WEBVTT - Deep Dive: Cypress Point 0:00:00.360 --> 0:00:03.160 I don't know what the best course in the world is, 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:06.760 but if you were to narrow it down to two 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:10.480 or three candidates, Cypress Point would be one of them. 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:15.000 Let's dive deep. I'm Garrett Morrison and this is designing golf, 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:25.200 all right. This is a big one. We're talking about. 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:29.880 Cypress Point Club in Pebble Beach, California, the venue of 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:34.360 the upcoming twenty twenty five Walker Cup. This golf course 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:37.840 was designed by Alistair McKenzie, with some key contributions from 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:41.960 his associate Robert Hunter. There was also input from members 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:46.519 of the development team, which included Samuel Morse and Marion Hollins. 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:50.880 Construction began in late nineteen twenty seven and the first 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:55.040 round was played in August nineteen twenty eight. Since the 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:58.160 day it opened, Cypress Point has been one of the 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:02.480 small handful of the world world's most remarkable golf courses. 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:07.800 The properties mixture of Duneland forest and seaside cliffs is 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:12.399 unique and extraordinarily beautiful, and the routing of the course 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:17.560 alternates between those environments seamlessly. Every golfer knows about the 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:22.280 ocean holes, the miniature fifteenth, the huge sixteenth, and the 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:27.120 strategic par four seventeenth. But what makes Cypress Point Cypress 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:30.080 Point is that the holes in the dunes and the 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:34.039 trees are just as good as the ones on the 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.200 Seaside coast. And if you ask a member what their 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:39.880 favorite hole is, they're just as likely to name an 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:43.320 inland hole like the ninth or the thirteenth as a 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:47.440 seaside one. Alistair Mackenzie himself was thrilled with the course. 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:50.800 He wrote, not only is it the best golfing terrain 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:53.360 I have ever had to deal with, but it is 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:56.600 the only course I have ever been associated with which 0:01:56.600 --> 0:02:00.720 has given me complete satisfaction in regard to the details 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:04.280 of the construction work. Mackenzie went on to compare Cypress 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:06.720 Point to his ideal golf course, the Old Course at 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:12.120 Saint Andrews. He wrote, Cypress Point has similar strategic problems 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:16.440 to Saint Andrews and is infinitely more spectacular and beautiful. 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:19.840 For years, I have been contending that in our generation, 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:24.280 no other golf course could possibly compete with the strategic problems, 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:28.960 the thrills, excitement, variety, and lasting and increasing interest of 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.639 the Old Course. But the completion of Cypress Point has 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:36.400 made me change my mind. So today we're doing a 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:40.040 deep dive into the golf course at Cypress Point. We'll 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:43.040 be joined for part of the episode by the author 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:47.680 of the club's upcoming centennial book, David Normoyl. David and 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:50.920 I will talk about the history of Cypress Points founding 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:54.960 and construction. Later, we'll bring on Joshua Pettitt, a golf 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:59.280 architect and the founder of the Alistair Mackenzie Institute. Josh 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:02.640 and I will discuss a few fun stories about specific 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:06.480 aspects of Cypress Points architecture, and for the other parts 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:10.520 of the episode, I'll just be talking with you directly, 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:15.040 with my producer Will Balsam kind of as a sounding board. 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:20.040 With me, I'll just be monologuing essentially about the courses, 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:27.840 land routing, strategic design, greens and restoration work and so on. Now, 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:31.680 before we get to all of that, I want to 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:34.240 talk for a minute about some of my personal history 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:37.880 with Cyprus Point, if you'll indulge me just for a 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:41.800 couple of minutes here. I've been fascinated with this course 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.320 since I was a kid. I've told this story before, 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:47.960 but my interest in golf course design really started when 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:51.720 my dad brought home a copy of the World Atlas 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:55.440 of Golf and the map. This book has these great 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:57.800 beautiful maps in it. The map that I looked at 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:01.200 the most was the map of Pipe Point. It was 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:05.680 just the most outrageously cool looking course I could imagine. 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:10.120 I could barely believe that it was real. But it 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:13.640 was also in a setting that I was very familiar with. 