Cypress Point Club

Cypress Point Club is a private golf club in California. The club has a single 18-hole course, one of eight on the Monterey peninsula near Monterey, California. The course is well known for a series of dramatic holes that play along the Pacific Ocean that have been named as some of the best in golf.

The Cypress Point Club course opened on August 11, 1928. Byington Ford, Roger D. Lapham, and Marion Hollins were trailblazers for the project. The course was designed in 1928 by golf course designer Alister MacKenzie, collaborating with fellow golf course architect Robert Hunter.

It was used for the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am until 1991, but was dropped from the rotation because, at the time, did not have any black members.

Set in coastal dunes, the course enters the Del Monte forest during the front nine and reemerges to the rocky coastline for the finishing holes. The signature hole is #16, which requires a 231-yard tee shot over the Pacific to a mid-sized green guarded by strategically placed bunkers.

Cypress Point Club was ranked #2 on Golf Magazine's 2011 List of the Top 100 Golf Courses in the World and #5 on Golf Digest's 2011-12 list of America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses.

When playing Cypress Point, management requires all players to have caddies. Because there are only approximately 275 members, and only 30 of them "locally", many of the tee times on the course are used by guests. On a typical day, the course sends out 8 groups, with the first starting at an early 7:00 tee time.

In 1956, the course famously became the scene for a wagered best-ball match featuring seasoned professionals Ben Hogan & Byron Nelson against talented amateurs Ken Venturi & Harvey Ward. Ben Hogan broke the course scoring record with a faultless 63 (a record he still jointly holds) and secured a one-up victory in the process, alongside Nelson. Hogan had chipped in for eagle earlier which ultimately proceed the difference. The spectacle was chronicled in Mark Frost's book The Match: The Day The Game Of Golf Changed Forever.