Pasatiempo

Some nitpickers like to point out that parts of the course are pinched by homes. But one of those houses, along the par-5 6th, belonged to Alister Mackenzie, who chose to spend his final years on what he once described as his finest course. Unlike Cypress Point, about an hour down the coast, Pasatiempo sits just inland, but its high points offer views of the Pacific and the entire property is a sight to behold, with giant paw-print bunkers and rumpled fairways that give way to ample, undulating greens. Throughout a round here, it’s not hard to see the influence that Pasatiempo had on Mackenzie’s later work at Augusta National — nowhere more so than on the par-4 10th, a brawny two-shotter with the same dramatic sweep of what you see on TV every April. These and other fine Mackenzian features are now sharper than ever as the course emerges from a restoration and reopens to the public this fall.