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.360 I grew up in Santa Barbara, California, which is about 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:20.440 a four hour drive from Monterey, and I obviously started 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:23.200 to wonder, will I ever get to play this golf course? 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:27.280 Is that even possible? Fast forward about twenty years later, 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.719 and I moved to Pebble Beach to teach at a 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:35.479 boarding school called Stevenson School. Stevenson is right next to 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.120 Spyglass Hill golf Course, which in turn is right next 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:41.279 to Cypress Point. So it was about a fifteen minute 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:45.000 walk to the forest holes at Cypress Point from where 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:47.919 I lived on campus in a house on campus. It 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:52.599 was faculty housing at Stephenson's School, and I lived and 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:57.240 worked there for five years, and I walked by Cypress 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:01.960 Point many times. The funny thing about Cypress is that 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:06.040 it's not really hidden from public view. The first thirteenth 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.960 and fourteenth holes are right next to seventeen mile Drive. 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:12.080 You can even pull to the side of the road 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:15.680 and hang out on Fanshell Beach and you're literally one 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:19.200 hundred yards from the thirteenth Green, And if you wanted 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:21.760 to take it a step further, there's a public hiking 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:24.560 trail that runs along the top of the dune ridge 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:28.560 above the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth holes. It's called 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:31.360 the Green Trail. You can park in the Pebble Beach 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:34.520 Equestrian Center and within a few minutes you're looking at 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.960 Cypress Point. So it's not one of those courses that's 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:42.760 concealed behind gates and completely inaccessible. But of course it 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.640 is not easy to get a tea time at Cypress. 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:48.960 It's a small membership club that likes to keep things 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:52.640 very low key and low profile. So during the five 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:55.920 years that I lived in Pebble Beach, within literally eight 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:58.960 hundred yards as the crowflies of the fifth Green at 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:02.680 Cypress Point, I actually never played it. And this was 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.360 around the time that I was getting back into golf, 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:08.960 getting interested in golf course design again, starting to write 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:12.359 about it, and that eventually led to the career that 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:15.560 I have now. But at the time, I often thought 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:19.600 to myself, how funny it was that I had this 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:23.280 passion for golf courses, these things that I could look 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:27.520 at and maybe get close to, but not actually experience. 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:30.080 In a few key cases. It's sort of like if 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:33.440 you were a movie lover and there was a film 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.960 that you knew to be one of the greatest ever made. 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:40.920 Everybody thought that it was the greatest, but you couldn't 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:44.720 watch it. You could just sort of hang out outside 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:48.080 the theater and maybe catch a few lines of dialogue 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:49.120 or a few hits. 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:49.480 Of the score. 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:53.880 That's what it felt like for me with Cyprus Point, 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:57.320 and I didn't feel that with any bitterness. I wasn't 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:00.840 angry about it. It just amused me a little bit. 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:04.880 How have I put myself in this position that this 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:08.800 is what I really love and it has kind of 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:13.720 this weird dynamic. And I think the reason that I 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.400 wasn't that I wasn't bitter about it or angry about it, 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:19.760 is partly because I figured I probably would eventually get 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:22.720 a chance to play the course, and that did turn 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:25.120 out to be the case. I've been very lucky to 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:28.280 play Cyprus Point a few times now. But the reason 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:30.640 I'm telling you about all of this is that I 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:33.880 know that some of you listening are probably in the 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:37.280 same position that I was a number of years ago 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:41.000 when I loved this golf course that I didn't have 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:44.880 any way of playing. I know what that's like, and 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:47.280 I don't take it for granted at all that I've 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:50.320 now gotten to study this course in person, and I'm 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:53.480 thrilled that I'm in a position to relay what I've 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:56.040 learned to you. I'm very grateful for all of that. 