Spanish Bay Links has never been as attractive as the other resort courses on 17 Mile Boulevard.
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Spanish Bay Links at Pebble Beach is considered a Scottish-style course, a tribute to the ancient countryside of the California coast.
In keeping with this theme, a bagpiper plays along the 18th green at sunset. It was a fitting touch. But the second violin also makes sense. Of the three resort courses along 17-Mile Drive (the other two are Pebble Beach Golf Links and Spyglass), Spanish Bay is rarely anyone's first choice.
Pebble Beach Resort hopes to change that. In late 2023, the owners announced plans to make Spanish Bay on par with other projects through renovations by architects Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner. At the time, the timeline for the work was up in the air. Not anymore. Last week, the schedule was announced. The course will close on March 18, 2026 and reopen the following spring ahead of the 2027 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.
“Working with Gil, Jim and their team gives us confidence that Spanish Bay will be a golf course unlike any other,” Pebble Beach CEO David Stivers said in a statement accompanying the news. Comparable must-play courses.
Hans and Wagner are no strangers to headline projects. Their original work includes Golf Magazine Top 100 courses like Ohoopee Match Club in Georgia and CapRock Ranch in Nebraska, plus they've become the go-to duo for big-name restorations and renovations. In California alone, they've orchestrated redo's at locations like Los Angeles Country Club, Olympic Club, and Lake Merced Golf Club.
In Spanish Bay, they were given a picturesque canvas along a strictly protected coastline. Spanish Bay was designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr., Tom Watson and Sandy Tatum and first opened in 1987. It was built The aim is to rebuild and protect native sand dunes that have been lost over decades. The current route passes through these dunes, then dives into Del Monte Forest before finally returning to the coast.
Hanse and Wagner's work will remain within the scope of the original development. Beyond that, few details of their plans have been revealed. But in a video released by Pebble Beach, Hans described its potential as “astounding” and said he expected the project to be transformative for the course's playability and appearance. The Pebble Beach Company said it expects Spanish Bay to transform from “a Scottish-style course of the 1980s to a modern California masterpiece.”
Even before Hans and Wagner began turning the soil, other work had begun on Spanish Bay, including rebuilding public access that had been damaged in recent storms. This part of the program will begin this spring, with course work beginning early next year. Until then, bagpipers will continue playing every night as the sun sets.
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