El Caballero Country Club

layout given a dramatic 2021 Rees Jones restoration; the 7,019-yard test hosts the LPGA's JM Eagle LA Championship.

Course History

The El Caballero name is one of the oldest in San Fernando Valley golf. An earlier El Caballero Country Club operated in Tarzana in the 1920s and hosted the 1927 Los Angeles Open before hard times in the Depression and war years forced its closure. The modern club rose on adjacent land in 1957, founded by Bernie Shapiro as a pioneering nonsectarian, nonprofit, member-owned golf and social club whose charter declared that no person could be denied membership or employment because of race, color, creed, gender, or religious belief. Robert Trent Jones Sr. is credited with the championship course, which matured into a layout widely regarded as the finest in the Valley.

El Caballero has hosted U.S. Open sectional qualifying and USGA championship play, including the 2018 U.S. Women's Amateur Four-Ball. Between 2018 and 2021 the club completed a three-year, $10 million renovation directed by Rees Jones — son of the original architect — that removed trees, regraded fairways, repositioned bunkers, rebuilt greens, and replaced every blade of turf with drought-tolerant hybrid Bermuda, saving an estimated 35 million gallons of water a year. The relaunched course was celebrated on November 17, 2021, and soon landed on the LPGA Tour: the JM Eagle LA Championship moved to El Caballero in 2025 and 2026 while Wilshire Country Club underwent restoration, with Ingrid Lindblad winning in 2025 and Hannah Green taking the 2026 title in a playoff.

The Design & Architecture

Jones's parkland design moves across the Valley floor on gently doglegging, tree-lined fairways that finish at well-bunkered greens. The 2021 restoration honored that framework while modernizing it: strategic tree removal reopened sightlines and recovery angles, bunkers were repositioned for today's distances, and the entrances to many greens were widened so running approaches are once again possible. Wall-to-wall hybrid Bermuda turf keeps lies tight and firm through Southern California's dry season while cutting the course's water use by roughly 30 percent.

Signature Holes

Rees Jones has pointed to the 6th and 9th as the holes most transformed by the restoration, their green entries opened up so approaches can be attacked more readily. When the LPGA set the course up as a 6,679-yard par 72 for the JM Eagle LA Championship, the 16th — the shortest par 5 on the card — played as the field's best scoring chance, and the round closes with a par-4 18th that runs back toward the clubhouse.

Playing the Course

From the tips El Caballero is a stout test: par 71 at 7,019 yards with a 74.6 rating and a 137 slope. The tree-lined corridors put a premium on shaping tee shots into the correct side of the doglegs, and the firm hybrid Bermuda fairways reward a controlled, positional game over raw speed. Well-defended greens ask for precise approach flight, though the restored green entrances give shorter hitters a ground route into many putting surfaces.

Know Before You Go

• Private club at 18300 Tarzana Drive, Tarzana, CA 91356; call (818) 645-3000 for tee times and details.

• More info and booking at https://www.elcaballerocc.com/.