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:59.480 And I just add that if you have, if you 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:05.600 have a real and enduring passion for golf architecture, if 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:09.800 you become involved in the community of fellow enthusiasts, you 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:13.920 will end up getting opportunities that you never thought you'd get. 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:16.720 And that's that's what's happened for me, and I think 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:20.720 that that's a true thing about about this community that 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:24.600 we're part of. So that's it for the For the 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:27.440 personal section of the podcast, well, we'll now properly get 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:31.680 into the deep dive on Cyprus Point and we'll start 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:36.200 with some history. My guest for that segment is David Normoyle. 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:39.480 But first I want to talk about our sponsor for 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.920 this episode, Best Day brewing. Best Day has a really 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:46.120 cool origin story. It was created by Tate Hufford and 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:50.440 launched a little over three years ago. Basically, Tate led 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:54.719 a very active and social lifestyle and he loves a 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:57.439 good beer. But as he got older and got more 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:02.400 responsibilities a career, a marriage, kids, those mornings where he 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:04.319 had to get up and get after it after a 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:09.200 couple of IPAs suddenly became a little more challenging. Getting 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:12.040 up to motivate for an early surf session or tea 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.320 time just became more difficult. 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But I found 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:57.240 that in recent years I just slept better and functioned 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:01.400 better overall if I wasn't consistently consuming alcohol. And what 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:03.600 Best Day does for me is it allows me to 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:06.840 have the ritual without the side effects. So here's the 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:09.600 deal that Best Day Brewing is offering to our listeners. 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.600 You can get twenty percent off your first order at 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:17.280 Best Daybrewing dot com with code fried Egg twenty. This 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:21.320 offer excludes subscription orders, but otherwise for your first order 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:25.200 twenty percent off with fried Egg twenty. All right, let's 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:36.280 get to David Normoyle. All right, David, welcome to the podcast. 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:37.120 Thank you for being here. 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:39.040 Pleasure Garrett. 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:44.319 So, in talking about the history of Cyprus, point I'd 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:49.240 like to start pretty broad, bring some characters onto the stage, 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:53.360 and then finally get to the building of the golf course. So, 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.880 first of all, who was Samuel Morse? 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:03.160 Well, Samuel Morse was a man from the East who 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:06.320 found himself in the West. And that's the theme that 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:08.680 I think runs through all of the main characters of 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:12.680 this story, whether it's Samuel Morse, Marion Hollins, Roger Lapham 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:15.760 and even Alistair Mackenzie. They all came from somewhere else, 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.480 and because of their experiences at Cypress, at Cypress Point, 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:22.160 and in particularly the Monterey Peninsula, but at Cypress Point, 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:26.439 they made the rest of their lives on that portion 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:31.480 of the world. So Samuel Morse was raised in Boston, 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:35.240 educated at Yale. He was the captain of the undefeated 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:37.840 Yale football team in nineteen oh six. And his hero 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:42.000 was Teddy Roosevelt. And because of some connections that he 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:45.320 made with classmates at Yale from the Hammond family and 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:47.599 then more importantly the Crocker family, which is one of 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:51.320 the Big four California families from the eighteen hundreds, the 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:54.840 railroad barons and industrialists, he got a job working on 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:59.480 ranches in California, and following in the model of his hero, 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:03.080 Teddy Roosevelt, he loved being on horseback and working the land. 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:06.960 And the Crockers happened on this huge piece of land 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:09.960 as part of the Pacific Improvement Company, which was an 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:14.840 outgrowth of one of these great industrialist conglomerate corporations that 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:17.600 owned thousands and thousands of acres on the Monterey Peninsula, 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:22.080 including Pebble Beach, Cyprus Point, and the Hotel Del Monte 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:28.160 in Monterey. Unfortunately, because of a variety of different land complications, 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:32.240 this del Monte unit was hugely unprofitable, and so the 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:34.720 Crockers were trying to get rid of it, to liquidate it. 