There is a hole in it Maggie Hathaway Golf Course in Los Angeles modeled on an architectural template – The Lion’s Moutha classic feature defined by an intricate bunker that faces most of the green. You’ll find versions of it at select private clubs and public paved courses where tee times require months of advance planning. Most days at Maggie Hathaway, you can walk and ride.
However, it will cost you. Green fees are a maximum of $9.50.
Maggie Hathaway is a nine-hole par-3 course that has been in operation since 1962, but not always under its current name and not always in its current form. It was originally known as the Jack Thompson Golf Course before being rechristened in 1997 in honor of the woman who helped popularize golf in Los Angeles the melting pot is today.
Hathaway was a blues singer, actress and civil rights activist who organized segregated course boxes and petitioned LA public officials to open the county’s schemes to all. She was not alone on the front lines of that fight, but she was a leader, and the course that bears her name is a monument to a worthy battle won.
Glen Porter never met Hathaway, who died in 2001. But he knows her name scheme as well as anyone. It was where he learned the game some 20 years ago, long before he came aboard as general manager. Some things haven’t changed since he first set foot on the property. Now, as then, the course gives way to sweet views of the city, stretching west across downtown and the Hollywood sign in the distance. Youth fares remain $1, the same fare Porter paid as a child.
In that sense, the place feels familiar like never before. In other ways, however, it has transformed dramatically.
“Like night and day,” says Porter.
In late March, Maggie Hathaway reopened after a comprehensive renovation that provided a new fairway, new turf, new irrigation, new complex greens and sand waste areas, along with an expanded and relocated practice range and a large, unruly green.
Once soft and spongy, the terrain has been rebuilt into a firm and fast playground, with the same closely mowed grass varieties that golfers enjoy at Los Angeles Country Club and a new injection of strategic intrigue.
“Screws used to be small, flat circles,” says Porter.
Today, they are scratched, flanked by fast fairways and knotted to classic design features, from a two-pitched green on the 4th hole that borrows from the work of CB Macdonald to a wedged 9th hole whose green was inspired by the par-3 10th hole at Pisha Valley.
In its previous iteration, Maggie Hathaway was easy on the bunkers. Sand now features prominently, with waste areas providing a rustic aesthetic and greenside bunkers complicating the consequences of errant shots. One such hazard is the lion’s mouth, lurking at the front of the second green.
Like other recent municipal title renewals, including Patch in Augusta and Park in West Palm Beach, the Maggie Hathaway project was driven by a public-private partnership. A fundraising effort led by members of the Los Angeles Country Club brought in a total of $21 million. The county contributed another $8 million, and Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner — the architects who reworked both courses at LACC ahead of the 2023 U.S. Open — offered their design services for free.
A measure of profit can be seen on the group sheet. The course now sees about 180 rounds a day, Porter says, roughly double the pre-renovation volume. And with a clubhouse and training center under construction, it will soon have even greater gravitational pull. The First Tee now has a home at Maggie Hathaway, as do local public school programs, though the course is also a magnet for seniors. Many of the regulars came of age in the game here decades ago. Some have left but found their way back. Porter is one of them. Junior $1 who grew up to run the place.
He never crossed paths with Maggie Hathaway. But he knows enough about her to know that she would be pleased.
