We play here most every time we’re visiting the Monterey area. Fairways this past weekend were in great shape compared to other times. Back nine with the ocean views is where you understand why people put up with the pedestrian front nine. Golden hour before sunset is best time to take photos. Some folks call it, “Poor man’s Pebble Beach, but it’s unworthy of that title. Most people here I surmise are not Veblen idle rich crowd, but also not Dickens era paupers. “Working man’s Pebble Beach,” is a more fitting name.

What a view!!!! We played a round of 9 which was the back nine that was along the Oceanside. I enjoyed this course with my sons! I will definitely be back and play the full 18 holes.

Favorite golf course l've ever played everything is just right I played with my mom and it was $103 for both of us with a cart. Greens were in supreme condition course is the perfect difficulty challenges you but doesn't make you go crazy. Balls land soft on the green good pace for putting and right on the water absolutely beautiful views. The best⛳️

You know what, I really like this course, for the first time I walk 18 holes, this is not just enjoyable but a very rewarding 4-hour walk, cause you get to explore such a lovely courses details , and the tranquility of this nice little town called Pacific Grove. You first start with two Par 3s, break with two Par 4, then followed by two consecutive Par 5s, interesting arrangements [Joyful] Overall, Front 9 is nice and easy, just simple dog leg right or left with not much hazards; but the Back 9 is whole another story, you start playing by or against the sea, even though the breeze will cut your yardage, but it just totally worth it to be pushed back this way. Starting from Hole 12, you get see, hear, and smell the Pacific Ocean, totally different level of golfing I'll say. There's a 1885 lighthouse situated right by Hole 10, which kind of refresh your game after 9 holes, and actually it's right by the tee box of Hole 16, which is called LIGHTHOUSE [Joyful] I would say the entire Hole 16 is their signature hole, especially when you look at the sea while trying to approach the green.

Pacific Grove is the poor man’s Pebble Beach—and yet, it is richer in sorrow, and in poetry. They call it “the poor man’s Pebble” as if that is a dismissal. But poverty is honest. At Pacific Grove, the spirit of the game lingers in tattered clothes, battered clubs, and a quiet dignity that Pebble, with its gold-plated tee markers and $600 green fees, cannot understand. The front nine winds through the town like a forgotten tale—tight, tree-lined, municipal in every way. There is no grandeur here, only struggle. You are greeted not by applause or caddies, but by the barking of a distant dog and the indifference of locals who have played this course every Sunday since the Reagan administration. Then, without warning, you are thrown upon the back nine. The ocean appears like a fever dream. It crashes against the rocks with a violence that cannot be tamed, only endured. The Point Pinos Lighthouse towers over the dunes, holding a watchful gaze over the meandering fairways, shining into the depths of your impermanence. You are no longer in a budget course—you are in a Herzogian hallucination. Fog drifts across the fairways like memory itself, blurring the edges of your purpose. At the 12th, a par-5 framed by ragged coastline, sand dunes and flocks of seabirds, you realize: this is not a golf hole. It is an existential riddle. How does one aim when one cannot see? How does one swing when one’s hands are numb with the cold of introspection? How does one play a course on the tip of the Monterey peninsula which beckons the character of Bandon Dunes, perhaps Scotland, for a mere $65? There is no clubhouse of grandeur here, no valet parking or leather-bound whiskey menus. There is a snack bar. A cart with beer. And this, in its purity, is more noble than any marble statue or velvet rope. Pacific Grove Golf Links is not where legends go to finish their stories. It is where ordinary men and women confront the absurd, hole by hole, swing by swing, until they have nothing left to give but a crooked scorecard and a sigh toward the sea. 5 Stars (for dignity in the face of the absurd)