Please note: The Links at Spanish Bay is currently closed for a course-wide renovation led by Gil Hanse and is expected to reopen in spring 2027. We’ll begin booking Spanish Bay rounds again as soon as the resort confirms reopening dates.
The Links at Spanish Bay has always played the role of the third course in the Pebble Beach rotation, overshadowed by its two more famous siblings. That’s never been a fair shake. It’s the closest thing to true Scottish links golf on the American West Coast, and once it reopens from its current renovation, it’ll be better than ever.
The History
In the early 1980s, architect Robert Trent Jones Jr. set his sights on a stretch of former sand mine bordering Pebble Beach near Asilomar. He brought in two serious links-golf devotees to help build it: Tom Watson, the five-time Open Champion who’d already won the 1982 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, and Sandy Tatum, the former USGA president and longtime Watson friend. The three of them, sometimes called the Holy Trinity, walked the site together and studied Cypress Point and the opening holes at Spyglass Hill before settling on a design. Tatum later said being chosen for the project felt like being picked to sculpt inside the Vatican of golf.
The course opened on November 5, 1987, alongside the new Inn at Spanish Bay. Watson shot a 67 in the inaugural round and came off the course saying it played so much like Scotland you could almost hear the bagpipes. That offhand comment turned into a permanent tradition. Every evening at sunset, a lone bagpiper still walks the course and closes it out, a ritual that’s been running since opening day.
Spanish Bay quickly earned Golf Digest’s Best New Course award for 1988 and a spot on the magazine’s 100 Greatest Courses list shortly after. It’s co-hosted the PGA, LPGA, and PGA Tour Champions during the TaylorMade Pebble Beach Invitational since 2015, though the environmentally protected dunes habitat caps gallery size and keeps it off the bigger tournament circuit.
A Major Renovation Is Underway
As of this writing, The Links at Spanish Bay is closed. The course shut down on March 18, 2026, for a full renovation led by golf architect Gil Hanse and his longtime partner Jim Wagner, with a reopening planned for spring 2027, just ahead of Pebble Beach Golf Links hosting its seventh U.S. Open. Hanse’s stated goal is to elevate the 1980s-era links into a modern California coastal design that matches the pedigree of Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill, while also overhauling the course’s aging irrigation and drainage infrastructure. The other three Pebble Beach Resorts courses remain open and unaffected during construction.
The Golf
When it’s open, Spanish Bay is the purest links experience on the Monterey Peninsula: rolling sandy terrain, native dune grasses, and wide, contoured fairways built to reward the ground game as much as the aerial one. The first three holes run right along the ocean before the course shifts inland through pine forest and wetlands, with split fairways on several holes, including the 5th, 10th, 11th, and 14th, giving players real strategic options off the tee. The par-4 6th carries extra bunkering along its right side and earned the nickname “Sandy,” after Tatum himself pushed for more sand there during construction.
It’s traditionally run about half the cost of a round at Pebble Beach Golf Links, making it the value play for golfers who want genuine ocean views and championship-caliber design without the headline green fee, and that reputation should only get stronger once the Hanse renovation wraps.
Want to build a Pebble Beach trip around The Links at Spanish Bay? Coastal Golfaway has been packaging stay-and-play golf vacations since 1986. Reach out and we’ll put it together.
