Harding Park opened on July 18, 1925, along the shore of Lake Merced in San Francisco’s southwest corner. The course’s history page says Willie Watson and Sam Whiting designed the original 163-acre, 18-hole layout. The same pair designed the neighboring Olympic Club’s Lake Course. The PGA Tour notes the course opened as a 6,505-yard par 73.
Tour stop, decline and rescue
The course began hosting PGA Tour events in 1944 with the Victory Open. Wikipedia says it hosted the tour’s Lucky International Open from 1961 to 1969. Budget cuts left it in poor shape. The PGA Tour describes cracked fairways, collapsed bunker walls and a run-down clubhouse, and in 1998 the course served as a parking lot for the U.S. Open at the Olympic Club.
Former USGA President Sandy Tatum led the push to restore it. The course says a $16 million restoration in 2002 and 2003 lengthened it to nearly 7,200 yards and upgraded the clubhouse, range and the nine-hole Fleming course. The PGA Tour says that nine came out of a 1960s upgrade by Jack Fleming, who had been Alister MacKenzie’s construction supervisor. In November 2010, Harding Park joined the PGA Tour’s TPC network of clubs.
Big events
After the restoration, the course hosted a World Golf Championships event in 2005, the Presidents Cup in 2009 and the WGC Match Play in 2015, when Rory McIlroy beat Gary Woodland 4 and 2 in the final. The 2020 PGA Championship was the first major ever played there. Harding is also a host of the San Francisco City Championship, which the course says began in 1917.
For the lake next door, see our Lake Merced guide.