Mare Island’s 360-Degree World Beckons on San Pablo Bay

by Andrew Hidas

Really, we need at least one more lifetime than is given to us, no? One to explore the wide world beyond our own neighborhoods and comfort zones, to fully absorb the fact that people and places and sights and smells and customs can be very different than our everyday norm—neither better nor worse, but different, with their own integrity.

But then, in an ironic twist that leaves us half laughing and half dismayed, we need another lifetime to truly come to know all the places we’ve neglected to get to in our own neighborhoods and comfort zones (or got to only once when our relatives came to town and they longed to see some wonderful place we were embarrassed to admit we’d never gone to ourselves).

In other words, how many times have you hiked Point Reyes? Or been to the top of Coit Tower? Or paddled the Russian River? Or more to the point of our discussion here: beheld the wonders of Mare Island Golf Club? If the answer to that is “not yet,” may I gently suggest you quit stalling in the hope that science comes up with a magical pill guaranteeing a second life? Instead, venture out to this Bay Area treasure so you can sooner rather than later utter that well-known, inevitable phrase, “I can’t believe I’ve never been here before.”

Location is everything in real estate, and there is no location quite like this island that affords 360-degree views of San Pablo Bay and the hills, mountains, rivers, wildlife refuges and bridges that frame it.

“You drive out here and it can feel like the middle of nowhere, then the road just ends and you turn and look around and say, ‘Whoa! Where has this place been all my life?’” muses General Manager Matt Sullivan, who came over from Roddy Ranch in 2006.

Sullivan is in the habit of soothing slightly anguished first-timers who bemoan what they’ve been missing, but then make it up to themselves by becoming regulars at this warm and casual 4-season course whose tree-lined front nine dates to 1892 and thus qualifies as the oldest course west of the Mississippi River.

The back nine involved some rerouting and additions by renowned architect Robin Nelson in 2000, resulting in a distinctly links-style overlay that further guaranteed a varied course that will absolutely demand you play every club in your bag.

Mare Island’s par-70 layout gives a hint of some challenge when you observe that its course record is 68. Such a narrow span between par and best-ever means there will be no burning through holes while tightly holding on to your driver here. Skillful shotmaking requirements come into play pretty much from start to finish when you’re not ogling the gorgeous vistas.

No. 3 exemplifies the challenge you face here. It’s just 195 yards from tee to cup, but you can’t see most of the green when you set up, and trouble both left and right means you’ll have to be straight and true (and hopeful). Just finding your ball can be a consolation prize when you don’t make its challenging par-3.

No. 7 picks up the challenge theme with a 388-yard beauty flanked in back by one of the course’s few water features. A false front just waits to roll your ball right back if you don’t park it deftly on top. You may not have to be perfect here, but “almost perfect” really helps. What also helps is its designation as the No. 1 handicap hole.

No. 13 boasts the highest point on the course, and just like the highest anything, it tends to draw the most acclaim. (For good reason, though, on a course with neighbors as appealing as bays and mountains tend to be.) This par-4 plays straight downhill for all of its 377 yards, offering 360-degree views of the bay and its bridges, the Napa River, and beyond. You can’t have a pulse and fail to get swept up by the sheer pizzazz of this setting.

The finishing hole at No. 18 requires a good long drive to make a decent inroad into its 429 yards. The fact that it plays gradually uphill to a small green means you’re right to be satisfied making a par-4 to finish off your round.

Sustained efforts in the past year to improve turf conditions and refurbish the clubhouse means superior shotmaking and drainage on the course and a more pleasing clubhouse experience after your round. Mare Island suffers minimal closures and next-to-no restrictions on cart access.

Mare Island used to be military play only, but today most players are civilians. With the least bit of planning, civilians can score a tee time to suit their needs.

Besides which, this renovation was comprehensive, with the year offline allowing an array of improvements beyond course redesign. A brand new irrigation and drainage system greatly enhances playability. Practice facility and driving range improvements make it easier to keep on your game off the course. And when play is done, golfers can relax in the newly renovated bar and dining area of the clubhouse (replete with five new flat-screen televisions) or sit on the patio and enjoy the scenic view of the new Mare Island. It’s the crowning touch to an enjoyable round of golf in this hallowed mecca of the golfing world.

Rates are modest at $30 weekdays, another $14 for a cart, with senior and youth discounts dropping prices even further. A $29 player’s card buys you discounts all year long, and a $99 monthly option pays for itself in a few rounds a month.

Mare Island’s storied history includes, among many tidbits, the tragic news of Pearl Harbor being relayed first to the Naval Communications Center that later became the clubhouse. Against that backdrop, the opportunity to breathe deeply and exult under the wide open skies of this island golf venue is one you’ll be wise to take advantage of—in this very lifetime.

