Valencia Country Club

parkland design that hosted the PGA Tour's Nissan/LA Open in 1998–99, Valencia CC is a private, tree-lined 7,300-yard test recently restored to Jones's original strategic vision.

Course History

Valencia Country Club was established in 1965, with Robert Trent Jones Sr. laying out a championship parkland course in the Santa Clarita Valley. The club's biggest moment on the national stage came in February 1998, when the PGA Tour's Nissan Open (the historic Los Angeles Open) moved to Valencia while Riviera Country Club was being prepared to host that summer's U.S. Senior Open — Billy Mayfair rallied past Tiger Woods to take the title. Valencia was also the longtime home of the Champions Tour's AT&T Champions Classic, a senior event founded in 1990 that ran through 2009, when Dan Forsman won its final playing, and the course continues to host top amateur and professional qualifying, including final qualifying for the 125th U.S. Open in 2025.

Dallas-based Arcis Golf acquired the club in 2014 and undertook a sweeping seven-month renovation with Fry/Straka Global Golf Course Design, reopening the course in October 2022. The project set out to restore Jones's original strategic intent: every teeing ground was rebuilt and squared off in classic rectangles, forward and back tees were added on all 18 holes, bunkers were repositioned, removed, or added to create new angles of attack, and all turf except the greens was replaced — cutting irrigation needs by roughly 30%. The work earned Valencia first place for Renovation of the Year in Golf Inc. magazine's private-club category.

Signature Holes

Valencia's signature hole is the 3rd, a brawny 237-yard par 3 that demands an outstanding tee shot to a green guarded on the right by a water hazard — a threat that pushes many players toward a dangerous bail-out area left of the green. Its counterpart on the back nine is the 202-yard 16th, the only hole on the course that requires a full carry over water.

The closing stretch shows Jones's muscle: the 470-yard 10th plays over a blind drive to a fairway watched by four bunkers, the 466-yard 17th climbs to a 50-yard-deep, false-fronted green, and the 566-yard par-5 18th works back uphill to a bunker-guarded green beneath the clubhouse. Throughout, Valencia's large, segmented, sloping putting surfaces — like the 50-yard-long green at the 4th — reward strategy and precise shot-making over raw length.

Know Before You Go

• Private club at 27330 Tourney Rd, Valencia, CA 91355; call (661) 254-4401 for tee times and details.

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