Hacienda Golf Club - Hacienda La Habra Heights, California

The Golf Course Design And Experience

Hacienda is a classic and traditional golf course. In 1920, Alphonso Bell announced the purchase of the land for the course and William Watson was hired for its design. Watson was one of the very first golf professionals ever in California. Immigrating to the United States from Scotland at the turn of the Twentieth Century, Watson was one of only eight golf professionals in the state in early 1900. His original plan called for a course of 6,152 yards in length, one that he declared would be “sporty” and utilize many natural canyons and undulations.

Yet, even though others may have had a hand in crafting this masterpiece, it remains a classic Watson design, just like the classic first designs of Minikahda and Interlachen in Minnesota, Olympia Fields in Chicago, Olympic, Orinda and Harding Park outside San Francisco, and Hillcrest in Los Angeles. 

When Hacienda was completed in 1923, it was hailed as one of the best, if not the very best course in all of Southern California. Thereafter, the masterwork of George Thomas, who had a hand in the design of Hacienda, included such giants as Riviera and Los Angeles North. Yet, today, after Hacienda’s historic 2005 restoration, this Willie Watson gem has rightfully returned to its place among these other great, classical era designs. 

Today, the golf course at Hacienda offers a test of true championship golf. Yet, as a private club of 400 members with a wide variety of golfing skills, great effort has been made to present multiple options for both men and women to play the course at a length they can enjoy given the level of their skills. 

The experience of a round at Hacienda is universally hailed as memorable and exciting. Watson crafted an ingenious routing through a canyon dominated by a brutish and gnarly barranca that meandered throughout most of the course. Fifty years ago there were numerous bridges that needed to be crossed as many shots had to be played over the barranca to get to the greens. Today, the rough and natural brush that is indigenous to the barranca are only apparent on holes no. 4, 5 and 12. Throughout the rest of the course, this feature has been smoothed out and made either part of the fairway or rough. Yet, this natural terrain has left many ridges that impart an additional element of strategy into the holes impacted by it. Since the restoration, the bunkering has been dramatically improved, and the expansion and development of the stream throughout the mid-section of the course has rendered Hacienda one of the most challenging and interesting of the area's many classical era designs.