100 GOLF.COM / S e p t ember 2019
Travel / Away Game
If Tony Bennett came back to fetch
the heart he left in San Francisco, he’d
recognize the cable cars but not
much else. Except maybe the munis.
following his girlfriend West. She was my first love. Lincoln was a
close second. To an East Coaster like me, the course looked make-
believe, a storybook layout draped over the northwest shoulder of
the city, on land-meets-ocean acreage, fringed by Cypress trees that
Dr. Seuss might well have sketched.
It looks the same today.
At its most magical, Lincoln casts its eye through sun-dappled
coastal mists across the hilly neighborhoods you know from postcards,
all the way to downtown San Francisco. Its outer edges tumble toward
dramatic bluffs, which give way to close-ups of the Golden Gate.
California golf provides a lot of pretty pictures. But only at Lincoln
can you take your hacks with the world’s most famous bridge photo-
bombing your backswing.
That these zillion-dollar views are paired with raggedy conditions
(clovers in the fairways; Chia Pet greens) points to another of
Lincoln’s defining features: it’s a muni, one of six in San Francisco.
Its $50 weekend fees ($37 for lucky locals) make it an anachronistic
refuge, an affordable indulgence in a city turned exorbitant by
tech fortunes, a throwback in a time of convulsive change.
You might say the same of munis in some other major cities,
but nowhere else would that statement cut so deep because, in
recent years, no other major city has been so radically transformed.
Staggering wealth, accumulated at the speed of broadband, has
sent San Francisco topsy-turvy. Entire neighborhoods have been
reshaped. Real estate prices have grown surreal. One-bedroom
apartments rent for an average of $3,700. Single-family homes
list for a median of $1.6 million. Here’s another fun fact, drawn
from a 2019 economic study: One in every 11,600 San Francisco
residents is now a billionaire, the highest percentage of any city in
the world. If Tony Bennett came back to fetch the heart he left here,
he’d recognize the cable cars but not much else.
Except maybe the munis, which survive, underfunded, asking
relatively little but offering plenty in return. No doubt they’ve given
lots to golfers like Clarence Bryant, whose company I’ve got for my
morning round. At 88, with a spring still in his step and a pop still
in his swing, Bryant has a love affair with Lincoln that makes my
ties to the course seem like a summer fling. He’s been a regular for
more than 60 years, playing it with buddies on a rotating circuit of
city courses. His fondness for the munis is well founded. As a black
man learning the game in post–World War II San Francisco, Bryant
was kept at arm’s length by the local private clubs. But the munis
welcomed him, and he embraced them back.Clockwise from above: Gleneagles’ towering trees feel vintage NoCal (as does its
throwback signage and chillaxin’ pub); Bryant typifies an old-school muni swinger;
the ever-sharpening SF skyline; but, for some, not as sharp as No. 1 at Sharp Park. Pr
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