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.000 So they hired sam Mors to come and be the 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:40.640 manager of this land and to gussie it up so 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:43.200 that it could be ready for sale to benefit the 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:48.160 inheritors of this property. Except the problem was Sam Mors 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:50.320 didn't want to sell it. He wanted to buy it 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:53.240 because he had a vision for creating a new port 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:57.040 of the West, a sort of grand resort on the 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.000 most beautiful piece of land. But unlike what had been 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.960 and done previously through the Pacific Improvement Company in Pacific 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:07.160 Grove as an example, chopping up the land into small 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:09.920 pieces of real estate, what Morse wanted to do was 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:13.360 preserve the best pieces of land for golf, which would 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:17.120 then drive value of the real estate further inland. And 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.199 he oversaw all of this as the Duke of Delmonte 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:24.240 from nineteen fifteen until his death in nineteen sixty nine. 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:27.840 The Duke of Delmonte. I like that. That's how he 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:30.040 was actually known. That's not your term for. 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:32.320 Him, No, No, He was kind of known as that 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.800 around town, and some people say that he didn't like it. 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:38.320 Some people say that he secretly embraced it. But he 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:41.120 wore a lot of different hats as the developer of 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:44.240 del Monte. He from his father, who fought in the 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:47.240 Civil War, had a kind of pugilistic instinct, and from 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:49.520 his mother, who was a sculptor. He was an artist, 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.760 so a number of his original paintings Charcoal and Oils 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:55.320 are hanging on the walls of the clubhouse at Cyprus Point. 0:13:55.400 --> 0:14:00.200 So he balanced both. He approved every single planning or 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:04.440 architectural plan in the Delmonte Forest from nineteen fifteen to 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:07.280 nineteen sixty nine, and he had his fingerprints on everything, 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:08.920 including Cyprus Point. 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:11.920 Could you give me a sense for the scope of 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:16.360 his vision for del Monte properties, for this kind of big, 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:20.400 you know, sort of resort attraction that he wanted to 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:22.800 build in the Monterey area, just the size of it, 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:23.720 the extent of it. 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.240 Well, he started with the Hotel del Monte, which was 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:30.720 this grand Victorian structure built by Charles Crocker in the 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:34.440 eighteen eighties and in the mid nineteen twenties it burned down, actually, 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:37.160 and he was able to rebuild it in his preferred 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:43.560 sort of neo Spanish Californian style, and that's what really 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:46.240 set the tone for a lot of what he was doing. 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:48.600 But if you think about it, he realized that the 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:51.120 best way to sell real estate was to people who 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:54.520 had money, and he knew from the nineteen sixteen Western Amateur, 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:57.600 which was played at the old Delmonte Golf Course historicalf 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:00.320 course from the eighteen nineties right next to the Hotel 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:04.120 del Monte Marey. He knew that wealthy people tended to 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:06.680 travel to golf tournaments, and so he created this tiered 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:10.479 structure where beginning with the public access historic old Delmonte 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:13.760 Golf Course, he then added a public access Pebble Beach 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:18.960 Golf Links in nineteen nineteen, which would drive visitors' bedstays 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:21.520 all of that to the newly rebuilt lodge. And then 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:24.120 if you keep going up the pyramid, the idea was 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:26.720 to build a thirty six hole country club, the Monterey 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:29.720 Peninsula country Club, which came about starting in nineteen twenty five, 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:33.600 and that would be for local landowners, retired military people, 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:36.120 people who wanted to buy smaller pieces of land. And 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:39.320 then at the very pinnacle of his golf pyramid would 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:42.480 be the exclusive Cypress Point Club on the most beautiful 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:46.000 piece of land, limited to a smaller number, again driving 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:49.400 people to buy the most expensive and valuable lots. The 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:52.120 only problem was he, as the president of the del 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:55.200 Monte Properties Company, couldn't be seen to promote both this 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:58.920 private Cypress Point Club and del Monte Properties. There needed 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:03.120 to be an intermediate, and in Marion Hollands, sam Morse 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:03.960 found his ideal. 