Chocolate Drop: Hanse's Plan for Spanish Bay

Today, the Pebble Beach Company offered insights into Gil Hanse's upcoming transformation of the Links at Spanish Bay. This project has had, by the standards of the 2020s, an extended gestation period: PBC announced that it had hired Hanse back in 2023, committed to a timeline last year, and is now revealing details of Hanse's plan. The work will begin on March 18 of this year, and the reimagined course is scheduled to open in April 2027, two months before Pebble Beach Golf Links hosts the U.S. Open.

Designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr., with consultation by Tom Watson and Sandy Tatum, the Links at Spanish Bay opened in 1987 and has long lagged behind PBC's other two seaside golf properties, Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill, in both regard and profitability.

Here, quoted from the press release, are a handful of changes that Hanse intends to make:

• Relocating several green sites, including the current 14th and 18th holes, creating room for an entirely new par 3* that will replace the current 13th hole
• Expanding putting greens by ~40% and completely resurfacing to provide smoother, more receptive targets and variety for hole locations
• Replacing the rough in the green surrounds with low-cut turf to offer more recovery options
• Widening fairways by ~30%, repositioning fairway bunkers, and adjusting contours to make the playing corridors more forgiving and strategic
• Repositioning and redesigning tee complexes to open sight lines and options, reduce forced carries, and elicit excitement at each hole....
• Redesigning the cart path system to better blend into the landscape

(*The new par 3 will play to the existing 14th green site, which looks out on Asilomar State Beach.)

Hanse's primary intention, it seems to me, is to bring Spanish Bay out of the 1980s. Like many courses built in that decade, it was harder than it needed to be, especially for everyday resort play, and it failed to blend in with the surrounding landscape, with its push-up greens and cookie-cutter containment mounding. Most of Hanse's planned changes seem aimed at enhancing playability and settling the course into the terrain.

As Derek Duncan's Golf Digest piece from earlier today suggests, however, there's only so much Hanse can do. I'm sure the architect would like to color outside the lines of Jones's original design a bit more, but a wholesale rerouting would be unlikely to pass regulatory muster. Also, the realities of mainstream resort golf will always limit the degree to which the Links at Spanish Bay can authentically live up to its name. The rye grass and cart paths must stay.

Nonetheless, this project is obviously a step in the right direction. Let's hope it opens some eyes as to what might be achievable at the company's flagship property.