California, USA

A great American road trip between two iconic courses: travelling Route 101 between legendary Pebble Beach and Torrey Pines, where Tiger Woods won his last US Open.

Hugging the Pacific coastline, stretching 1,300km from Los Angeles in the south to Tumwater, Washington, in the north, taking in San Francisco and Portland along the way, Route 101 is one America’s most iconic highways. And then there’s the golf.

One small slice of the southern half of the highway, a comparatively short but spectacular seven-hour drive, connects two of golf’s greatest, Pebble Beach and Torrey Pines, both former US Open hosts that have witnessed a Tiger Woods victory.

Pebble Beach, just two hours south of San Francisco, is consistently ranked the best public course in the USA and among the top ten in the world, first held the US Open in 1972 when Jack Nicklaus took the title, and most recently in 2019, with the four in between including wins for Tom Watson (1982) and Woods show-stopping 15-stroke win in 2000.

Set atop craggy headlands with uninterrupted views of the Pacific, even those that have played the best in the world, have been struck by Pebble Beach. Nicklaus said of the course: “If I had only one more round to play, I would choose to play at Pebble Beach. I loved this course from the first time I saw it. It’s possibly the best in the world.”

Not to be outdone, Torrey Pines in San Diego, has its own jaw-dropping clifftop setting, and also witnessed a Woods masterclass, albeit by far closer margins with a play-off win over Rocco Mediate in 2008, and, more recently in 2021, Spain’s Jon Rahm won his first major here.

Away from the golf, the drive between the two is one to be savoured, including as it does Big Sur – named by Spanish explorers on the Portolá expedition – which is a mountainous wilderness that has forever attracted creatives looking for inspiration. It’s easy to see why it inspired the likes of Jack Kerouac and Henry Miller, as you wind your way through a 90-mile stretch of twisting, cliff-hugging highway through redwoods, across bridges that seem to defy the laws of gravity and engineering, and with the great ocean following your every turn. In a country that loves its road trips, this is one that ranks among the very best, for its nature, for those that have gone before, and, of course, for the golf.