The New Monterey Pines Is Renovated,
Ready and Remarkable
by Andrew Hidas


Sure, the U.S. military may have withdrawn from some of the earth’s prime real estate when Fort Ord was decommissioned in 1994 and eventually transformed into Cal State University, Monterey. But that doesn’t mean the military influence doesn’t still linger to great effect in this fabled town by the sea.

Matter of fact, the military’s continuing presence—by way of the renowned U.S. Naval Postgraduate School—has turned out to be a boon for Bay Area golfers, given the complete renovation of Monterey Pines Golf Course. The fact that us civilians get to join in with nearly unfettered access to the course is a gift that wise golfers are not likely to ignore in coming years. (The 6,380 rounds played in the course’s first month after its July 25, 2009 Grand Opening are a good indication there are plenty of wise and avid golfers paying attention.)

Playability and affordability both loom large at the new Monterey Pines. The playability factor stems from both its relatively modest length (5,556 from the back tees) and the fact that virtually no holes are designed to provoke you into imagining your own vengeful military maneuvers against tight twisting fairways and unreachable greens that mock you from afar.

Architect Marc Messier of The Kevin Tucker Design Group has overseen such a major overhaul of the course that “new” is probably closer to the mark than “renovation.” rerouting What he’s come out with is 11 par-4s, five par-3s and just two par-5s, both at about 500 yards. He also expanded two formerly postage stamp lakes about 10-fold on the back nine. The lakes host good portions of holes 10, 12, 13 and 18, ever ready to lap up your errant shots.

T-1bent grass greens and tropically white sand bunkers provide a lovely counterpoint to the rugged vistas that still typify the Monterey coast. This par-69 is a fun and quite walkable course, made all the better by an active starter and marshal who help keep the traffic flowing at an efficient clip. Challenges abound to fire up your shotmaking skills, but none of them are outright diabolical. Drive time gets started immediately on No. 1, the course’s longest hole at 501 yards, most of it long straight fairway.

The 7th, a relatively short par-3 at 166 yards, is among the more difficult holes, presenting a downhill tee shot and a fast two-level green that slopes left to right.

Vying for most scenic honors is No. 9, a 367-yard beauty with the tee box framed by trees as if someone painted it just that way for hanging above the fireplace. Then the bay hovers behind the green once you’ve punched your ball along the fairway.

No. 10 is a challenge, with a dogleg right, a lake to the right, and the green perched at the lake’s pinnacle, from where it’s been rolling balls with regularity into the drink since the course reopened.

No. 12 hugs one of the lakes all the way along the left side of the fairway as you negotiate a sharp dogleg. You’ll need an accurate tee shot here, with a carry needing 150+ yards to a sloping green.

Most of the area’s better known courses capitalize on the Monterey County beauty factor with rates that will dent all but the most engorged pocketbooks. So goes the market, but not so Monterey Pines, where you can find world-class golf at rates that will not require a raid on your child’s education fund.

Thirty-four dollars for weekday civilian golf ($37 weekends) on a completely renovated course on the Monterey Peninsula? With the salt breeze wafting across the fairways, foghorns and sea lions competing for auditory rights on gray early mornings and pine trees soaring overhead? Yep, yep, and yep.Better still if you’re retired or active duty: $18 weekdays and $20 weekends. True, that’s a tad more than the 75 cents enlistees had to come up with to play the course upon its April, 1963 debut (officers got nicked for a buck). But movie tickets were 50 cents back then, too, so Monterey Pines rates still represent a huge bang for your recreational buck.

Monterey Pines used to be military play only, but today most players are civilians. With the least bit of planning, civilians can score a tee time to suit their needs.

Besides which, this renovation was comprehensive, with the year offline allowing an array of improvements beyond course redesign. A brand new irrigation and drainage system greatly enhances playability. Practice facility and driving range improvements make it easier to keep on your game off the course. And when play is done, golfers can relax in the newly renovated bar and dining area of the clubhouse (replete with five new flat-screen televisions) or sit on the patio and enjoy the scenic view of the new Monterey Pines. It’s the crowning touch to an enjoyable round of golf in this hallowed mecca of the golfing world.

