Riviera Country Club

The Riviera Country Club

18th hole and clubhouse
Club information
Location	Pacific Palisades, California
Established	1926
Type	Private
Total holes	18
Tournaments hosted	Northern Trust Open 1948 U.S. Open 1983 PGA Championship 1995 PGA Championship 1998 U.S. Senior Open
Website	rccla.com
Designed by	George C. Thomas, Jr.
Par	71
Length	7,349 yards (6,720 m)
Course rating	75.6
Slope rating	137
Course record	61 (Ted Tryba, 1999)

The Riviera Country Club is an exclusive Private club with a championship golf course. It is located in Pacific Palisades, California, a community within the city limits of Los Angeles. Designed by golf course architect George C. Thomas, Jr., it has been the primary host for the PGA Tour's Genesis Open (originally the Los Angeles Open), an annual event in February. Riviera has hosted three major championships: the U.S. Open in 1948, and the PGA Championship in 1983 and 1995. It also hosted the U.S. Senior Open in 1998. The course is located in the Santa Monica Canyon, just below the Santa Monica Mountains and a block south of Sunset Boulevard. In 2017, it will host the U.S. Amateur.

When the country club and course opened in 1926, it was known as the Los Angeles Athletic Club Golf Course. Alister MacKenzie and William P. Bell helped Thomas in the design and planning of the course. They were in charge of assembling a labor force to build the course from scratch in the Santa Monica Canyon. In 1927 dollars, the entire country club and golf course cost $243,827.63 to build; at the time, it was one of the most expensive in golf history. Golf Course Histories posted on its website aerial comparisons dating back to 1927; notably, the famed 10th hole lacked greenside bunkers. The course has been modified a few times, most notably in 1992 when Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore redesigned the bunkers to look as they did when the course opened.