After a 75-year absence, the United States Golf Association will bring the prestigious U.S. Open championship back to Los Angeles.
But it might not be at the course many expected based on recent golf history here.
The Los Angeles Country Club, which has two courses that opened on Wilshire Boulevard near the Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel in 1911, has been officially selected to host the 2023 major event, the USGA officially announced Wednesday.
The North Course, redesigned by the famed George Thomas Jr. in 1921 and currently under renovation to bring back many of its original features by architect Gil Hanse, will provide the 18-hole test for the U.S. Open. The club’s South Course will be used to accommodate the media, sponsor tents and concessions.
“It’s a perfect opportunity to take the U.S. Open to Los Angeles,” said USGA president Thomas O’Toole Jr.
The U.S. Open, won last month by Jordan Spieth at the somewhat controversial links style public Chambers Bay Golf Course in Washington, is one of four majors in golf in addition to the Masters, British Open and PGA Championship.
In 1948, when Ben Hogan won the last U.S. Open held in L.A., it took place 7 miles west of LACC — at the famed Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, which, like LACC, is a private course.
The last event of any magnitude that LACC hosted was the PGA’s Los Angeles Open five times, the last in 1940. That annual event, currently called the Northern Trust Open, has been at Riviera almost exclusively since 1973. Riviera is also set to host the 2017 U.S. Amateur championship.
However, because of all the extensive space needed to accommodate the elaborate setup for the U.S. Open, the landmark Riviera, an 18-hole course off the windy Sunset Boulevard, with limited parking and shuttle service, might have the most history on its side but not enough land.
In the latest Golf Digest list of the 100 greatest golf courses in the U.S., Riviera’s par-71, 7,040-yard amphitheater, also designed by Thomas, ranks No. 24. That’s two spots ahead of the LACC North Course, a par-71, 7,236-yard track. A year ago, LACC was ranked No. 41.
The LACC, which hosted the 1930 U.S. Women’s Amateur as well as the 1954 U.S. Junior Amateur, agreed in 2009 to accommodate the 2017 Walker Cup, equal to an amateur version of the Ryder Cup. Yet the facility that many Hollywood stargazers might not even know exists in such a congested urban part of L.A. because of its tree-lined fences has previously turned down numerous attempts by golf’s governing bodies to have an event.
The LACC for many years existed, like the Wilshire Country Club, as one that did not allow Jewish members. A 2011 story about the club in the Hollywood Reporter called the place “a bastion of bankers and corporate execs” that “remains hands-down the most clannish and is known for shunning entertainment types in general.”
But situated on one of the most valuable pieces of land in the world, with downtown L.A. as the backdrop to the 11th hole and the back of the Playboy Mansion sharing a wall, the LACC started serious discussion last year with the USGA about connecting on the 123rd Open in 2023. The course’s board of directors approved it last fall, said club president John Chulick.
“The city of Los Angeles takes pride in hosting national championships — whether it’s a football national championship to a Super Bowl, the Olympics and even the Special Olympics,” said Chulick. “The region is going to be ecstatic to host this event. The region will embrace the event.”
In addition to having the U.S. Open in Los Angeles, the event will be covered as part of a new 12-year-deal with the USGA and L.A.-based Fox Sports.
“We’re in for a real treat,” said USGA executive director Mike Davis. “It will be a wider U.S. Open — the course will have generous fairways. And it will be firm and fast. It’s going to give the players a lot of options.”
This will be just the third time a Southern California venue has held the U.S. Open — aside from Riviera, the public Torrey Pines Course near San Diego has hosted it in 2008 and will again in 2021.
Wednesday, the USGA also announced it would be staging the 2022 U.S. Open at the Country Club in Brookline, Mass., and the 2024 event at Pinehurst Course No. 2 in North Carolina. The USGA, which has been attempting to rotate U.S. Open events between the East and West regions, also runs the U.S. Women’s Open, U.S. Senior Open and the U.S. national amateur championships.
