Few invitations land with more weight or carry more excitement than the one to play Cypress Point Club.
Tucked away on California’s Monterey Peninsula, it might be the most beautiful golf course in the world. Images of impossibly dramatic holes which flank and even span the seething surf of the Pacific Ocean exist in the minds of golfers the world over, even if most will never get to walk its fairways.
But beauty alone doesn’t explain the allure of Cypress Point.
This is a place that seems to operate outside of time, as if the rest of the game — its noise, its excess, its demand for access — is being kept politely at the gate. For its 250 members, and their eternally grateful guests, Cypress Point Club is a place which remains delightfully out of touch. And yet, for those who do get the opportunity to visit, this is a place which may surprise and confound in equal measure. There is no polished driving range, here, no pyramids of Pro-V1 practice balls. No glossy pro shop. No sprawling, marble-clad clubhouse echoing with laughter and lager. Instead, there is understatement.
The clubhouse is charming but simple — more like a family home than the world’s most exclusive sporting sanctuary. And that’s the point. Only around 30 golfers play here on a typical day, each moving through the mist and light in a delightfully unhurried, untroubled way. Those lucky few include CEOs, statesmen, and the occasional Hollywood icon — Clint Eastwood among them — and even folk just like you and I and, yet even the presence of A-listers here all feels slightly irrelevant. You see, at Cypress Point, everyone fades into the background and disappears into a degree of insignificance. Everything is stripped back, deliberately so. Because at Cypress Point, the golf course is the only star of the show.
Like Pine Valley, on the other side of the United States, you will not find Cypress Point on social media, it doesn’t have a website, tee sheets or a membership waiting list. Membership is by invitation-only and spoken about in the same hushed tones as state secrets. Outside of that inner sanctum, very few know exactly how Cypress Point works — or how much it costs, for that matter. But that secrecy, that deliberate opacity, is part of what makes it so intoxicating. Because you can’t see behind the curtain, you long to, all the more. You want what you can’t have.
And then, of course, there is the golf. Designed by the great Dr Alister MacKenzie — the same mind who gave the world Augusta National — Cypress Point opened in 1928 and has been capturing imaginations ever since. The run of 15th, 16th and 17th holes may be the most dramatic stretch in golf. But that’s Cypress Point: bold, beautiful, and utterly original.
So if that invitation ever does land on your doorstep, we want to make sure you are fully prepared for what will be a day you never, ever forget. So here are 10 things you should know, in case you do ever get to go to the incredible Cypress Point Club.
1. Golf’s MOST DRAMATIC FINISHING STRETCH
There are golf courses with great holes and there are those with stretches that stay with you forever.
Cypress Point’s closing run, from the 15th tee, is pure theatre: the meeting of land and sea is, quite frankly, nothing short of breathtaking and is arguably the most dramatic finishing stretch in all of golf. As early as the 12th tee, the turn towards the Pacific begins. But it isn’t until you emerge from the trees which surround the 14th green and wind your way down the coastal path towards the incredible 15th tee, that you really begin to understand the grandeur which awaits.
The pines thin, the light changes, and suddenly the roar of the Pacific replaces the whisper of the dunes. You pass beneath twisted cypress limbs, each one a sculpture shaped by salt and wind, and the smell of the ocean fills your lungs. Every step builds anticipation. You approach the 15th tee, sensing the waiting stage, a memory about to happen. It’s a stunning par-3, which never measures more than 140 yards, and is enveloped by sea spray. A boomerang-shaped green is guarded by six bunkers and the Pacific itself. It’s one of the world’s great par-3s. And yet it’s not even as good as the hole which follows it.
That’s because the 16th at Cypress Point Club may be the most dramatic par-3 on the planet and feels, quite simply, like the shot here. It demands a 233-yard carry over the crashing Pacific, to a distant green which clings to a rocky promontory. Into the wind, the direct route is brutal. MacKenzie first conceived it as a teasing short par-4 with a lay-up option to a fairway left. But as a par-3, it is a design so daring it borders on both the sublime and ridiculous. While it might be tempting to lay up, if this is your only chance to play one of the world’s great holes, you’re going for it. Every fibre in your body will tell you to.
