Golf fans marvel at the Torrey Pines golf courses each year, in late January, during TV broadcasts for the PGA Tour’s Farmers Insurance Open near San Diego, California. What’s not to like with those blimp shots in the sunshine of the cliffs and water and pristine grass? They can also do this: dream of actually playing the San Diego courses one day. That can’t be said of all courses used on the PGA Tour, or among the precious few municipal courses (or “munis”) that have hosted major championships, as Torrey Pines South did for two memorable US Opens in 2008 and 2021.
How popular is Torrey Pines among the public? In a recent review for Golf Digest of its search analytics for the year, Google put it behind only Augusta National Golf Club. In Golf Digest’s most recent ranking of the 100 Greatest Public Courses, the South Course ranks 35th.
Still, for all of its visibility and inclusive nature, golf fans probably don’t realise just how much money it rakes in for a place where senior golfers can still walk a round for $US48 ($A77) on a weekday. The numbers are staggering.
Torrey Pines Golf Course: North course, La Jolla, California
According to the City of San Diego’s 2024 Golf Division Business Plan Update—which operates separately from the city’s larger budget—the golf enterprise fund has amassed $US39.4 million ($A62.6 million) in reserves. That’s on the strength of making $14.1 million in profit in fiscal year 2024 that ended in June. The golf unit made $12.2 million in 2022 and $14 million in ’23.
The golf division consists of three facilities it directly operates—Torrey Pines, Balboa Park and Mission Bay—and while the latter courses struggled to be in the black for years, the rising popularity of golf during the COVID-19 pandemic changed that. All of the courses—36 holes at Torrey, 27 at Balboa and 18 at Mission Bay—did a combined 419,843 rounds in 2024—119 percent above the city’s target. At Torrey alone, the North Course, which is part of the Farmers Open’s 36 holes, had 93,932 rounds played, with the South garnering 81,835.
It’s likely no other public golf setup in the US gets that kind of traffic. Or makes this much bank. New York State Parks & Recreation has said its five 18-hole courses at Bethpage host about 300,000 rounds a year.
Thanks to its worldwide reputation, where Torrey Pines really rakes in the cash is from tourist golfers looking to cross one off the bucket list. Starting on January 1, 2025, non-residents will pay $US155 weekdays and $US194 weekends to walk the North (with an additional $US45 for a cart), and $US246 and $US306, respectively, on the South. Advanced reservations up to 90 days in advance are another $50 per person. Want to book the entire South Course for a weekend day? That will be $US108,817. (Being a kid at Torrey, on the other hand, is a steal; all-you-can-play monthly tickets are $US10.50 and a yearly pass is being added in 2025 for $US75).
It’s not as if the golf division doesn’t spend money. A renovation of the North Course by Tom Weiskopf in 2016 cost around $13 million, while more than $16 million went into work to refurbish the South and prepare it for the 2021 US Open; there is a new clubhouse facility and driving range lighting at Mission Bay, and there are plans to spend $60 million on a new clubhouse at Torrey Pines.
In other words, Torrey Pines only figures to get better as the years go on and those TV shots remain the best advertising they could possibly hope for.
%20-%20Jon%20Cavalier.jpeg.rend.hgtvcom.861.485.suffix/1573163040843.jpeg)
Torrey Pines Golf Course: South La Jolla, California
Torrey Pines sits on one of the prettiest golf course sites in America, atop coastal bluffs north of San Diego with eye-dazzling views of the Pacific. Rees Jones’ remodelling of the South Course in the early 2000s not only made the course competitive for the 2008 U.S. Open (won by Tiger Woods in a playoff over Rocco Mediate), it also brought several coastal canyons into play for everyday play, especially on the par-3 third and par-4 14th. An annual PGA Tour stop, Torrey Pines received another boost by Jones prior to hosting its second US Open in 2021, this one won by Jon Rahm.
Redesigned by Tom Weiskopf in 2018, Torrey Pines’ North course became friendlier for the average golfer. The number of bunkers were reduced from 60 to 42 and made easier to play out of. And the average green size was increased from 4,500 square feet to 6,000. Lastly, Weiskopf added one of his signatures: a short, drivable par 4 (the seventh)—making the companion course to the championship South course a little more fun. This may sound like a dumbing down of the architecture but it isn’t. Within the simplification is a wide variety of green configurations and contours, with slopes rising and falling, some set high and others low, and many with more internal contour than is found on most greens on the South course, including the surfaces of the cross-ravine par-3 12th and par-3 15th. The North course also boasts ocean and canyon views on par with the South, particularly the par-4 16th rising along the Pacific Ocean cliffs and brining the player in the most direct contact with the stunning panorama.
Perhaps because we feel there’s a better course hidden somewhere beneath the current South course, playing the North doesn’t feel like a step down, just a step across to the other side of one the best public golf sites in the US.
