Course Source: TPC Harding Park, Le Maitre de Mont-Tremblant
Tom LaMarre, The Sports Xchange August 5, 2013The SportsXchange
IN THE PUBLIC EYE: TPC Harding Park in San Francisco.
The remodeling of the aging clubhouse, which dated to the opening of the course, and other facilities was made possible by an agreement between the PGA Tour and a group of local citizens, spearheaded by Sandy Tatum, former president of the United States Golf Association.
The agreement with the PGA Tour secured Harding Park five PGA tournaments over a 15-year span, with each of those events expected to infuse $50 million into the local economy.
The course hosted the Charles Schwab Cup Championship, essentially the Champions Tour's tour championship, twice, with John Cook winning in 2010 and Jay Don Blakeclaiming the title in 2011.
The reworking of the course was so successful that in 2004 Golf Magazine selected Harding Park as No. 50 on its "Top 100 Golf Courses You Can Play." It was rated as the third-best municipal course in a major metropolitan city in the United States, behind Bethpage Black in New York and Torrey Pines in San Diego.
Harding Park had hosted the PGA Tour before, when the Lucky International was held there between 1961-66 and in 1968. All you need to know about the quality of the course is that the winners were Gary Player, Gene Littler, Jack Burke Jr., Chi Chi Rodriguez, George Archer, native San Franciscan Ken Venturi and Billy Casper.
HEAD PROFESSIONAL: Tom Smith.
Fleming was Alister Mackenzie's construction supervisor at Cypress Point and in his later years worked for theSan Francisco Recreation and Park Department as the supervisor of the city's public golf courses.
However, this is a three-shot hole for most players, and the golfer should favor the right side all the way to green, which is tucked away in the cypress trees to the left behind two bunkers.
The last five holes play along a ridge several hundred feet above Lake Merced, where you might see the local college rowing crews at work. It's as good a stretch of golf as you can find anywhere. Even there, the course does not lose what the British would call its parkland feel.
Try to take advantage of the short par-4 16th, which measures only 330 yards from the tips, but you must be accurate off the tee not to be blocked out on the approach behind trees on the right and left. The short-iron approach can be tricky because traps right and left help create some tight pin placements.
OTHER COURSES IN THE AREA: TPC Harding Park is located near San Francisco's famed private courses, the Olympic Club, Lake Merced and San Francisco Country Club, but unless you know a member, you will have to be content to play the very good public courses.
Lincoln Park Golf Course, which opened in 1910, is a sporty par-68, 5,149-yard layout that winds around the hillsides on the grounds of the De Young Museum and the Legion of Honor. The 242-yard 17th is stunning and treacherous par 3, with views of the Golden Gate.
WHERE TO STAY: The venerable Fairmont San Francisco, flagship of the worldwide chain, has stood sentinel over the "City by the Bay" for more than 100 years from its perch on Nob Hill.
The landmark hotel has been fully refurbished to its original grandeur, from the 591 guest rooms and suites to the magnificent grand main lobby with marble floors and Corinthian columns trimmed in gold.
The Fairmont is located at the only crossing of San Francisco's three cable car lines, with Chinatown, the Embarcadero, the Financial District, Union Square and Fisherman's Wharf nearby.
Other fine hotels in San Francisco include the Mandarin Oriental, Le Meridien San Francisco, the Westin St. Francis, the Hyatt Regency San Francisco, the Hilton San Francisco, the Marriott San Francisco, the Palace Hotel, the Hyatt at Fisherman's Wharf and the Sir Francis Drake Hotel.
THE LAYOUT: Le Maitre, which in French means "The Master," is owned and operated by ClubLink (the largest developer of golf clubs in Canada) and is part of the Fairmont-Quebec Golf Trail, which also includes the Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello and Fairmont Le Manoir Richeleau.
Given the name of the course, it should come as no surprise that Fred Couples, the 1992 Masters champion, teamed with architect Gene Bates for design of the layout -- which meanders along the banks of the Riviere du Diable (the Devil's River).
You might hear an occasional moose call, if you don't actually see Bullwinkle himself, in addition to elk, bear, foxes, whitetail deer and other wildlife.
The season annually opens in early May and runs through October.
LOCAL KNOWLEDGE: The designers utilized three types of terrain to create an incredible golf course. Nos. 6 through 9 play through wide meadows and have a links feel. In creating the holes in the swampy areas and the woods, the designers respected the natural lay of the land. They did not move a lot of earth, but they didn't have to because the terrain is in almost a perfect spot for a golf course.
The course opens into a meadow but doesn't get much easier on the sixth hole, a 425-yard par 4 that is the No. 3 handicap hole, before the golfer gets a bit of a breather on the last three holes of the front nine. Best of the three is No. 8, a 170-yard par 3, on which the tee shot must carry a large lake and a yawning bunker to a wide, shallow green.
The 450-yard par-4 11th hole, the most difficult on the back side, is a dogleg left on which the drive and the approach shot must be precise to a narrow fairway and a green guarded by a bunker on the right side.
As with all spectacular golf courses, there is a memorable finish at Le Maitre. The 18th hole is a 455-yard par 4 with a wide fairway, but you can't simply grip it and rip it because the hole is pockmarked by four sand traps and two large grass bunkers that can come into play on the tee shot. A waterfall empties into a boulder-filled lake to the left of the final green, which sits below the rustic, 13,000-square-foot clubhouse.
Now, however, Mont-Tremblant has become a year-round world-class destination resort area, with five championship golf courses not more than 10 minutes apart.
Down the road a few minutes in Gray Rocks Resort are Le Belle and La Bete, aka The Beauty and The Beast. La Bete was designed by Graham Cooke, while La Belle is a classic mountain course that dates to the 1920s.
Stroll the streets and alleyways of the quaint village of Mont-Tremblant, approximately 75 miles north of Montreal, and if you didn't know better, you might think you were in Val d'Isere or Chamonix in the French Alps.
Le Manoir Richelieu, overlooking the St. Lawrence River in La Malbaie, and Le Chateau Montebello are golf resorts, while the majestic Queen Elizabeth in Montreal, the elegant Le Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City and the rustic Fairmont Kenauk in Montebello can arrange for tee times at championship courses nearby.
Also in Mont-Tremblant are Le Westin Resort and Spa, Club Tremblant L'Hotel du Lac, Chateau Beauvallon, Hotel Quintessence, Ermitage du Lac Tremblant and Le Sommet des Neiges, among dozens of others.