Be warned: pars here, feel like small miracles. In the 1952 Bing Crosby Pro-Am, Lawson Little carded a 14, while Ben Hogan made a 7. The average score of the entire field that year was 5. From the slightly elevated tee, the Pacific is all-consuming: rocks, cliff faces, ocean swells and even sea lions, watch on. Listen to your caddie, they know this place the way sailors know the sea — by instinct, by feel, by a thousand tiny clues that only years can teach. Then take a deep breath and commit.
How do you follow that? Well, the 17th is a par-4 of deceptive calm and undoubted beauty. It sweeps along the cliffs with the Pacific accompanying you the entire length of the hole. The light bends through the trees, and you find yourself wishing the round will never end. If this isn’t the most dramatic stretch in golf, it’s right up there. Other holes may hold more championship history — the 12th and 13th at Augusta, the 17th and 18th at Pebble, the Road Hole at St Andrews — but none combine beauty and jeopardy quite like this. Standing on those tees, the essence of the game is front and centre: risk and reward, courage and surrender, all set against the endless blue of the Pacific. When people speak of Cypress Point Club as The Sistine Chapel of Golf, this is what they mean. The land, the sea, and the game in one place — and for a moment in time, you’re part of it. And for one swing on that 16th tee, you’re not just playing golf; you’re borrowing courage from the ocean.
2. GOLF’S MOST PRIZED MEMBERSHIP
Alongside, Pine Valley, the National Golf Links of America and Augusta itself, membership at Cypress Point is one of golf’s among most sought after. From the beginning, Cypress Point was never meant to be for everyone. It was built for those who understood privacy is not the opposite of generosity. There are said to be no more than 250 members, a list whispered about but never confirmed. Those who know it, will not deny it’s a roll call of influence and legacy: former presidents, legendary sports broadcasters such as Jim Nantz, the former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, financier Charles Schwab, business leader Heidi Ueberroth, and Clint Eastwood, a former mayor of nearby Carmel. To be a member here — let alone at both Cypress Point and Augusta National, as Ms Rice is — is to belong to one of golf’s most exclusive constellations.
How much does Cypress Point membership cost? Nobody really knows. Reports of a $250,000 initiation fee have drifted through the years like Pacific mist, but the truth is guarded more closely than any state secret. There is no set annual subscription, instead the cost to members each year is calculated by simply dividing the total annual operating costs by the number of members. Like the place itself, refreshing and beautifully, simple.
What is certain is that membership brings no appetite for change. Cypress Point’s members see the course as something sacred, not to be altered, improved, or updated — only preserved. When the club agreed to host the 2025 Walker Cup, it did so on the quiet condition that the USGA would make no architectural adjustments whatsoever. Why would they? When the canvas you’re staring at is perfection, you don’t reach for the paint. At Cypress Point, membership is less a privilege than a promise — a vow to protect the course’s soul. At Cypress Point, membership isn’t a privilege so much as a promise: to keep the noise out so the magic can be heard.
3. MACKENZIE’S MASTERPIECE, WITH A WOMAN’S TOUCH
Dr Alister MacKenzie was not a man easily swayed. He had walked the Old Course at St Andrews, studied its humps and hollows like a priest studying scripture, and proclaimed it golf’s purest form. But when he finished Cypress Point in 1928, something inside him shifted. “For years,” he wrote, “I’ve contended that no other golf course could possibly compete with the strategic problems, the thrills, excitement, variety and lasting interest of the Old Course — but the completion of Cypress Point has made me change my mind.”
He had been formally asked to design it two years earlier, in February 1926. The budget was set at $150,000. MacKenzie said he could do it for $100,000 and delivered it for $90,000 — a triumph of artistry and efficiency. But he did not do it alone. Marion Hollins, one of golf’s true visionaries, was a fearless New Yorker who played in the US Women’s Amateur at the age of 14, winning it in 1921. She rode horses, drove race cars, and built golf clubs before most women were allowed to join them.
Not long after moving to California, Hollins had helped shape Pebble Beach and then her her eye turned to 150 acres which Spanish settlers called La Punta de Cipresse. It was Hollins who saw the potential in the dunes and cliffs south of the peninsula, and she who brought MacKenzie to them. A story that is often told at Cypress Point touches on the moment they reached the site of what would become the 16th hole. Hollins doubted whether anyone could carry a golf ball over the yawning chasm of Pacific which separated tee from green.