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:08.200 We'll get to Marion Hollands in a second. That was 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.400 an excellent segue, but I'm gonna jam that for a 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:16.560 second and ask about the kind of general role of 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:21.000 golf in Morse's vision, because I think that maybe some 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:24.240 listeners right now would be surprised to hear that these 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.840 great golf courses, including Cyprus Point, were sort of part 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:31.920 of a real estate scheme, and real estate driven golf 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:35.280 has a bit of a bad name now among golf 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:40.320 architecture enthusiasts and golf purists. How was what Morse was 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:43.800 doing with the combination of real estate and golf maybe 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:48.800 different from what modern people would expect from that mixture. 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:53.560 Sure, when Sam Morse inherited the Delmonte unit project and 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:57.520 turned it into the Delmonte Properties Company. There were plans 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.640 to have hundreds of row houses on the headland where 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:03.800 the sixth hole and seventh green at Pebble Beach are 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:06.040 right now. So if you want to know what that 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:08.560 would have looked like, go to Google Earth. Look at 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:11.120 what Pacific Grove looks like just slightly to the north 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:13.920 on the Monary peninsula, and imagine Pacific Grove on top 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:16.200 of Pebble Beach golf links, because that's what the del 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:20.040 Moni Properties Company inherited plans for that. But what Morse 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:23.600 realized is if you preserve the most beautiful pieces of 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:27.960 land for golf, open views, etc. And move the real 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:30.439 estate further inland with a view of the golf and 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.439 the sea beyond, that real estate will only continue to 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:36.359 increase in value again and again, whereas the small properties 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:38.919 you can only sell once. And one person who he 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:41.760 convinced to do this was Robert Hunter, who bought and 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.960 built a house designed by Wallace Neff on the thirteenth 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:48.359 hole at Pebble Beach, overlooking the golf course with Point 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:50.800 Lobos in the distance, and he became central to the 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:51.800 Cyprus Point story. 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:56.320 Okay, let's get back to Marion Hollins. Now who was 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:57.440 Marion Hollins. 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:03.320 Marion Hollins was another child of the East who found 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:05.840 herself in the West. She was born in New York 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:08.680 City to great privilege in the eighteen nineties. Her father, 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:11.560 if you can imagine, was the founding president of the 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:16.200 Metropolitan Golf Association, Harry B. Hollins HB. And one of 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:19.320 his great friends was the son of the Vanderbilts, who 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:21.639 at the time were the wealthiest family in America, and 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:24.080 he really saved their bacon on a finance deal in 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:26.920 the eighteen eighties, so as a consequence, he was able 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.399 to build a six hundred acre family homestead out on 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:34.320 Long Island where Marian grew up, including having a small 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:36.960 golf course on this amazing piece of land. And she 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:39.879 did everything. She had only brothers, and she did everything. 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:43.000 She was the classic tomboy who rode horses, learned to 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:46.240 play polo, eventually became the only woman in America with 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:51.280 a man's rated handicap at polo. But her strength was 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:55.560 as a golfer, and she emerged around the same time 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.680 as Bobby Jones on the national scene, finally breaking through 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:02.159 in nineteen twenty one and winning the US Women's Amateur. 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:05.600 And during this time as one of these great polo 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:09.320 players and golfers, she would make occasional visits, including before 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:12.720 World War One and after out to Pebble Beach for 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.840 the purpose of playing polo at del Monte. And by 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:17.800 the way, Sam Morris was captain of the del Monte 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:20.880 polo team, so he dabbled in this as well, so 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:25.119 he knew Marion and he engaged Marion slightly after she 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:29.520 won the nineteen twenty one Women's Amateur to sell real estate, 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:33.720 and essentially she was I don't want to use the 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.120 word shill, but she was the front person who would 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:38.960 get her wealthy New York society friends to come out 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:42.720 to Monterey and buy expensive real estate, which she did herself. 