91
GEARHART
Golf Links
PAR 5 585 YARDS
Gearhart, OR
503.738.3538
www.gearhartgolflinks.com
For the first 17 holes of Gearhart Golf Links, the more than 100-year-old course
is amiable and genteel, with inviting fairways and eye-pleasing dunescapes. A
scattering of short par 4s, sprinkled with three par 3s—two long and one short—and
two par 5s on the property's edge lead you around this coastal gem. Standing on
the tee of the 18th hole, you are suddenly faced with one of the biggest of "big boy"
holes. The finishing hole is long, demanding two huge shots just to get in sight of the
green and a third shot up left to an elevated green. It's also narrow, out-of-bounds on
the left, with a fairway that heaves with rolling mounds like the nearby Pacific Ocean.
The green itself is no haven either, sloping severely from back-left to front-right. If
you're against the wind—which is almost a certainty in the summer—forget about it.
The saving grace is the pure beauty of the hole and the sight of the beach-style
clubhouse, replete with a McMenamins pub, behind the green. Golf itself boasts
a long and mythical residency in Gearhart, appearing almost from the moment
nails were being pounded into boards to build Gearhart's first home. Legend has
it that Gearhart began life in about 1888, starting out as three holes of true links-
style golf, making it the oldest course in the Northwest and arguably in the western
United States.
Founded by Robert Livingstone, who was also the president of Waverley Country
Club in Portland, the golf course has been molded and polished over the years by
Marshall Kinney, Olympic gold medal golfer and US Amateur champion H. Chandler
Egan, and Oregon architect William G. Robinson. To this day, the course retains that
classic links-style flavor with a hint of traditional Northwest design features.
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Photographs by Don Frank