“I don’t expect anyone will ever have the opportunity of constructing another course like Cypress Point, as I don’t suppose anywhere in the world is there such a glorious combination of rocky coast, sand dunes pine woods and cypress trees.”
Alister MacKenzie (1932)
To prove herself right, she dropped a ball on the proposed tee, swung, and watched her ball soar across the Pacific, landing softly on what would become the future green. In that moment, the design of this iconic hole, was sealed. And with it, a piece of golfing immortality. That was not Hollins’ only monumental contribution to golf. She would later introduce MacKenzie to a certain Bobby Jones — a friendship that would give birth to Augusta National. But before Georgia, before The Masters, before the green jacket, there was this wild corner of California where a Scotsman and a woman of vision created something MacKenzie came to call his masterpiece. Hollins remains very much a part of Cypress Point, quite literally. Her tombstone sits next to the clubhouse.
4. A CLUBHOUSE OF UNDERSTATED CLASS
For all the mythology that surrounds Cypress Point, the clubhouse is delightfully modest — quiet, whitewashed, and built for purpose rather than parade. Step inside and you don’t feel like you’ve entered the world’s most exclusive golf club; you feel like you’ve stepped back in time or into someone’s home. The lockers carry the weight of legacy. They belong to men and women who have shaped industries, run nations, or, at the very least, found a way to play this game in its purest setting.
There’s a small dining room/restaurant, a self-serve bar, and four simple overnight rooms tucked away upstairs for those lucky enough to linger. It’s understated to the point of reverence. In the bar, you’ll be offered a chance to sample a ‘Sam Special’, the signature cocktail of Cypress Point, named after Sam Solis, a longtime club manager going back to the 1930s and the man who came up with the recipe, which remains a closely guarded secret to this day. The Sam Special resembles a rum daiquiri, mixing light and dark rum all shaken, not stirred, into a froth with soda, sweet and sour. Members will tell you one is never enough.
For all its calm, the clubhouse has one cruel trick up its sleeve: the 1st tee sits directly in front of it. If you’re the nervous type — and who isn’t standing on this patch of turf — it’s a daunting start. Your opening shot must carry over 17-Mile Drive, which means that a topped tee shot could, in theory, result in both embarrassment and a dented bonnet. It sharpens the focus.
The clubhouse may not dazzle with grandeur, but it doesn’t need to. Its beauty lies in its restraint — in the creak of the floorboards, the quiet hum of the sea through the open windows, and the knowledge that everything here exists for one reason: to honour the walk that follows.
5. A COURSE OF CONTRASTS – THREE IN ONE
Cypress Point is a journey in three tremendous acts — the forest, the dunes, and the ocean.
Each phase feels like a different world, yet all are bound by the same quiet magic. Few golf courses on earth can offer such variety within a single walk, and fewer still do so with this kind of grace. The opening stretch, holes 1 through 7, are carved through the Del Monte forest, where the air smells of pine and the light filters softly through the trees. Here, the course asks for accuracy rather than audacity — fairways framed by Cypress branches, greens hidden behind folds of land. You are sheltered from the wind, and yet the tension builds. It feels like a prelude, a deep breath before the course begins to show its hand.
From holes 7 through 12, the forest begins to thin and the dunes take over, rising and falling like frozen waves, their sandy slopes scattered with 104 bunkers — MacKenzie’s fingerprints, guiding and teasing you through the heart of the round. These are the holes where matches turn, where shots stick or spin away, where good intentions can evaporate in a gust of wind.
A century on, the balance between beauty and brutality is still as perfectly judged as it was when it was created. And then, as the dunes begin to fall away, the sound of the Pacific grows louder. The trees retreat, the light sharpens, and you feel the landscape opening its arms. The wind is suddenly in play. The air tastes of salt. The Pacific is close now — you can’t yet see it, but you know what’s coming.
6. SETTING RULES NOT FOLLOWING THEM
Dr Alister MacKenzie never believed that golf should follow rules. He believed it should follow feeling.
