LA Country Club's mystery extends to U.S. Open players too - ESPN

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — If you're not flying in a Boeing or manning a drone, the only glimpses Los Angeles can get of its namesake golf club are through a tree-lined fence on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Across the street from the city's most posh shopping mall in nearby Century City, a closer look yields a glance at a fairway or a peek at a green. Squint hard enough and you might see a bunker. The irony, of course, is that what lies just on the other side of the boulevard's daily vehicle bottleneck is Los Angeles Country Club's South Course, not the North where this year's U.S. Open is held.

If it feels like this year's tournament carries with it a certain level of secrecy, it's because it does. LACC's exclusivity and privacy is a feature, not a bug. In fact, people can go their entire lives in Los Angeles without knowing or even realizing that the course sits in a canyon surrounded by a forest of mansions and skyscrapers.

This week, the ultra-exclusive private club that is known to test prospective members' patience as well as shy away from celebrity additions is opening its doors to the golf world. In the process, LACC is showcasing that its real luxury, its real showstopper, isn't some fancy clubhouse (though they have that) or a celebrity house (see: Lionel Richie's on the 13th hole) or some magnificent view that spans from Hollywood to Downtown LA (you'll see it plenty on TV). No, the real jewel is a golf course that is as natural as its surroundings are man-made.

Built mostly into a low-lying canyon, the course — designed by George Thomas in 1927 and restored by Gil Hanse, Jim Wagner and Geoff Shackelford in 2010 — is not your prototypical U.S. Open golf course. And it's not just because the lines off the tee can vary