Shadow Lakes & Deer Ridge Present the East Bay’s Niftiest Golf Package

by Andrew Hidas

Shadow Lakes and Deer Ridge, a short stroll apart from each other in the East Bay boomtown of Brentwood, used to engage in a friendly little rivalry to squire away available golfers while fully acknowledging the merits of the opposing course. Like two belles both looking to shine at every ball, both courses were built upon fabulous genetic endowments and wrapped in gowns by noted designers—Gary Roger Baird for Shadow Lakes (debuted fall 2001) and Andy Raugust at Deer Ridge (fall 2004). Then late in 2006, they went friendly competition one better by joining together in the niftiest little partnership this side of Ben and Jerry.

Today, both courses offer up a consistent blend of playability, views, challenge, impeccable course conditions, great practice facilities, and that intangible something-or-other that every memorable golf venue leaves in the very bones of players in those satisfying hours and days after a round.

These are daily-play public courses (or dailydouble- play at 36 holes if you’re feeling sprightly) that also offer membership packages on a single- or both-courses basis. Even today, with significant housing elements that have seen Brentwood more than double in population to nearly 50,000 people since the 2000 census, both courses play to the feeling of expansive skies, pasturelands and orchards that still give this part of the bay its distinctive sense of place.

What the partnership has done besides make 36 holes available for a daily double golfing dose is to increase course availability in the wake of the events business that has become a significant factor in the golf industry’s business model. Meaning, when one course closes for a tournament or corporate event, the other is there waving its open arms. Shadow Lakes presents the larger year-round events capability, while Deer Ridge is ideal for more intimate events through the moderate weather months. Out on the courses themselves, the extra 400 yards, generous fairways and difficult greens of Shadow Lakes makes it the course of choice for pros, scratch golfers, and “let’s kick it up a notch” recreational players searching for maximum challenge in their outing. Though both courses are par 71, figure on a good three extra shots (and more time with your irons) most days at Shadow Lakes compared to Deer Ridge.

Most all the 6,710 yards of Shadow Lakes and 6,302 yards of Deer Ridge fall under the half-imposing, half-inspiring spell of Mt. Diablo. The mountain presents a stately and irresistible visual magnet that can help leaven whatever mussing and fussing you’re compelled do with club selection, shot angles and the like. “Heads up!” is more than a warning to beware of errant balls here—it’s an imperative that helps you remember the wonders of a golf outing in this part of the world.

Perhaps nowhere is Mt. Diablo more present than on No. 6 at Shadow Lakes, a 572-yard uphill par-5 that plays into prevailing winds with the mountain behind you, multiple bunkers and a world of challenge ahead. It’s a beautiful—and very physical—hole. Make par here and you’ve earned the right to Twitter your friends about your astute shotmaking. You’ll face the opposite situation on Deer Ridge’s gorgeous 16th hole, shooting from an elevated tee where you can behold endless farmlands and the mountain—yes, that mountain—framing the 521 yards of long narrow fairways and green. Both courses are lauded by players and media alike for their tremendous conditioning, Deer Ridge more recently honored as “Best Overall Value” in the Bay Area by Greenskeeper.org, which uses course conditions combined with price as its main metric. The finishing holes here, Nos. 15 through 18, show off those conditions to maximum effect, with the rolling topography of native grasses and scattered oaks framing playing areas lovingly maintained by longtime course superintendent Jose Flores and his crew.

A blind tee shot on No. 17 leads to the lake bordering a large chunk of the fairway right, extending around three sides of the green that is further protected by bunkers. The risk is high here. No. 18 is a visual pleasure as you lift your tee shot over the lake’s finger and angle yourself gently dogleg right around the lake’s back side. More bunkers await you on the green. It’s a gorgeous and challenging finishing hole, just the right tone to get you primed for what awaits.

While Shadow Lakes is no walk in the park (which, handily enough, you can find almost next door to both courses at 4,500-acre Cowell Ranch State Park and its miles of hiking, biking and equestrian trails), redemption can be found here in both small and big ways. No. 13 is a par- 4, 439-yarder that helps the 220-yard drive it requires off the tee by angling slightly downhill. No. 17 is only 178 yards but all over water. That nicely sets up the finishing hole, 559 yards with reasonable chance for a par if your drive can utilize the plentiful room on the right to bypass a ravine, and you later use some care to negotiate the bunkers fronting the green. With daily fees in the decidedly low-to-midrange of Bay Area pricing ($38 at Deer Ridge weekdays, $50 at Shadow Lakes), the picture gets even better for regular golfers, with annual membership for both courses as low as $2,150 (weekdays, $3,200 everyday, carts included).

That represents barely 20 plays at a number of courses in the region, so pricing would seem to be right in line with the trend toward economic modesty in these chastened times. Combine that with the sundry pleasures of a two-course golf tango under a storied mountain, and you’ve got yourself just the prescription for a healthy and invigorating recreational program heading into the second decade of the millennium.