Pebble Beach Company Plans for a New Golf Course

Already regarded as one of golf's royalties, the Pebble Beach Company is poised to add yet another jewel to its crown.

Plans for a new golf course that will be designed by renowned golf architect Tom Fazio are slowly moving ahead. The new course will join Pebble's incomparable line-up of Pebble Beach Golf Links, Spyglass Hill, the Links at Spanish Bay and Del Monte Golf Course.

In the works since 1989, the Pebble Beach Co. first applied for building permits in 1992, but fierce opposition from environmentalists and regulatory delays stalled the project.

The fate of the course took a huge turn, however, when Pebble Beach Co. was purchased by a group of investors led by Arnold Palmer, Richard Ferris, Peter Ueberroth and Clint Eastwood for $820 million in 1999. Almost immediately after acquiring Pebble Beach Co, the group announced plans that it would continue pursuing the new course despite the angst of environmentalists.

Among the company's plans in addition to the new course are a 24-room cottage next to the course in an area now zoned for 68 condominiums, 38 luxury residential lots, an additional 50-60 hotel rooms to the 161-room Lodge at Pebble Beach and 90 hotel rooms to the 270-room Inn at Spanish Bay, a 60-unit employee housing complex and a new equestrian facility.

Given the years of battling over its previous plans, the Pebble Beach Co.decided to take the issue to the people in the form of Measure A last November.

Ueberroth, at the time, said the initiative would give voters the chance to help chart the future of the Monterey Peninsula.

"We are asking voters to approve a plan to permanently protect key areas of the Del Monte Forest and approve new guidelines for future planning in the area," he said. "We want to see if the community shares the long-range future we envision for Pebble Beach."

Overwhelmingly (64% to 36%), the people did.

"We are extremely gratified that the vast majority of our neighbors in the county agree with the Pebble Beach Company's vision for the Del Monte Forest," Pebble Beach Company CEO Bill Perocchi said. "We've said all along that Measure A would allow us to preserve the Del Monte Forest and to focus on what we do best: operating the greatest golf resort in the world."

Along with eliminating zoning for almost 900 lots and rezoning hundreds of acres of land from residential to natural and recreational open space, Measure A finalized three key re-zoning issues: the relocation of the equestrian center, the visitor-serving golf cottages perhaps, most importantly, the prohibition of residential construction around the course.

"Current zoning allowed us to build a course where it will be, but we re-zoned it so that no future residential development would be allowed on the golf course site ," said Carmel Development Co. CEO Alan Williams, who is heading the extensive project.

"The land is now zoned as recreational open space instead of residential."

Contrary to what some Measure opponents thought, Pebble Beach Co. did not need new zoning to build a golf course. Re-zoning, however, was needed to move the equestrian center, which currently sits on land that will be the Forest Course.

"We've come farther in the last 6-8 months than we did in the last 6-8 years," Williams said.

Having hurdled its greatest obstacle (Measure A) yet, the Pebble Beach Co. and Williams are now preparing a permit application for the new project that is expected to be submitted sometime this month.

Monterey County will then need to prepare an Environmental impact Report for the project. The new EIR, which will include data from the old EIR, needs to be approved by both the Monterey County Board of Supervisors and the Monterey County Planning Commission.

"If all goes as planned, we could be through the process a little more than a year from now," Williams said. "As for groundbreaking, we're either looking at next summer to fall 2002 or spring 2003."

As for the highly anticipated new layout, the new Fazio course will sit on the current site of the equestrian center and the old polo field, stretching towards Cypress Point, Spyglass Hill and Robert Louis Stevenson High School.

The course has been laid out but for now no plans have been finalized.

"The process that evolves when designing a golf course is that you almost never get to the final design because of size," said Fazio, whose latest creation locally is the critically acclaimed The Preserve Golf Club in Carmel Valley. "Sometimes rules and regulations change. A golf course is always in constant evolution."

The layout that is on the board now has the Forest Course playing at a length of 6,814 yards and a par of 71. Holes No.1 and No.2, as well as the clubhouse, will be towards RLS, holes No.3, No.4, No.5 and No.6 will be where the Polo field now sits and holes 7-10 will reside on the current equestrian center site. Holes 11-14 will lie parallel to the southern end (front-nine) of Cypress Point Golf Club and holes 15-17 will sit just left of Spyglass Hill. No.18 will take players back south to the clubhouse. The course tentatively has four par-5s, five par-3s and nine par-4s.

If finalized, one unique aspect of the course would be that No.15 and No.16 would be back-to-back par-3s.

"Overall, the course will play similar to Spyglass and the interior of Cypress Point," Fazio said. "It won't be too difficult, though. Golf doesn't need to be hard."