“Metropolitan Golf Links will test all level of players and will become a championship-links that offers a great golf experience and spectacular views of the San Francisco Bay.” Johnny Miller

What do you look for in a golf course? A chance to get away from it all? Excellent putting surfaces? Friendly staff? A place where you won’t lose a dozen balls? A place that honors the traditions of the game? Fun?

As you’ll discover on the other pages of this site, Metropolitan Golf Links is a top-notch golf facility with all the bells and whistles. But the core of what makes Metropolitan Golf Links so popular is the layout of the course, a Johnny Miller and Fred Bliss design just East of Oakland International Airport. The original Galbraith Golf Course boasted some gentle undulation; Miller and Bliss augmented the site and dramatically improved the drainage by covering the original landscape with two feet of sand then growing the latest turf hybrids. When other nearby courses are overly wet or carts are restricted to the path for weeks, Metropolitan Golf Links is playable—and always fun to play!

“I play Metropolitan Golf Links because it’s the best value in the Bay Area.” Patrick Pernice.

In the tradition of the great links courses, Metropolitan Golf Links is wide open. There’s even some heather and clusters of native grasses to add to the ambiance. But the fairways are mostly open and the greens are large and receptive so that even the high-handicapper can get around expeditiously. Golfers who play Metropolitan Golf Links frequently know to find the correct part of the green for their approach shots and learn to putt the undulating green surfaces. The maintenance team strives, especially in the summer, to keep the course fast and firm—just the way a links course should be.

Metropolitan Golf Links is not overly bunkered and there are only a few water hazards that come into play. Yet with winds coming in off the San Francisco Bay, Metropolitan Golf Links has plenty to challenge the better golfer. Miller and Bliss have designed the course so that the low-handicapper will have to think his or her way around the course to score well. With six sets of tees to chose from, Metropolitan Golf Links offers a fun and challenging course for golfers of all skill levels!

Source: Metropolitan Golf Links

Metropolitan Golf Links has a compact layout with two balanced nine hole loops that start and end at the clubhouse. The routing of the course includes straight holes, doglegs, and even a couple of double doglegs! The layout boasts subtle mounting, gentle undulation changes, four wetlands areas, and just enough bunkering to add significant strategic interest. The interesting routing also means that the wind affects each hole very differently, also adding to the fun.

“If you relished the front side at Metropolitan, you’ll fall in love with the back nine. This stretch of holes has more fun and risk/reward packed into it than all the dot.com explosion years. If these holes had a voice they would be saying, ‘Let us tempt you.’” John Sheehan – KGO-TV

Perhaps the greatest asset of The Metropolitan Golf Links layout is that it provides the thinking golfer with a variety of options depending on the wind, course conditions, and the golfer’s appetite for risk on any given day.

Unlike many courses which say ‘hit it here or else’ we offer numerous ways to score well.

Source: Metropolitan Golf Links

Metropolitan is a remake of the old Lew Galbraith Golf Course, opened in 1966 over an old landfill. Its low green fees made it an instant success, hosting as many as 90,000 rounds in one year. But the landfill was unstable and eventually the new fairways started to sag, dip and become uneven. Grass failed to grow in some spots.

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“Metropolitan Golf Links will test all level of players and will become a championship links that offers a great golf experience and spectacular views of the San Francisco Bay,” said U.S. Open champ Johnny Miller, who designed the course along with Fred Bliss.

David R. Holland, “Oakland’s Metropolitan Golf Links provides rebirth on old landfill,” GolfCalifornia.com, August 1, 2003.