The Links at Spanish Bay

The Links at Spanish Bay was conceived in the early 1980s as a Scottish-style links along the Monterey coast. Robert Trent Jones Jr. led the design and brought in Tom Watson and former USGA president Sandy Tatum, both devotees of British links golf, to help shape a course of firm turf, rippling dunes and golden fescue set against the Pacific. Because the site sat atop sensitive coastal dunes, the project became one of the most ambitious habitat-restoration efforts ever tied to a golf course, rebuilding dune forms and replanting native communities while opening the land to public play. After clearing its final approvals in 1985, the course held its opening ceremony on November 5, 1987, with Watson shooting 67 in the inaugural round. A signature tradition endures each evening, when a lone bagpiper plays the course to a close near sunset.