At Cypress Point, he threw the rulebook into the Pacific. He paired holes with the same par — two par-5s in a row, two par-3s back-to-back on 15 and 16 — and he stitched together a routing that no textbook could have justified, yet every golfer instinctively understands. The rhythm he created is unpredictable, musical, alive.
The 5th and 6th, both par-5s, are an early example of that philosophy: one winds through trees like a sonata, the other gallops toward open sand. Later, the 15th and 16th, consecutive par-3s, form a duet that builds to the most dramatic single note in golf. The 8th and 9th, both short par-4s, feel like improvisations — one blind and beguiling, the other temptingly drivable but narrow.
MacKenzie believed the game’s joy lay not in order but surprise. He once said, “The spirit of the game depends on variety and the unexpected.” At Cypress Point, he gave that idea shape and sound. You never quite know what’s next, and that uncertainty is what keeps you present. Each hole feels like a fresh conversation — different tempo, different tone — yet together they form a whole as balanced as any symphony. There are no filler tracks here, no safety plays for the sake of pacing. Only instinct and inspiration, looping back upon themselves in a rhythm that still feels modern nearly a century later. It’s this refusal to conform that gives Cypress Point its soul. It’s a reminder that golf, at its best, is not a science to be solved, but a mystery to be played.
7. THE BY-LAWS OF CYPRESS POINT CLUB
At Cypress Point Club, respect is paramount. Not in the loud, performative way some golf clubs demand it — but in the small, unspoken gestures that keep the spell intact and protect the culture so many are understandably proud of.
Now Cypress Point doesn’t do “rules.” Instead it has suggestions on how to behave. Scattered around the clubhouse, you will find cards with suggestions, rather than rules. But if you’re interested in being invited back to Cypress Point, it’s probably wise to follow them. The card explains, “we want you to enjoy a memorable golfing experience. To ensure a full measure of enjoyment, we suggest the following.” It’s a masterclass in understatement — a gentle nudge backed by a century of tradition.
The first suggestion is not unusual for a golf club and let’s face it, you’re at Cypress Point, put your phone away: “Use of cell phones, PDAs or any other electronic devices is not permitted anywhere on Club property other than in your vehicle.” Translation: leave the world behind. Step inside the gates at Cypress Point Club and the outside noise simply ceases to exist.
Cameras, mercifully, are allowed — but only for private use. Next comes the ban on rangefinders. In a world obsessed with data, and tech, Cypress Point prefers trust — trust in your eyes, your swing, and above all, your caddie, who knows every slope and contour like a second language. “An unaccompanied guest,” the card continues, “is limited to 18 holes in any one day.”
Then comes the fourth line, “The use of the driving range or the Clubhouse facilities is for members only.” The fifth and sixth suggestions deal with decorum: “Please use the locker room to change your shoes.” And “Appropriate attire: For men, long trousers with long or short-sleeved collared shirts; for ladies, slacks and appropriate tops with sleeves. Skirts, shorts, denim jeans, warm-up suits, yoga pants or tights are not appropriate on Club property.”
The rest of the card reads like a set of commandments for courtesy:
–“Please yield to members’ play if requested.”
–“Please arrive at the Club between 700-715 am and complete your round in four hours or less.”
-“Caddies customarily receive at least $175 per bag, including tip, paid directly to the caddie.”
–“Only players with a single-digit handicap may play the blue tees.”
And finally, the eleventh suggestion, the truest of all: “Please respect all our Cypress Point staff.”
And you do. Instinctively. Because as formal as the place might sound on paper, it isn’t cold. The opposite is true, in fact. The staff are kindness wrapped in professionalism and the warmth of the culture at Cypress Point is tangible. You feel it in every interaction. You walk into the pro shop nervous and reverent, only to find warmth instead of formality. The head professional will greet you as though you are old friends and may even offer you a tour of the locker room, or start to tell you a little of the course. There is a pride in simply being associated with the place. Quite rightly. The caddies are the stuff of legend. Yours will likely have been looping here for some time. Many have been here for more than 40 years, having started carrying at Cypress Point as teenagers and returning during retirement “Why would I leave? And where else would I go?” one said, his eyes sweeping toward the pines and the sea beyond. “Every day, I get to walk this. And every single day I take a moment to think about where I am. And realise, man, I’ve got it pretty good.”
