Sharp Park Golf Course sits by the Pacific in Pacifica, about ten miles south of downtown San Francisco. The city of San Francisco owns it, and the Recreation and Park Department runs it. Wikipedia lists it as an 18-hole, par-72 municipal course.
A MacKenzie between Cypress Point and Augusta
The Cultural Landscape Foundation says Honora Sharp left the coastal land to the city in 1917. In 1930, Golden Gate Park Superintendent John McLaren hired the British course architect Alister MacKenzie to design the city’s third municipal course on 120 acres there. The foundation notes that MacKenzie designed Sharp Park between his two most famous courses, Cypress Point and Augusta National. Builders deepened Laguna Salada, a brackish lagoon, into a freshwater lake and set fairways and tees on islands and spits. The course opened in 1932. Its Spanish Revival clubhouse was designed by an associate of architect Willis Polk.
Storms, a seawall and new holes
Wikipedia says large storms in the early 1940s washed out parts of MacKenzie’s routing. A seawall was then built to protect the course, and four upland holes, reached by a tunnel, were added. The foundation says twelve of MacKenzie’s original holes remain, plus parts of two others. In 2017, the course was designated a historic resource under the California Environmental Quality Act.
Frogs and snakes
Two endangered species live around the course, the San Francisco garter snake and the California red-legged frog. Environmental groups filed several lawsuits against the city to protect them. In 2011, Mayor Ed Lee vetoed a measure that would have had the National Park Service take over the course. In 2017, the Board of Supervisors voted 9–1 to certify an environmental impact report that changes three holes to protect habitat.
For San Francisco’s other lakeside muni, see our TPC Harding Park guide.