BEL AIR COUNTRY CLUB - 17 POINTS

I can’t think of any city in the world with truly world class golf courses as close to its centre as Los Angeles. The architect George Thomas created courses here in the golden years of architecture. Every year Riviera is one of the stars on the PGA tour, and is probably the finest regular stop played by professionals. We get fewer glimpses of the other Thomas masterpiece - LACC North - but the Walker Cup and the US Open gave us a look at the magnificence of this course in 2022 and 2023.

The third Thomas creation is maybe his most inventive. Bel Air Country Club is a triumph of determination and imagination over logic. The course is somehow routed through four canyons where one coherent golf course really shouldn’t really be able to exist.

If you are heading to Los Angeles on a golf pilgrimage I would recommend you pick up a copy of Geoff Shackelford’s biography of George Thomas, ‘The Captain’. In it he not only tells the story of this extraordinary architect with panache but also details how each of his courses came into being. He tells how the club founder, Alphonso Bell ‘made his millions when he struck oil while searching for water in his orange grove. Investing his money wisely, Bell purchased all of the ‘countryside’ between Sunset Boulevard and the Santa Monica Mountain’.

He then sold off various parcels of this land, for great financial gain, which led to quite the challenge when planning the routing for Bel Air. Deep canyons and ownership issues meant it seemed impossible to plot eighteen holes until Thomas came up with the idea of building a bridge over a ravine (now the tenth hole) to open up what would become the back nine. You will find several tunnels, and even an elevator in use in the attempt to make a coherent course from such an unusual piece of land. It shouldn't work, but it does!!

Thomas built a tremendously clever, and striking, golf course. However, as it is hemmed in by canyons and property, lengthening the course at Bel Air hasn’t been an option over the years. Instead various architects have attempted to make their own mark on their course, and to toughen it up. Water was added, bunkers put in, greens shrunk. Indeed one set of the most distinctive features, the Mae West mounds, short on the 12th hole, were removed as they were deemed unfair.

In his Confidential Guide, Tom Doak gave the course a ‘Doak score’ of 7. But he bemoaned the changes over the years and declared it the course he would like to restore above all others. Well, following such a public plea he got his wish and the course I played on a December day had been restored to its former glory by Doak’s Renaissance Golf.

So much for the history lesson - what of the golf course?

I never played it pre-Doak but it is clear a lot of attention has been put into recreating the Thomas course. The green complexes and bunkering were just tremendous - a joy to look at and a joy to play. The course rewards those with imagination around the greens. Just fire at the pins and you may find yourself in real trouble; observe and embrace the angles and you will be rewarded.

Despite the elaborate routing, picking its way through four canyons, the course isn’t particularly intimidating from the tee. There is plenty of width and the rough wasn’t too much to be worried about. However, the approaches into these sloping greens, with extravagant run-offs, require precision.

The opening stretch does a good job of setting you up for what is come. The first is a sweeping, downhill par 5 which makes sure everyone will get away from the clubhouse in style - thank you Mr Thomas.

The course then shows its teeth at the demanding uphill second before giving us a tantalising par 3 at the third. Over the years the bunkers short of the green on this hole had been taken out and a pond installed. Doak has replaced the water with a sea of sand and our host informed us the hole was playing harder as a result.

But the restoration wasn’t just about increasing green sizes and bringing back original bunkers. Trees were eradicated from the course which means that it has this fairly open feel, despite the topography. This image of the par four 4th hole coming towards the camera and then the short par three 5th shows this to good effect. You can see all of the trees that have come out on both side of the fourth fairway and the green opened up. The green then merges pretty much straight into the 5th tee.

The 5th has been meticulously restored to the original design with the green moving forward and rotating, with bunkers the full width of the green front and back. Hitting the green on this one is only half the battle as the slope from back to front is quite something.

All of this work has delivered a course which is fun and accessible. Taking out trees and increasing the sizes and complexity of greens all make for an enjoyable experience.

The run of holes back to the clubhouse continues to provide plenty of entertainment. The holes are rarely long but are packed with strategy and call for a good golfing brain to score well. After winding back to the clubhouse you then go through a corridor, and even up an elevator, to the 10th tee. This is a stout par 3 of over 200 yards which takes you over the ravine, moving to the west side side of the property. It’s a spectacular setting and oh how I wish I could go back and do something other than top it into the depths below...

I won’t go through the back nine hole by hole, but there are a few worth a shout out. The eleventh is a great dogleg around to the left, with a narrow-angled green flanked by bunkers on both sides of approach.

The Mae West mounds on the 12th are back in action and there are no bunkers at all on this hole now. Angles really are important to scoring well.

The finish at Bel Air is strong. After the well protected downhill 16th you go through one last tunnel to get you back to the clubhouse. The 17th is a massive dogleg to the right where the challenge from the tee is all about how much you want to chew off. I played safe to the left leaving a long shot in; cut off the corner and a nice forward bounce will take you way down this long par 4. It really is a great hole.

You have been conscious of what is to come at the 18th right from the off. The hole runs parallel to the 1st so you get a good view at the start, and again crossing over to the 10th. The par four climbs back up to to the clubhouse with the swing bridge sitting above. Darkness was descending fast as we approached which served only to make the hole seem even more demanding. Hazards abound - water runs down the right of the hole, there’s a centreline bunker short and pull one left and you will have problems on the bank. It’s one of the tougher holes on the course and you can expect a good audience on the patio above.

Much is made of the club atmosphere at Bel Air. We were told that Riviera is the corporate club, LACC is for the money guys but Bel Air is where the fun is at. It is hard to comment on that too much. The clubhouse was closed when we were there so we were in the (incredibly impressive) temporary erection. Tens of millions are being spent on a new clubhouse with a massive patio. It really will be one of the great viewing spots in the game.

If you are lucky enough to get a round, try to make sure you get some anecdotes from your host. Fame and fortune proliferate here and part of the fun at Bel Air is the association with the great and the good of Hollywood. The stories are legion. Howard Hughes landed his plane on the 8th fairway to impress Katherine Hepburn, the caddie’s tell of Johnny Weissmuller filming scenes for one of his Tarzan movies in a hidden cave above the fourth hole. It goes on and on.

George Thomas’s legacy to American golf, and to Los Angeles specifically, is tremendous. While the routing is amazing, that shouldn’t overshadow what is also a very good golf course. Tom Doak has opened our eyes once again to what a marvel this place is.

TOUR TIPS

Bel Air is certainly in the genre of ‘really hard to get on’ private American courses. But there are a few possibilities worth considering. Firstly, charity rounds do come up relatively regularly so it’s worth setting up a Google alert for those. Secondly, if you are a member of a club yourself, then have a look at Thousand Greens which may help. And thirdly, sometimes a nice letter does the trick...!

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