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The tee shot on the 18th hole has a few obstacles to clear, both mentally and physically.
The tee shot on the 18th hole has a few obstacles to clear, both mentally and physically.
Randy Youngman Staff columnist mug for The Orange County Register

I’ve played more than 250 golf courses around the world, including many venues on which major championships have been played, but you’ll never guess which one features my favorite tee shot of all time.

The opening shot on the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland, in the shadows of the historic Royal and Ancient clubhouse, elicits an incomparable adrenaline rush. The tee shot on No. 17 at St. Andrews (Road Hole), which tempts you to hit over the corner of the Old Course Hotel, also is unforgettable. But from my admittedly twisted perspective, they rank behind the coolest tee shot in golf.

Your first swing on the 388-yard, par-4 18th hole at San Gabriel Country Club in L.A. County is unlike any other you’ll face. That’s because your tee ball first has to go over a wrought iron fence and then over a street – often with cars passing in front of you – to reach a narrow fairway bordered by trees left and out-of-bounds hedges right.

Put it this way: You’ll not find another a golf hole that requires you to play on both sides of traffic, because city permits will never be issued to allow it elsewhere. Of course, the street you must drive over – East Hermosa Drive in San Gabriel – wasn’t there when the course was built in 1904 on cactus-studded terrain near San Gabriel Mission, as a 9-hole track with oily sand greens and sunken tin-can cups.

The private club bought more land and expanded to 18 holes in 1912, and it still has the distinction as the oldest course in Los Angeles and Orange counties operating on its original site. It’s also the oldest 18-hole course in Southern California. (More history: The city of San Gabriel grew outward from the San Gabriel Mission and in 1852 became the original township of L.A. County, explaining why it’s often called the birthplace of the Los Angeles metropolitan area and the for-real birthplace of Gen. George S. Patton and golf commentator Gary McCord, in addition to being where Wild West gunslinger Judge Roy Bean once tended bar and avid golfer Curly Howard of “Three Stooges” fame died.)

In 1941, San Gabriel Country Club is also where Bob Hope and Bing Crosby played a celebrity four-ball match with LPGA pros Babe Didrikson Zaharias and Patty Berg (you can guess which two broke 80) before a crowd of 2,500.

Given all that history, it makes the tee shot on No. 18 even more special. And I would have said that even if I hadn’t birdied it the first time I teed it up at San Gabriel CC a few years ago. Driver; 8-iron; 15-foot putt. Nothing to it. Put me down for a 3.

In truth, I grow to appreciate and respect the hole more every time I play it, especially after being eliminated from an alternate-shot tournament on No. 18 by a 30-foot birdie putt in the match-play semifinals one year. And this year, in a qualifying round for the same alternate-shot event, there was even more pain on No. 18, after I badly sliced my tee shot – my favorite tee shot in the world – over the fence, over the street and then over the hedges bordering the right side of the fairway onto Country Club Drive.

Yes, out of bounds.

That meant my playing partner had to hit another tee shot and, thankfully, he found the left side of the fairway. Now we were lying 3. My next shot, a 5-hybrid, sailed into a greenside bunker; my partner blasted out; I ran a 25-footer a few feet past the cup; he missed; I tapped in. Put us down for an 8 – a quadruple-bogey – and, as it turns out, all we needed was a double-bogey 6 to qualify for one of the match-play flights. Needless to say, it was a long ride back to Orange County.

Even so, No. 18 at San Gabriel Country Club is still my favorite tee shot in golf. Just don’t drive past on East Hermosa Drive when I’m on the tee.