In the beginning, it was called Irvine Coast Country Club.
The golf course was the inspiration of Myford “Mike” Irvine, then president of The Irvine Co., and was designed by William P. Bell. But Bell’s death in June 1953, a few months after construction had begun, forced his son, William F. Bell, to complete the project with help from construction supervisor Arthur Sunderland, who would stay on as course superintendent.
And on Valentine’s Day in 1954, golf was finally played at Irvine Coast. The first foursome was comprised of Mike Irvine, who had spearheaded fund-raising efforts by persuading 100 men to raise $1,000 each to match the Irvine Co.’s $100,000 construction investment: Irvine Co. vice president Charlie Cogan and businessmen Hadd Ring and Tom Henderson, both of whom became part of the first ownership group.
The rest is, literally, history.
It has been called Newport Beach Country Club since September 1985, when International Bay Clubs Investment Co., Inc. acquired ICCC and its assets and changed its name to reflect one of the most appealing geographical regions in Southern California. There have been several other owners through the years — the Forest Smith family, William and Beverly Ray and most recently the private equity firm Eagle Four Partners, including principals Todd Pickup and Kevin Martin and their families, which purchased the club in 2012. But the traditional tree-lined course has maintained its classic look and feel from the beginning.
Newport Beach Country Club has been a host venue for professional tournaments annually since 1975, when the Crosby Southern Pro-Am (also known as the “Little Crosby”) was established as a mini-tour event for tour pros that didn’t make the cut at the Crosby National Pro-Am in Pebble Beach. It was later renamed the Taco Bell Newport Classic and held through 1997.
What Newport Beach CC is best known for, locally and nationally, is the Toshiba Classic, a PGA Tour Champions event for pros 50-and-older that has been contested on the course since 1996. The 2017 Toshiba is Oct. 7-9, with UCLA alumnus Duffy Waldorf defending his title.
The Toshiba traditionally has attracted great fields and huge galleries, and it has featured several memorable playoffs, popular champions such as two-time winners Fred Couples and Hale Irwin, as well as record-tying low rounds of 60 by Tom Purtzer, Nick Price and Waldorf a year ago.
“This is my favorite course now,” Waldorf joked in August, when he was inducted into the Toshiba Classic Hall of Fame. “I love Newport Beach Country Club and the Toshiba Classic – my first win on the Champions Tour.”
There have been periodic course upgrades and enhancements over the years – by Harry Rainville in 1973 and by Ted Robinson in the 1980s and 1990s – and the improvements will continue under the current owners. New CEO Kevin Martin says he has been working with Newport Beach-based architect Casey O’Callaghan and that “subtle” course changes will be phased in over the next several years – improvements that will be “respectful of the current design and traditions of the club.”
In the past two years, those changes have included rebuilding the water hazard on the course’s signature hole – the 191-yard, par-3 17th – and redesigning the par-4 first hole so that a new short-game area could be built where the original tee box was located. (Previously a 339-yard dogleg-left par-4, No. 1 is now a relatively straight 325-yarder with two new bunkers in the middle of the fairway that tempt long hitters to carry them and go for the green.)
“The new owners are interested in making the golf course as good as it can be,” O’Callaghan said, adding other planned improvements include turf reduction, tree removal, rebuilding bunkers throughout the course and rebuilding and/or reshaping selected greens. “Newport Beach Country Club is such a special place, and they want to make it even better.”
Though the 6,601-yard, par-71 layout is short by tour standards, head professional Carlo Borunda points out that the “sticky” Kikuyu grass makes the course play up to 200 yards longer because it significantly reduces the roll on tee shots.
“But the ball sits up beautifully because of the Kikuyu, too,” said Borunda, in his second year as head pro and 13th year at NBCC.
The narrow, tree-lined fairways place a premium on driving accuracy, and the prevailing ocean breezes must be factored into approach shots. The poa annua greens are small by any standard but “roll very true,” Borunda says, “and have just enough undulation and slope to confuse you” – along with the influence of the nearby Pacific Ocean.
Borunda also likes the character of the course and how it flows, opening with four of the easier holes before encountering “the teeth of the course: holes 5 through 10” and then finishing with two scoring par-5s (No. 15 and No. 18) among the last four. And there is water lurking on No. 3, a par-5, and the picturesque par-3 fourth and 17th holes.
After all these years, Newport Beach Country Club remains a challenging test and a good walk unspoiled.
BY THE NUMBERS
6,601: Length, in yards, from the back tees; second-shortest competitive venue on the PGA Tour Champions lineup
127/71.6: Slope and course rating from the back tees
325: Length, in yards, of hole No. 1, a par-4 redesigned by Casey O’Callaghan during clubhouse construction and practice-area renovation
60: Course record, set by Tom Purtzer in the 2004 Toshiba Classic, and matched by Nick Price (2011) and Duffy Waldorf (2015)
21: Consecutive years the Toshiba Classic has been contested at NBCC (inaugural 1995 event was at Mesa Verde Country Club in Costa Mesa)
2: Number of two-time winners at the Toshiba Classic: Hale Irwin (1998, 2002) and Fred Couples (2010, 2014)
$200,000: Cost of course construction when Irvine Coast Country Club was built in 1953-54
