Del Monte doesn’t get the attention Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill get, and that’s part of its appeal. This is the course that started it all on the Monterey Peninsula, and it’s still one of the most enjoyable, walkable rounds in the Pebble Beach Resorts portfolio.
The History
Del Monte opened on May 1, 1897, designed by Charles Maud as an amenity for the Hotel Del Monte, and it holds a distinction nothing else on the West Coast can claim: it’s the oldest golf course in continuous operation west of the Mississippi, still played on its original site. The only other California course from that era, the Presidio in San Francisco, got temporarily converted into a drill field during the Spanish-American War, which left Del Monte standing alone with that record.
The course grew from nine holes to 18 by 1903, and architect Herbert Fowler, the same man who later pushed for changes at Pebble Beach’s 7th hole, reworked much of the routing in 1920. Del Monte became the West Coast’s premier competitive venue almost immediately. It hosted the first California State Amateur in 1912 and the 1916 Western Amateur, the first time that event had ever been played west of the Continental Divide. The course’s own Del Monte Championship carried enough weight in its day that winning it was considered close to being named the best golfer in the state.
Del Monte has stayed in the tournament rotation ever since, hosting PGA Tour Champions events from 2005 to 2014 and continuing to host the Monterey Open and Monterey City Amateur today. Pebble Beach Company has also invested heavily in the course in recent years, rebuilding bunkers, adding new irrigation wells, and restoring it to the condition its history deserves.
The Golf
Del Monte is an inland course, a deliberate contrast to the oceanfront holes at Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill. The layout winds through mature oaks, pines, and cypress, with tight, tree-lined fairways and small, old-school greens that have been testing golfers’ short games for well over a century. It plays shorter than its sister courses, but the multi-tiered greens and well-placed bunkering mean course management still matters more than raw length.
It’s the kind of round that rewards a player who can work the ball and read a green, and it gives a Pebble Beach trip a genuinely different look and feel from the coastal courses everyone already pictures.
Want to round out a Pebble Beach trip with a piece of golf history? Coastal Golfaway has been packaging stay-and-play golf vacations since 1986. Reach out and we’ll put it together.
