brand new driving range.
I was fortunate to get to help out Hanse and the Caveman Construction team for about 2/3rds of this project before having to head back to Teton Pines in the spring for the second phase of work there. It was a real treat to work alongside Gil and the team in some of the easiest sandy material I have shaped in and made even better by working to bring back the MacKenzie. The highlights were undoubtedly getting to work on the all new 16th with its MacKenzie “scabs” up on the hill, restoring the bunkers and surrounds on the 12th (Old 16th), and restoring the bunkers and shapes around the 13th (Old 17th)—easily the most important hole I have worked on to this point of my career. This was no doubt a special project to be a part of.
The newly restored 13th (original 17th Hole), following much earthmoving, tree removal, infrastructure demo, shaping, and detail refinement.
The area of the new 13th viewed from the current lower tee. The previous version of the course had a much higher green playing from the left.
The Alister MacKenzie version of the hole and one of the pictures we drew inspiration and reference from.
Looking at the flashy new 16th hole from 13. The bunkering draws inspiration from MacKenzie “scab” bunkering elsewhere and the back of the 6th hole at Cypress Point.
The restored 12th hole (original 16th) is an interesting one with a simple Willie Locke punchbowl green and flanking MacKenzie bunkering.
The original hole
Shaping in progress out on the 8th green