The main clubhouse of this iconic clubhouse is 10 miles from the course

The Iconic gets tossed around like fairway grass on a windy day, but the Olympic Club qualifies. A dozen USGA championships hosted, the 2033 Ryder Cup on the way. That glorious club that frames the tricky par-4 finishing hole…

Well, this is not the Olympics KEY the club. Its main digs are the City Clubhouse, located 10 miles away in San Francisco’s famed Union Square neighborhood. The Olympic Club is not just a golf club. It is an athletic club – America’s oldest, founded on May 6, 1860, five months before the first open championship was held in Scotland.

James J. Corbett, the “Gentleman Jim” of prizefighting, joined Olympic in 1884, 40 years before the club opened its Lake and Ocean courses. Corbett later became a heavyweight champion and taught boxing at the club, which is like having Greg LeMond as your SoulCycle instructor. Speaking of cycling, it is traditionally one of the Olympics’ strengths, with the coach of the 1924 US Olympic cycling team (Ernest Ohrt) and later some professional road racers among its number.

Then there was the member who set the world shot put record in 1909 (Ralph Rose); the innovative college basketball superstar who developed an early version of the jump shot (Hank Luisetti); the 1950 US Open tennis champion (Arthur Larsen). There is no time here to list the achievements of the club team in basketball, cycling, track and field, football and rugby, but rest assured they too are of historic proportions.

The current City Club is not the original, which was destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. It houses a fitness center, a cardio solarium, squash and handball courts, circuit training facilities, two basketball courts and a pair of swimming pools.

Less fussy amenities include a pub, dining room, meeting and banquet rooms, guest rooms and a rooftop deck. Or you can jump in a car and be at the top in half an hour, depending on traffic.