Riviera Country Club, CA, USA   

The genius of any architect is nowhere better evidenced than with Thomas's 315 yard 10th hole at Riviera:
does the golfer take a swing for the green straight ahead, hit left, or hit way left? What club
should he hit - driver, three wood, long iron or mid iron?

Riviera had only one thing going for it at the start: George C. Thomas, Jr.

The property offered little; other than the high ground around the Clubhouse (for some reason it seems appropriate to capitalise this clubhouse), the property was flat and tucked into a rather abrupt valley (hardly ideal agronomically). The soil was poor. Thomas took convincing just to accept the project and finally agreed that the land was 'suitable.' Even once William Bell and Thomas got going, what was considered 'heavy equipment' back then was brought in to accelerate the tough going.

The resulting course, however, is an architectural and strategic masterpiece; indeed, if the author was trying to demonstrate the skill that an architect brings to a project, Riviera would join Winged Foot West as the course to first take someone. And if Riviera was as Thomas originally designed it, it would be the first stop, given its greater strategic options.

Unfortunately, the artistic quality of Bell's ragged bunkering has been lost but more importantly, Thomas's novel use of the main wash has been largely muted. The 7th hole no longer enjoys the same diagonal risk/reward opportunities off the tee, the dual fairway 8th hole has been tampered with to the point where it makes little sense, the wash in front of the 12th green is too clean and lacks its original penal quality, and the 13th fairway has become treelined as opposed to hugging the wash down its entire left side.

Even though Ross, MacKenzie and Tillinghast have all suffered ignoble changes to their best works, history has treated no architect worse than Thomas and the loss of Thomas's work can rightly be considered the single greatest loss in golf architecture. Some critics feel that he was the greatest designer of all-time yet too little of his work exists to support properly such a claim.

Each hole at Riviera is a how to in golf course architecture. For a complete hole by hole understanding, the author recommends acquiring Riviera's club history book entitled The Riviera Country Club - A Definitive History by Geoff Shackelford. It is available to non-members by calling the main number at Riviera and arranging for a copy to be mailed.

Holes to Note

1^st hole, 540 yards: While 70-80% of Riviera still plays as Thomas intended, it could be further improved without too much work or expense. For instance, study the picture taken from the majestic 1st tee below. Clearly, the fairway has shrunk a good twenty paces from the left. Further up, the strand of eucalyptus trees encroachs too much on the left. Finally, the semi-boomerang green has shrunk in size as well, costing the hole several of its finest hole locations. Yes, the hole still plays well in its current form but it could play even better if more of its playing angles were restored.

As seen from the elevated 1st tee, the player needs to consider where the hole is located on
the semi-boomerang green before playing his tee ball and second shot.

If Lynn carried this short bunker, he would have the ideal angle into the 1st green,
which slopes from left to right.

3rd hole, 435 yards; An underrated hole, and like the 10th, it showcases how Thomas could create numerous interesting playing angles on flat terrain by the placement of bunkers and the green's orientation.

The ideal tee ball is often over the man raking the bunker.

This view closer to the 3rd green shows how the green is easier to approach from the left.

4^th hole, 235 yards: Ben Hogan famously called this hole the best par three in golf. The author would certainly disagree (it may not even be the best on this side), if for no other reason that the kikuyu grass on the side of the hill retards the ball from fully releasing off the hill on the right. Still, few long one shotters are as inspiring to play as this one, thanks to Billy Bell's mammoth, one of a kind bunker that guards the front of the green.

One of the game's great bunkers fronts the Redan 4th green: why has no one ever tried
to emulate Billy Bell's highly distinctive bunkering style?

6^th hole, 160 yards: If not the 8^th hole, then this hole surely indicates that Thomas was not only ahead of his time in the 1920s but he would have been so still today. Only the man who could write Golf Architecture in America could design a par three with a bunker in the middle of the green (and get away with it). The true test of his genius is imagining the hole without the bunker.

First time visitors often comment on the size, variety and beauty of the bunkers at Riviera.
The one above fronts the 6th green.

Anybody can stick a bunker in the middle of the green but few can get the green
contours right so that one can putt around it. Great hole locations abound.

8th hole, 415 yards; The present Club ownership should be congratulated for authorizing work to be carried out in 1991 to bring back the highly innovative dual fairway. Unfortunately, the work itself didn't recapture the strategic interest of the original design. Indecision is at the heart of any dual fairway (otherwise, why have it?) and in its present form, the author can only imagine that ever golfer plays down the newly 'restored' right fairway. In addition, the new green is so out of character (i.e. bland) with any green that Thomas ever built that it doesn't much matter from where the approach shot originates. Nonetheless, with the right fairway back in play, perhaps the stage is set for this hole to be properly restored sometime in the future.

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