When Bill Clinton was in the Oval Office, secret service agents were dispatched to San Francisco to prepare for his tee time at the Olympic Club.
They soon reported back that everything was ready for the golf-loving president’s arrival. They’d secured the building. There was just one problem, the agents noted. They couldn’t find the course.
They were not the first to be confused.
Though it’s renowned for golf, the Olympic Club has always had a broader sporting reach. Its original focus, in fact, wasn’t golf at all. It was fitness and general athletics. The club’s infrastructure reflects that fact.
Plug “Olympic Club” into Google Maps today, and two addresses pop up. One is for the golf facilities, famed host site of 12 USGA championships, including the U.S. Amateur earlier this month. The other is for the downtown clubhouse, seven miles away. That clubhouse predates the golf. It opened in 1893 (the Olympic Club itself dates back even further; it was founded in 1860 and is recognized as one of the oldest athletic clubs in the country). Its early members were boxers, rowers, swimmers, and track-and-field athletes. Not long after, basketball players became part of the mix. No matter the sport, Olympic Club athletes routinely ranked among the best of the best. Many were (and some still are) actual Olympians, enjoying world-class facilities to match their skills.
The original downtown clubhouse didn’t last. It was destroyed by fires in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake but was reconstructed in 1912 in the same Post Street location.
The reborn building was — and is — a marvel, accommodating athletes in 19 sports and featuring such notable amenities as natatorium, overhung by two magnificent stained-glass domes. Until 1960, salt water was pumped into the natatorium through a pipeline from the sea. The club has since converted to chlorinated water in its pools, plural, where Olympian continue to hone their strokes today.
Golf was added to the rota in 1918, when the club acquired what was then known as the Lakeside Golf Club. The golf clubhouse opened in 1925, and it’s striking, too, a grand, red-tile roofed Spanish Revival building, overlooking the championship Lake Course. As at the downtown clubhouse, history runs deep.
On a recent visit to San Francisco, GOLF.com toured both clubhouses, which are sibling properties but not identical twins. Watch the above or on YouTube here, and you’ll never confuse the two addresses again.
