SANTA CRUZ, Calif. -- The restoration of Pasatiempo Golf Club, Alister MacKenzie's home course in northern California, is now complete, club officials have announced. The restoration of the course, designed by Mackenzie almost 80 years ago, was a 10-year, multi-million dollar effort led by Tom Doak and Jim Urbina of Renaissance Golf.

Doak's team overhauled Pasatiempo's 18 holes, relying on hundreds of old photographs and drawings to bring back original MacKenzie bunkering, green complexes and tees that had been lost for decades.

Though MacKenzie designed a number of other highly acclaimed courses -- including Cypress Point, Augusta National, and Royal Melbourne -- he often described Pasatiempo as his favorite course and made his home there, living along the sixth hole of the course until his death in 1934.

Built in 1929, the course opened with a highly publicized match involving Bobby Jones, Pasatiempo founder and U.S. Amateur champion Marion Hollins, Glenna Collett (U.S. Women's Amateur Champion) and Cyril Tolley (British Amateur Champion). More than 2,000 spectators gathered for the grand opening and followed this world-class foursome around the course.

After this auspicious start, the club, like courses around the world, struggled financially through the Great Depression and the World War II years. During this period, bunkers were eliminated or altered, greens were shrunk, and tees moved, all to reduce costs. Throughout the rest of the century, Pasatiempo was widely recognized as one of the top courses in the nation; still, few appreciated the impact that the alterations of the 1930s and 1940s had made on MacKenzie's gem.

The Pasatiempo restoration effort began in the early 1990s, when Pasatiempo club historian Robert Beck uncovered a trove of old and decaying slides, many by famed photographer Julian Graham, that showed details of both Cypress Point and Pasatiempo not seen in decades. These images spurred the club to take on the challenge of restoring MacKenzie's home course.

A longtime admirer of MacKenzie and co-author of "The Life and Work of Dr. Alister MacKenzie," Doak was the club's choice for the job. While working on the Pasatiempo restoration, Doak and his team were also responsible for the design of some of the world's finest courses -- including four courses widely recognized as among the best in the world: Pacific Dunes, Barnbougle Dunes, Cape Kidnappers and Ballyneal.

The restoration was conducted in phases, with the final phase covering six holes on Pasatiempo's back nine, including the famed 16th hole that MacKenzie described as the "best two-shot hole [par 4] I know." The 16th green complex, with its notoriously steep three-tiered putting surface, got a complete facelift, with an enlarged green and an extension of the hole's dramatic bunkering down near the arroyo that winds through the course's back nine, all as MacKenzie had originally designed.

The 17th hole was lengthened, with the green complex extended 45 feet back to its original place against the edge of arroyo. The 18th, a long par 3 requiring a demanding shot over the same hazard, returns a dramatic bunker guarding the green which extends deep into the arroyo itself.

Even before the restoration was completed, earlier phases of the restoration covering the first 12 holes of the course have widely been recognized as a success, and the work has enhanced Pasatiempo's standing as one of the nation's top courses. As the restoration progressed, Pasatiempo's standing in Golf Magazine's Top 100 Courses in the United States has steadily risen from No. 83 in 2003 to No. 71 in 2005 and No. 55 in 2007 (the 2007 ranking was released before the final phase of restoration was begun).

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