Los Angeles Country Club North Course Review: An Overview (2023 U.S. Open)

It's important where players win their U.S. Open Championship.  Great courses produce great drama and even greater champions.  Cathedrals of the game matter.  Ghosts of the past matter.

And when Los Angeles Country Club opens its curtains to the world this week for the 123rd U.S. Open, it will be a legacy defining moment.

It's been 75 years since the U.S. Open was played in the Los Angeles area, going back to Ben Hogan winning at Riviera Country Club in 1948.  An even longer 83 years since LACC hosted a professional golf event, the 1940 Los Angeles Open.  But this will be LACC's first time hosting our national championship.

 

When considering U.S. Open sites in the past, USGA Chief Championships Officer John Bodenhamer has said history cannot be given, it must be earned.  And by all accounts LACC and its Golden Age design was born for this. 

 

Los Angeles Country Club is located just a few blocks away from the marble shopfronts and impeccable streets of Rodeo Drive near the edge of Hollywood, enclaved by Tudor revivals and Spanish colonials in Holmby Hills and Century City that once housed midcentury movie stars and moguls.

 

Yet this 325 acre property valued at more than $3 billion has been shrouded in mystery and intrigue, averse to any spotlight whatsoever for most of its history.  There are published accounts of golf fanatic Bing Crosby being denied membership even though his home bordered the 14th fairway.  And LACC voted against hosting a U.S. Open as recently as 1986. 

 

When architect Gil Hanse completed his five-year restoration of LACC's North Course in 2010 to it's original 1928 George C. Thomas design however, club members knew the veil on this iconic masterpiece and hidden gem had to be removed.

 

Thomas' genius is often compared with the likes of acclaimed architects like C.B. Macdonald (National Golf Links of America and Shinnecock Hills Golf Club), Alister Mackenzie (Augusta National Golf Club and Cypress Point Club), and A.W. Tillinghast (Winged Foot Golf Club - East and West, and Baltusrol Golf Club - Upper and Lower).  And Thomas' designs at Bel-Air Country Club, Riviera, and LACC North are considered among the most legendary on earth. 

 

The terrain on the North Course at Los Angeles Country Club is absolutely magnificent.  George Thomas believed the best golf course design had to have a natural and thrilling character.  And LACC North is a Jurassic Park rollercoaster of rugged elegance and unadulterated flamboyance.

 

There's almost 500 feet of amassed elevation change both up and down.  Holes move left and right, up and down, fairways tilting every which way rarely with any even lies.  A menacing barranca runs throughout the course with sprawling Oak, Pine, Redwood, and Sycamore trees that add to the dramatic feel and appearance.  Yes, LACC North is a thrill of nature.  And it's also a slice of paradise. 

 

Thomas took this property and made LACC North a classic test of strategy and variety, laying out holes in very different ways, diversifying them so any given shot is a physical and mental test.  Players will have to be in complete control of their balls, thinking of where to miss in both the air and on the ground.

 

Landforms and slopes dictate players shape shots if they're going to hold fairways.  It will be an education of skill.  The fairways themselves are 40 to 60 yards wide, much larger than we're accustomed to in a U.S. Open.  But the slopes of fairways (and contours throughout) in relation to green positions effectively narrows them.  Being on the wrong side of the fairways without an angle to the green will be incredibly challenging and cause weaker spirits to surrender. 

 

Risk-reward holes will speak to players like the Green Goblin mask.  Batshit Crazy is going to happen... oh, hello there drivable 330-yard, par-4, No. 6.  The previously mentioned barranca slithers like a serpentine in front of hole No. 2, around hole No. 4, all the way to the right of hole No. 14 and will vex and provoke.  LACC North has five par-3 holes, only the third time this has happened in U.S. Open history.  And these par-3s vary in length from a herculean 300 plus yards to a pipsqueak flexing 80 yards.  Again there's that Thomas variety and premium on angles and control.

 

LACC will set up at 7,423 yards, a par of 35-35–70, and we'll see one of the longest par-3s and one of the longest par-5s in U.S. Open history.  Players will get their all their clubs dirty this week, needing to hit every type of shot.  Left to right, right to left, high and low, in the air and on the ground, from bunkers and Bermuda and fescue rough.  LACC North truly has it all, and it's going to be a shotmaking spectacle of amazing golf, but also golf that will drain players tanks dry.  Expect the unexpected. 

 

Thomas also incorporated variety into his LACC North bunkering design.  These hazards vary in length, in shape, in appearance, and in depth.  And the strategic and sometimes deceptive bunker locations force players to contemplate strategy and exercise imagination.  LACC North bunkers are designed to intimidate and reward.  Gnarly fescue surrounds many bunkers (both fairway and greenside) and will trap errant shots like barbed wire.

 

The wide, but firm and bouncy fairways won't have intermediate rough cuts, but instead move right into three to four inches of bloodthirsty Bermuda rough.  Bermuda is spongy and grabby so it can present players with a crap shoot of lies.  Some balls will rattle around and maybe even bounce up, while other shots will be buried so deep players might not even be able to see or find their balls.  And if they do, shots will be wrist shattering and big numbers will be in play.

 

Greens will be fast and firm as you'd expect in a U.S. Open, and the variety of LACC North green sizes and shapes is spectacular and impressive.  Some greens are fingered  others narrow or wide.  And with different undulations, slopes, runoffs and testy hole locations, controlling shots into these greens from the rough will destroy some players.  Balls will skip, prance, and bound off greens, move on them like marbles spilled onto a floor, it's going to be wild.  From tee to green LACC North is a relentless test of mind and body. 

 

So finally, on to the Los Angeles Country Club North Course review.  This will probably be longer than most LACC North course reviews, so we're going to split it up in three parts.  This initial overview to wet your appetite.  And then a detailed front-9 review, followed by a detailed back-9 review.  I have a lot of feet on the ground pictures to show you for each hole from my round.

 

And my caddie (who has over a decade of experience caddying here) talked with me the entire round about LACC North nuances, what shots and locations are ideal, what misses are absolute death, what options exist for particular shots and what the consequences are for executing or not executing them.  We have some really great insight.  So, with all that said... Lights, Camera, Action baby!

 

READ MORE: Los Angeles Country Club North Course Review: The Front-9 (2023 U.S. Open)