With the private Olympic Club — which has hosted several U.S. Opens and will again, in 2012 — visible across Lake Merced and the even more exclusive San Francisco Country Club a mile or so to the south, a municipal like Harding Park could develop an inferiority complex. But it shouldn’t, and won’t. Thanks to a million-dollar renovation program that landed it the American Express Championship in 2005 and last year’s Presidents Cup, Harding can hold its own against any old-school course in the City by the Bay. Still following Willie Watson’s original 1925 routing, the full-length course and par-3 Fleming Course are packed with care onto a peninsula at the city’s southwest corner. Fairways are lined with majestic old cypress pines and level lies are next to impossible to come by. In all, Harding Park represents everything that’s endearing about early 20th century parkland design. The greens, while a bit larger than Pebble Beach’s, are still on the small side by modern standards, rife with subtle hollows and ridges that certainly kept the two dozen American and International players on their toes last October. Three of the course’s four 3-pars — holes 3, 8 and 17 — are world-class; No. 3, which played as No. 10 during the Presidents Cup, goes straight uphill to a crowned putting surface surrounded by bunkers. All you can see beyond is sky, and if the fog rolls in from the sea just a half mile or so away, the target might be obscured altogether. No. 8, which plays downhill, is even longer and tougher.

But it’s Harding’s closing stretch, nestled against the banks of Lake Merced, that lodges itself into the memory the same way Pebble’s famed middle stretch does. Holes 14 through 16, a trio of 4-pars that culminate with a great risk-reward proposition constitute the strategic heart of the golf course. No. 17 is the slightest of breathers and a pretty one at that. No. 18, 440 yards from the tips over water, with the lake all the way up the left edge to the elevated green, is such a wonderful finisher that the Prez Cup organizers made it No. 15 to assure that most matches would make it that far. Harding will again host the San Francisco City Championship this year, and its regular tee sheet is packed most days even though non-resident green fees are a darnsight higher now than they were before the facelift brought things back up to top-drawer standards. While Olympic remains alone on the USGA’s Open radar for now, this course could move into the running someday, joining Pebble Beach, Torrey Pines and now Chambers Bay in the public-access national championship rota.

www.harding-park.com| 415.750.GOLF
Rates $135-$155 | Yardage 5,375-6,845
Resort tee rating 70.6/123