And that’s the thing about Cypress Point. For all its rituals, its famous privacy and whispered names, the people here are incredible. They know they are guardians, not gatekeepers. And when they sense that you’re there for the right reasons — to walk, to wonder, to listen — they let you in.
8. WILD COMPANY DURING YOUR ROUND
The Del Monte Forest is a place of incredible natural beauty. The system of parks, bridle paths and roads that weave along 17 mile drive and across Cypress Point, will forever protect the character of the region and make it possible for those who love its natural beauty to travel freely in all directions over unspoiled territory. As you play Cypress Point, you will find the rocky coastline is covered in sunbathing seals and sea lions and the skies patrolled by cormorants and pelicans. Dolphins often showboat just off the shoreline, while the Blacktail Deer wander the golf course at dawn and dusk in search of food.
Look out too for the endangered California sea otter. There were just 50 California Sea Otters in 1928, but today the population has rebounded to nearly 3,000. And if you’re really lucky, you might even see the California gray whale. December through March is the best time to spot them. From April to December, it’s more likely to be a Humpback or even a Blue Whale. And if you spot the puff of a whale spout, it might be a pod of dolphins or Orca tagging along to pick up the pieces.
Wildlife is everywhere here. Stops on 17-Mile Drive are even named Bird Rock and Seal Rock. It is estimated there are more than 180 species of seabirds and shorebirds in and around Cypress Point, with an array of gulls, cormorants, and pelicans hovering above the coastline, as well as the Common Murre, Sooty Shearwater and Sanderling along the shore. If you play between the start of April and the beginning of June, you may even see a seal pup or two.
9. THE SPIRIT OF FUN ON YOUR ROUND
For all its mystique and majesty, Cypress Point has never taken itself too seriously. It was built for joy, not for scorecards. That truth was clear even to Bobby Jones, who visited in 1929, the year the US Amateur was held at nearby Pebble Beach. He played both courses that week and, in his famously diplomatic way, declared: “Pebble Beach is more difficult, Cypress is more fun.”
Jones’s assessment could not be more true. From the championship tees, Cypress plays a little more than 6,500 yards, and only about 6,300 yards from the middle tees. Does that make it easier than some of the other great courses of the world? Yes. Does it make it more fun? Absolutely. One of the lasting impressions you take away from Cypress Point Club is that the round was a joy from start to finish. Often, when you play a top course, you know you’ll likely get only one shot at it — a single loop to make sense of the place. That can be a heavy kind of pressure. At Cypress, that’s not the case. In fact, there’s a lightness to it — a sense that the game should feel adventurous, not oppressive. You can feel it in MacKenzie’s design, in the way the holes invite imagination rather than demand perfection. There are heroic carries, mischievous greens, and just enough danger to make every decision hum with possibility. That sense of playfulness seeps into the atmosphere, too. The only pressure comes from the sound of the surf and the quiet voice in your head reminding you that moments like this don’t tend to come twice.
At Cypress Point, golf feels like what it must have felt like at the beginning — simple, social, spontaneous. The joy is in the journey, the laughter, the shared disbelief at a shot that somehow found its way across a canyon or into a cup. It’s a reminder that even the most sacred places in golf were made not to intimidate us, but to make us fall in love with the game all over again.
10. THE BEST GOLF COURSE IN THE WORLD?
Most people in golf will tell you Cypress Point is one of the best golf courses in the world — and the lists, the rankings, the glossy magazine spreads, all tend to agree. But that feels almost beside the point. Cypress Point was never designed to compete in top 100 lists or host major championships. It was designed to belong — to its land, its light, to its own rhythm.
What sets it apart is not just its beauty, but its balance. Every hole, from the shaded corridors of the Del Monte Forest to the cliffside arcs of the ocean holes, feels inevitable — as though it had been waiting there all along, and all MacKenzie did was reveal it. You can’t separate the architecture from the terrain, or the design from the mood. It’s golf and geology and grace in perfect alignment.And yet, for all its perfection, Cypress Point remains wonderfully human. It’s not a place that tries to humble you. It welcomes you, tests you, and sends you away grateful. It’s a reminder that the soul of golf doesn’t live in difficulty or distance or grandeur — it lives in moments. That opening tee shot over 17-Mile Drive. The sound of the Pacific on 15, 16 and 17. The quiet nod from a caddie who’s seen it all before. Maybe that’s why the world continues to whisper about this place with a kind of awe usually reserved for art or faith. Cypress Point doesn’t need to be called the best course in the world. It simply needs to be itself — and in doing so, it becomes everything the game aspires to be.
