an Jose Country Club has certainly hadits unique moments. Only three months after Ben Hogan won


his first major, the 1948 U.S. Open, and just prior to his near career-ending automobile accident, the man known as ‘The Hawk’ executed a shot-making clinic at the private club with a score of 64 in his only visit there (he’d hit all 18 greens in regulation and never left an approach shot more than a flagstick’s length away from the hole). There was also the time that


said Quinn, who joined the NCGA Board of Directors in 2009, three years after his arrival on the Youth on Course Board. “I’ve been fortunate to be involved with Youth on Course, a program that has evolved into the NCGA’s primary effort for introducing kids to the game and offering them access to play. In turn, SJCC has been very supportive of the program through Club Enrollment and


When it comes to teeing it up at San Jose


CC, the course is not a typical cookie-cutter parkland layout. It’s loaded with character and could be described as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.


It all stems back to a visit by renowned


Together, the groups have left us with a layout as good as anywhere.


Air Golf was featured at the club. In a retro salute to modern twists such as FootGolf, in 1919 pilots flew above the course. They’d drop golf balls near the tees, whereupon members would finish playing the ball to the hole. The days of Hogan and Air Golf may


have passed by, but San Jose CC, the home course of 2017 NCGA President Pat Quinn, remains steeped in history and continues to be an integral piece of the Northern California golf landscape. Just ask Quinn, who grew up in a home


adjacent to the club’s 16th hole. “My upbringing and experiences at


SJCC prepared me for my responsibilities in supporting golf in Northern California,”


30 WINTER 2017 | WWW.NCGA.ORG


the formation of the Youth on Course Cad- die Academy. San Jose CC has always been a leader in developing junior golfers.” Looking back, San Jose CC was one of the


original NCGA founding clubs –along with Menlo CC, Oakland GC (now Claremont CC), Presidio GC and San Francisco GC. When it originally opened in 1899 as


Linda Vista CC, what is now San Jose CC was just the eighth course to open in Cali- fornia and only the fourth in the Bay Area – preceded only by Burlingame CC (1893), San Francisco GC (1895) and Presidio GC (1895). Yet while the course is over a century old, it’s hardly a pushover.


architect A.W. Tillinghast – whose work includes the esteemed Baltusrol GC and Winged Foot GC –to the site in 1936. Dur- ing his stay, Tillinghast suggested to then-greenskeeper George San- tana that the greens on nearly nine of the course’s holes be modified. Tillinghast’s vision and San-


tana’s efforts held up for over 60 years until the late architect, John Harbottle, who likened the course to Gleneagles in Scotland, made some tweaks. More recently, in 2014, Love and Kington Golf Course Design came in to renovate the bunkers and soften the slopes on two greens. Together, the groups have left us with a


layout as good as anywhere. Thanks to Love and Kington Golf


Course Design’s bunker renovation, which involved adjusting their distance from the tees to make today’s longer hitters think twice off the tee, the par-70 layout (5,557 yards from the forward tees and 6,225 yards from the tips) has still kept its bite. At last


ROBERT KAUFMAN


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