Est. 1914 · Jack Neville (original nine, 1915); expanded to 18 by William Watson (1920); restored by Todd Eckenrode (2020)
Why we love this place
Diablo wears its history well. Jack Neville's first-ever design at the base of the mountain, restored with real care rather than reinvented. It is a walk through California golf's origins, and the ground itself still tells the story.
Via Top 100 Golf Courses
About Diablo Country Club, 1914
Diablo Country Club was founded in 1914 by developer Robert Noble Burgess, who reimagined a 19th-century East Bay estate at the foot of Mount Diablo as a golf and country club community. In 1915, Jack Neville, then a young two-time California Amateur champion, laid out the club's original nine holes; it was his first course design, coming years before he would co-create Pebble Beach. In 1920, prolific California Golden Age architect William Watson, whose resume includes Olympic Club and Harding Park, expanded the layout to a full eighteen. Diablo is regarded as the only course where both Neville and Watson shaped the ground. In 2020 the club completed a comprehensive restoration led by Todd Eckenrode's Origins Golf Design, work recognized as Golf Inc.'s Renovation of the Year for 2021.
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