The Courses · Primary championship venue
TPC Harding Park
A city-owned course that has hosted Tiger, a Presidents Cup and a major — and still belongs to everyone.
Harding Park opened on July 18, 1925, on 163 acres of rolling, loamy ground hard against Lake Merced — laid out by Willie Watson and Sam Whiting, the same partnership that built the Olympic Club's Lake Course next door. It was named for President Warren G. Harding, an avid golfer who had died in office in San Francisco two years earlier, and it was conceived with a radical premise for its era: championship golf, open to anyone with the green fee.
That premise has been tested. The course hosted Byron Nelson's wartime Victory Open in 1944 and the Lucky International through the 1960s, then fell so far into neglect that by 1998 its fairways were used as a parking lot for the U.S. Open next door. A campaign led by former USGA president Sandy Tatum brought the PGA Tour into partnership with the city, and a $16 million restoration reopened the course in 2003 — stretched to nearly 7,200 yards, its Watson & Whiting bones intact.
Since then the world has kept arriving: a World Golf Championship in 2005, the Presidents Cup in 2009, the WGC Match Play in 2015, the PGA Championship in 2020. But Harding's oldest tenant predates them all. The San Francisco City Championship has been decided on these fairways for a century, and every March the course still belongs to the players who qualify.
“The course begins at the 14th hole — because that's when you get to the lake.”
Bo Links, San Francisco golf historian
The story
How Harding Park became Harding Park
- 1925
Opening day
Watson & Whiting's municipal masterpiece opens on the shores of Lake Merced, named for the president who died in San Francisco in 1923.
- 1944
Byron Nelson's Victory Open
Harding hosts its first PGA Tour event in wartime — Nelson wins the San Francisco Victory Open.
- 1956
Venturi & Ward, before ten thousand
The City final between Ken Venturi and reigning U.S. Amateur champion Harvie Ward draws an estimated 10,000 fans and the front page of every San Francisco daily. Venturi wins 5&4.
- 1966
Venturi comes home
In the Lucky International, San Francisco's own Ken Venturi — fighting back from hand surgery — takes his 14th and final PGA Tour title on the course where he grew up.
- 1998
The ultimate indignity
Years of budget cuts bottom out: Harding's fairways serve as a parking lot for the U.S. Open at the Olympic Club next door.
- 2003
The restoration
Sandy Tatum's campaign delivers a $16 million, 15-month renovation with the PGA Tour. The course reopens at nearly 7,200 yards.
- 2010
Joining the TPC network
The city retains ownership while the PGA Tour's TPC network takes over operations — municipal access with tour-grade conditioning.
- 2020
A major at the muni
Collin Morikawa's Sunday 64 wins the PGA Championship — the first major ever played at Harding Park.
On the card
The holes that decide things
Harding saves its drama for the water. The routing turns toward Lake Merced at the 14th and never leaves it, finishing on a stretch that has decided a major, a World Golf Championship and a hundred City finals.
Where the course begins
The lakeside stretch starts here — wind off the water, cypress crowding the corners, and the sense that every match is about to be decided.
Morikawa's hole
The drivable par 4 where Collin Morikawa, tied for the lead on Sunday of the 2020 PGA, drove it to seven feet and made eagle. Only 17 of 73 players who tried the green that day pulled it off. “It was 100 percent the right play,” he said.
The closer
Bending along Lake Merced, the finisher where Tiger Woods and John Daly traded haymakers in their 2005 WGC playoff — and where City finals have closed out for generations.
The Fleming 9
Tucked inside the championship routing since 1961, the nine-hole short course named for longtime city superintendent Jack Fleming — six par 3s, three par 4s, and the best value in San Francisco golf.
The world arrives
Four times golf came to Harding — and stayed late
Since the restoration, Harding Park has hosted the game's biggest events without ever closing its doors to the public that owns it.
2005 · WGC-American Express
Tiger over Daly, in the dark
Tiger Woods beat John Daly in sudden death after Daly missed from three feet — before a gallery so loud it was likened to a rock concert.
2009 · Presidents Cup
A perfect week
Fred Couples' Americans won 19½–14½, with Tiger Woods going 5-0-0 and closing the Cup out in singles.
2015 · WGC Match Play
Seven wins in five days
Rory McIlroy became the first player to win seven matches in five days, beating Gary Woodland 4&2 in the final.
2020 · PGA Championship
Morikawa's 64
In the first major played without spectators, 23-year-old Collin Morikawa closed bogey-free to win by two — sealed by the drive on 16 that instantly entered major-championship lore.
Local knowledge
Playing Harding Park
- Fog and cool marine air are the house style — the lakeside holes play into whatever the Pacific sends over Skyline.
- Poa annua greens, tour-conditioned but honest: morning putts are truer than afternoon ones.
- Fully walkable parkland — this is a muni at heart, and the City is contested on foot.
- San Francisco residents with a Rec & Park resident card play for the lowest rates on the sheet; visitor rates are demand-priced. Check tpc.com for current numbers.
Visit
99 Harding Road, San Francisco, CA 94132
- Owned by the City of San Francisco · operated by the PGA Tour's TPC network
- 36-hole facility: the championship course plus the Fleming 9
The City plays here
Walk it in March
Every spring the championship comes back to Harding Park. Qualify, and these holes are yours.