Golf Course Review: 5 Bay Area Golf Delights
Poppy Hills is Pebble without Pebble prices!
If you want to play golf on the Monterey Peninsula but you don’t want to pay Pebble Beach prices, take a look at Poppy Hills. It’s the newest of the courses in Pebble Beach, designed by Robert Trent Jones, and has been favorably compared to both Augusta National and Pinehurst.
Owned by the Northern California Golf Association, and the first golf course in the country to be owned by an amateur golf association, Poppy Hills was featured in the Tiger Woods PGA Tour video game.
Poppy Hills reopened in 2014 after extensive renovations designed to bring course management more in line with ecological standards. Like Pinehurst and Chambers Bay, there is no rough and because the entire course was sand capped during the renovations, conditions are firm and fast. Tee shots roll out nicely and bump and run shots run like jackrabbits!
If you’re not a member of the NCGA You’re going to drop some money to play Poppy Hills – $250 – but that’s just about half of the Pebble Beach greens fee for playing one of the finest courses I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing.
And there’s some very nice shopping to be done in the pro shop, if you’re inclined to shop!
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Golf in the San Francisco Bay Area ranges from local munis to pricy resorts, all of them offering spectacular views and challenging opportunities to tee it up.
Fore!