Comments (0) Best Public Golf Course - 2007

Gleneagles GC

While highfalutin Harding Park gets all the headlines, this scrappy nine-holer gets the nod from hard-core locals, who prefer their fairways narrow and their golf without frills. There's no tee times or butt-kissing at the bag drop. Just pay your greens fees at the counter and let it fly. The layout, set in the hills south of San Francisco and abutting the Sunnydale housing project, bucks and rolls through stands of knotty cypress trees, and the quirks of the greens — tiny and tilted — make it all the golf you can eat. When the fog rolls in, and a cool breeze blows off the bay, Gleneagles takes on the feel of its Scottish namesake, especially in the low-slung clubhouse bar, which looks something like a home for heavy-drinking hobbits. From start to finish, this is the game as it was meant to be, before fat guys in carts got in the way.