TEE BOX 29 Brian Schneider of Renaissance Golf Design has been appointed to oversee a redesign of the golf course at San Diego Country Club (SDCC) in California. William Watson laid out the original course in 1921 and it has been renovated multiple times over the ensuing century. “The club is long overdue an update to critical infrastructure and in need of addressing some ‘big picture’ items across the property,” said Schneider. “Once I was appointed, I was encouraged to look beyond simply improving the existing layout and consider the potential of the property if significant changes could be made. The goal was to find the very best golf course.” Over the years, the course has had holes rerouted, and features like greens and bunkers have been redesigned. “Very little of the original design remains intact,” said Schneider. “That said, the native topography of the site is still very much as Mother Nature created it and that contour is pretty extraordinary. There is great variety in the scale and turbulence of the land movement, with certain portions of the property being very reminiscent of lovely linksland. My mission was to utilise the topography as well as possible and to allow the golfer to directly interact with those native features in impactful and compelling ways. “The result is a new routing that maintains the existing corridors on roughly half the holes with the other half being entirely new. The course will get all new greens, bunkers and tees and we hope to relocate both the existing irrigation pond and the golf course maintenance facility, which currently occupies prime real estate in the eastern centre of the site. We’ll also be updating the irrigation system, improving subsurface drainage and regrassing the entire site.” Construction will be executed in one phase and is expected to begin in autumn 2026 with the course anticipated to reopen in late 2027. Read more insight from Schneider about the project on the GCA website. San Diego Country Club COURSE BLUEPRINT Image: Renaissance Golf Design The existing driving range and holes four and five will be transformed into a revamped shortgame area The new eighteenth will play in a west-east direction and will be constructed on parts of the old fourth hole and use the old ninth green Hole eight will largely be laid out over the same footprint of the old seventeenth, but with triple the amount of bunkers Schneider will make use of unused land on the western edge of the property to create a new parfour third
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