Pasatiempo - Santa Cruz, CA (Alister MacKenzie; most recent restoration by Jim Urbina, 2023 and 2024)
Alister MacKenzie thought so much of this course and this place in the world that he made it his home, living there until his untimely passing in 1934. We think a lot of it too, and it has been a true honor to help out on Jim Urbina’s restoration of this special golf course, working in the shadows of one of our golf design heroes, Alister MacKenzie.
The work started with the front nine in 2023 and finished with the back in 2024. The scope of this most sensitive project included freshening up bunkers and further restoring them wherever evidence suggested, eliminating excess sand build-up around greens and bunkers, fixing and restoring a lot of greens-surround tie-ins that had been lost, and rebuilding the profile of the greens themselves to USGA specs, using laser technology to maintain and recreate their contours to the micro-inch. It was a tedious process that demanded every bit of attention to detail and extra effort by all, including Jim himself, Justin Mandon (course superintendent) and his excellent staff, and Earth Sculptures (contractor and other shapers who work as carefully as any).
My involvement was mainly in the bunkers (about half or so of them, all on greens and approaches), but I also did some work on green-surrounding contours (most notably 16 and 18) and a few cool spots on the greens themselves. Getting to work around and more closely understand Pasatiempo’s greens will do wonders for my understanding of golf architecture (and its possibilities), and getting to work in some of these bunkers—bunkers that, long before I ever knew this project would happen, were among my favorite in all of golf—was very much a dream come true. I’m just hopeful that MacKenzie, Robert Hunter, Paddy Coll, and the rest of the original bunker building crew would recognize their work and be satisfied with our efforts to uphold it.
Hole 10 at Pasatiempo, with this array of bunkers cut into a naturally-existing barranca
Above: more close up images of the 10th array, which involved some of the most work on the project. What stands out to me is how well these work together as a unit, yet each has their own characteristics and personality. Variety of size, edge movement, angle, and space within. Brilliant stuff.
Hole 13’s incredible approach/greenside bunkers, which guard the layup zone and trick the eye into making the green feel farther than it is. They also distract from the unusual, winged shape of the green.
The only original-era image we had of 13, but it’s a good one, showing all sorts of detail and people for scale.
The latest version of the bunkers from approximately the location where the above original photo was taken
Hole 18 with its vertical front bunkers spilling down into the canyon. Note the green once again has a front hole location instead of just a false front.
An underrated part of the work’s scope was being able to restore greenside contours that had been lost. Nowhere was this as apparent as at 18, where the green had felt completely disconnected from the bunkers below due to various changes over the years.
Early 1930s view from behind the 18th green.
The prior version of the green had lost the character, mass, and flow of the original fronting contours going down to the bunkers in the canyon.
Hole 3 bunkers original MacKenzie and restored 2023, taken from the spot on 2 fairway that was our only ground photo of these bunkers taken from off the green.
Left: 2022 before project work on hole 3. Note back left bunker, right side bunkers, and shape of green. Center: 2023 after project work (image: A.J. Pangelinen). Right: 1931 aerial
The back left bunker on hole 3 in middle of shaping. Armando in the center provides a sense of scale and hoe the left portion has been lifted well off the green from the more recent version.
More hole 3 during shaping.
Hole 8 left side bunkers only needed minor tweaks from their most recent version.
Hole 2 bunkers just after shaping.
MacKenzie’s famous 16th refreshed, with bunker details restored like the front left “hook,” bottom curve, back right finger, and the middle hook finger and “whale tail” shifted back closer to place.
Close-up of the sprawling right greenside bunker on the 16th
The “hook” put back in place—no simple thing to re-create in considering drainage outfalls and liners. (Thanks again to Earth Sculptures for making all these crazy old MacKenzie details possible, details most wouldn’t go through the effort to put back)