Oops. As any San Francisco
political observer will recognize, that sentence likely explains the 31-year gap between the Fleming’s design and ultimate construction. While the Great Depression and World War II certainly contributed to the delay, The City always struggles with competing interests and needs. The practice fairways are distinctly
visible on a 1938 aerial of the property, and were clearly well used. “It was a
The par-30 layout is a civic treasure, with modest green fees and a fast pace of play, measuring more than 2,015 yards.
place where guys like Ken Venturi used to go to beat balls,” says Links. “Venturi told me he used to go there all the time while his Dad was mind- ing the store, literally, since he ran the pro shop at Harding for years.” Links has also pored through
decades of Parks & Recreation minutes, but could not find a men- tion of MacKenzie or the expansion, which evidently commenced during a late 1950s remodel of Harding. With a long career in course con- struction, Jack Fleming had worked on several MacKenzie designs, including Cypress Point and the Meadow Club. He also designed, built or remodeled about 60 courses in Northern California. His legacy also had a fierce advocate in his son, John Fleming, a long-time superin- tendent at Olympic Club. In fact, while the younger Flem-
ing presided over the preparation of Olympic for the 1998 U.S. Open, Harding served as its parking lot, a nadir in the condition of the muni. Thanks to a crusade led by San Francisco attorney and former USGA president Frank “Sandy” Tatum, Harding and the Fleming 9 were restored in the early 2000s, through a $16 million renovation directed by former PGA Tour ar- chitect Chris Gray. Today known as TPC Harding Park, the course has
special rates for locals, most evident at the Fleming. Resident juniors pay only $13 per round; on weekends, non-residents pay the top rate of $33. (Youth on Course members can play during the week for as little as $12.) MacKenzie’s influence—whether
through his relationship with Flem- ing, or through those original plans he sketched 30 years earlier—appears to be alive and well at the nine-hole course. MacKenzie’s understanding of camouflage, learned during the Boer War, developed in World War I and applied to course design, is evident in the way mounds and natural dips trick the eye’s estimation of distance. For instance, the front-right bunker on the 425-yard seventh hole rises up 25 yards ahead of a well-contoured green, making the target appear closer than the true yardage. No. 7 is the most
MacKenzie-like hole on the nine. Other greens lack the dramatic
undulation of Cypress Point and Pasatiempo. “But the course demands strategy in several holes,” says Links, “where you need to stay on one side of the fairway if you want the best approach, which is very MacKenzie. So is the overall feel, since he was big on visual beauty.” The fairways of Harding flank most of the Fleming’s, and like the nearby Olympic and San Francisco golf clubs, are lined with cypress and Monterey pines, landscape DNA that’s among the most esteemed in golf. On a recent Tuesday morning, a pair of golf- ers finished the modest course in an unhurried hour and ten minutes. Time, and the genetics of great golf course design, clearly could not converge in a better place than the Fleming 9.
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