Pelican Hill Golf Club (Ocean North course) Est. 1993

Although Pebble Beach and Torrey Pines may regularly scoop top honours as the best of California's world-class coastal golf courses, Pelican Hill is right up there with them. Recently upgraded by original designer Tom Fazio, both the Ocean North and Ocean South courses provide a fabulously scenic and challenging golf experience. The North course (unlike the South) doesn't quite get down to the sea shore, but makes up for that with a truly superb layout (and many spectacular sea views along the way). The coastal bushland terrain, riven with deep canyons and chasms, creates the undulating topography into which Fazio has sculpted, and recently "re-perfected" a masterpiece. The constant elevation changes create a succession of testing and stylish holes, with the ruggedly natural bushland threatening anything too wayward, and plenty of impressive bunkering adding to the challenges. This is a course that will appeal to big-hitters and technicians alike. Fazio gives you sufficient space for your tee-shots, but increases the demands for accuracy as you approach the large and undulating greens. Many holes and several tee-boxes give you an "on top of the world" feeling, with panoramic views down to the ocean, along the Newport coastline and occasionally, as at the par-5 8th, into picturesque valleys. This is a fabulous course, as scenic, demanding and natural as they come.