Olympic Club
The Olympic Club was founded in 1860, making it the oldest athletic club in the United States. Gold Rush San Francisco was barely a decade old, and the club's founders wanted a place for physical fitness and gentlemanly competition in a city better known for saloons and speculation. More than 160 years later, the club's Lakeside golf course, perched on the bluffs above Lake Merced near the Pacific Ocean, has hosted five U.S. Open championships and earned a reputation as one of the most challenging courses in the country.
Born in the Gold Rush
The San Francisco Olympic Club was established on May 6, 1860, in a city that was barely thirteen years past being a Mexican trading post called Yerba Buena. The club originally focused on gymnastics, boxing, and track and field, offering its members physical training in a city where most recreation involved drinking or gambling. Over the decades, the club expanded its athletics program and its membership, moving through several locations before establishing its current facilities. The club has produced Olympic athletes, professional boxers, and generations of amateur competitors.
The Lakeside Course
The Olympic Club's Lakeside Course, designed by Sam Whiting and Willie Watson and later modified by Robert Trent Jones Sr., has hosted the U.S. Open in 1955, 1966, 1987, 1998, and 2012. The course is known for its tight, tree-lined fairways, its thick rough, and its proximity to the Pacific, which sends fog and wind rolling across the fairways on unpredictable schedules. The 1955 Open produced one of golf's greatest upsets when Jack Fleck defeated Ben Hogan in a playoff. The course sits adjacent to Lake Merced, and the San Francisco Golf Club and public TPC Harding Park complete a trio of courses surrounding the lake.
Private but Present
The Olympic Club is a private institution, and its membership rolls and internal culture are largely invisible to the public. But its impact on San Francisco is tangible: the Lakeside Course is one of the most important golf venues on the West Coast, and the club's history is woven into the city's athletic identity. The club also maintains a City Clubhouse in downtown San Francisco. For a city that often defines itself by counterculture and progressive politics, the Olympic Club is a reminder that San Francisco also has a deep tradition of establishment institutions that have quietly shaped the city since before the Civil War.
From the Air
The Lakeside Course is located at 37.71°N, 122.49°W adjacent to Lake Merced in southwestern San Francisco. The golf course is visible from altitude as manicured green space near the lake. Nearest airport: SFO (KSFO, 5 nm south).