So when you walk off the 18th green you feel it — that ache that comes from knowing something perfect can’t be repeated. The clubhouse waits, white against the pines, the sea murmuring down the hill. And for a moment, you understand what Alister MacKenzie meant when he said no one would ever build another course like it. He was right. No one ever will.
Cypress Point Club: Key Facts
Location: Monterey Peninsula, California, USA
Established: 1928
Architect: Dr. Alister MacKenzie & Robert Hunter
Visionary: Marion Hollins
Par: 72
Length: 6,524 yards (Championship Tees)
Signature Hole: Par-3 16th — 233 yards.
Membership: Private, invitation-only (approx. 250 members)
Green Fees: Not applicable — play by invitation only.
CYPRESS POINT SCORECARD
CYPRESS POINT COURSE MAP
Cypress Point Club logo
CYPRESS POINT: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQs)
Where is Cypress Point located?
Cypress Point Club is located along the famed 17-Mile Drive on the Monterey Peninsula, California. It occupies one of the most dramatic stretches of coastline in golf, with holes that weave through forest, dunes, and ocean cliffs. You’ll find it just south of Pebble Beach Golf Links and a short drive from the charming coastal town of Carmel-by-the-Sea and the larger fishing town of Monterey.
Is there a map of Cypress Point?
Official course maps are not publicly distributed, though aerial imagery of the Monterey Peninsula reveals the outline of the course. The routing moves in three distinct phases — the forest (holes 1–6), the dunes (7–12), and the ocean (13–18) — culminating in the iconic 15th, 16th, and 17th holes that overlook the Pacific
Does Cypress Point Club have a website?
No. Cypress Point Club doesn’t have a website, or social media. And there is no online booking system. Everything about the club’s presence — or lack thereof — is deliberate. It remains entirely private, communicating only with its members and their guests directly.
What are the green fees at Cypress Point?
There are no green fees for Cypress Point. As a private, invitation-only club; only members and their guests are permitted to play. Those fortunate enough to receive an invitation do not pay a fee in the conventional sense — their host covers all costs.
Who are the members of Cypress Point Club?
Cypress Point is one of the most exclusive golf clubs in the world, with an estimated 250 members. Its roll call is famously private, but a few names have found their way into the public domain over the years. Notable members are said to include broadcaster Jim Nantz, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, financier Charles Schwab, business executive Heidi Ueberroth, and actor Clint Eastwood, a former mayor of nearby Carmel.
Who are the most notable members in Cypress Point’s history?
The club’s membership has always drawn from the upper reaches of business, politics, and culture. Beyond its current names, past members are thought to have included philanthropists, industrialists, and those who helped shape the American game itself. Yet, in keeping with Cypress Point’s discreet ethos, the full list is never made public — part of the mystique that surrounds the place.
Can I buy a Cypress Point divot tool or logo merchandise?
Yes — but only if you visit. The pro shop at Cypress Point is famously small, yet its merchandise is among the most coveted in golf. Items featuring the club’s simple lone cypress logo — from divot tools to headcovers — are treasured mementos. They’re not sold online or in retail stores, making them symbols of a round few golfers ever get to play.
Where can I find a Cypress Point scorecard?
Scorecards from Cypress Point are sought after items, a symbol that you have managed to venture beyond the gates. The course plays to a par of 72, measuring around 6,524 yards from the championship tees and 6,300 yards from the middle tees. Unless you’re invited to play, however, an official scorecard is almost impossible to come by — another reason it remains one of golf’s most enduring mysteries.
Can you tell me how to play Cypress Point?
Access to Cypress Point Club is by invitation only. There is no public tee sheet, no online booking, and no way to apply for membership. To play, you must be invited as a guest of a member — one of the rarest invitations in golf. For most, Cypress Point remains a dream, not a destination.
