Restoring Pasatiempo's 16th Green (sizzle)
As the conversation turns to Augusta National, the course and the architecture, you’ll hear a lot about Dr. Alister MacKenzie, the architect, and never enough about Marion Hollins, his friend and partner in a variety of projects. Most notably Pasatiempo in Santa Cruz, Calif., which she developed and helped design.
Hollins and MacKenzie unveiled Pasatiempo in 1929. And on opening day, after losing in the first round of the U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach, Bobby Jones was available to join Hollins, Cyril Tolley and Glenna Collett as the first foursome to play the course.
It was an unsuccessful U.S. Amateur for Jones, but that week he got time with MacKenzie and Hollins and he played Cypress Point and Pasatiempo, which led to Jones and Clifford Roberts hiring MacKenzie to design and build Augusta National.
On Friday, Fire Pit Productions will drop a two-part series on the restoration of the Pasatiempo greens. We’ve been working on this for over two years and it’s roughly 30 minutes of storytelling. It’s the process they went through to restore each green, but it’s through the very specific lens of the 16th green, one of the most diabolical putting surfaces in golf. We have shovels going down almost two feet, Mandon and Urbina searching for clues in the sand and soil, there’s a time-lapse that ran for three months, multiple graphic elements over the before-and-after images, and you’ll get a better understanding of how and why this project had to be done.
Pasatiempo will host the Western Intercollegiate April 14-16, which will showcase not only the thoughtful restoration by Jim Urbina, Justin Mandon and Earth Sculptures, but it will also showcase some of the best talent in college golf.
Past champions include O’Meara and Scheffler, both who went on to win the Masters.