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:47.920 And having developed the Women's National Golf and Tennis Club 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:51.760 on Long Island with Dero Emmett and ultimately Seth Rayner 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:54.639 and Charles Blair MacDonald in the nineteen twenties, she was 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:59.000 perfectly poised to develop this exclusive private club at Cyprus 0:19:59.119 --> 0:19:59.960 Point for Sam Moore. 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:05.439 Women's National was an incredible looking course. There are some 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:09.600 vintage photos of this course that make it clear that 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:12.840 it was a high quality golf course. Clearly Hollins had 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:17.159 very good taste in golf course design, knew how to 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:20.040 choose a piece of land, and so she would seem 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:23.960 to be very well suited to this new role in 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:31.080 Morse's overall scheme. So, how then, was Cypress Point conceived? 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:33.680 How did all the parties kind of come together choose 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:36.560 a property and come up with the idea for this club. 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:41.520 Well, if you go back and do some research. In 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:45.200 late nineteen twenty three and Pacific Golf and Motor, there 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:48.360 was an article by a guy named Francis Macomas who 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:50.800 became a Cypress Point member. He was an artist and 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:54.160 he was best friends with Sam Morse and in December 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:56.560 of nineteen twenty three, this is before all the things 0:20:56.560 --> 0:21:00.320 that we think we know happen. He said that the 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:02.760 history of the Pebble Beach courses dates back to nineteen 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:06.760 fourteen when Crocker, one of these men and more started 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:10.399 talking about the possibilities. So they investigated a few holes, 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:14.200 and they also said that favorable mention of the site 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:17.160 of the present course Pebble Beach and also the land 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:20.119 around Cypress Point, where eventually a third course will be 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:24.480 built was explored. Seth Rayner, one of the world's most 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:28.720 distinguished golf architects, with Miss Marion Hollins, recently spent time 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:32.520 studying Cypress Point locality and reached the conclusion that as 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:34.879 a material for a great golf course, it cannot be 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:39.200 surpassed in America. So the idea of developing a golf 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:42.439 course at Cypress Point began with the whole development of 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:46.040 Pebble Beach and del Monte in nineteen fourteen, nineteen fifteen ish, 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:49.800 but finally the time arrived in twenty three, twenty four 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:53.199 and twenty five to develop this golf course. Marion Hollins 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:56.640 was engaged by Sam Morse to do the selling, and 0:21:56.680 --> 0:22:00.199 Seth Rayner was engaged as well because he was doing 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:02.280 the work at Modera at Peninsula Country Club for the 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:05.640 del Monte Properties Company. And I would add also that 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:08.400 Hollins would have known Rayner and McDonald because not only 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:11.960 was her father the founding president of the Metropolitan Golf Association, 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:14.879 but he joined every club in the New York area 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:17.000 and was a founding member of the National Golf Links. 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:20.080 So Marian had loads of access to the National Golf Links. 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:22.960 Understood the whole theory behind it. And when she went 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:26.480 to develop her women's National golf course, she too traveled overseas, 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:29.359 playing in amateur tournaments and studied the great holes of 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:32.000 the UK, just like Charles Blair McDonald did with National 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:34.200 Golf links. So at the beginning she was very much 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:37.240 in the National school of thought, and you can read 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:39.440 this in some of her writings about the Women's National 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:42.399 not so much the Mackenzie naturalism, which we'll get to 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:42.800 in a bit. 0:22:44.560 --> 0:22:47.560 What can you tell me about how far SETH. Rayner 0:22:47.840 --> 0:22:53.439 got into the design process and which aspects of the 0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:58.880 current Cypress Point course might be linked to his initial efforts? 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:00.000 What can you tell me about all that? 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:01.360 Sure? 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:05.040 Well, in nineteen twenty three, twenty four and again in 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:08.600 twenty five, Rayner made visits from Monterey Peninsula and also 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:11.919 visited the land at Cypress Point. And one of the 0:23:12.240 --> 0:23:16.000 pieces of interesting pieces of evidence that we found during 0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:20.040 the research is a newspaper article from the Lassie Los 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:22.879 Angeles Evening Express in September of nineteen twenty five. So 0:23:23.000 --> 0:23:27.159