Golf courses by state
California Golf Courses & Tee Times
California has two regional golf associations instead of one statewide body. The Southern California Golf Association was founded by five clubs on July 29, 1899, in a downtown Los Angeles bank office. The Northern California Golf Association traces its roots to April 5, 1901. Major championships have come to courses anyone can book: the city of San Diego's Torrey Pines held U.S. Opens in 2008 and 2021, San Francisco's Harding Park held the 2020 PGA, and Pebble Beach, a public resort course, has held six U.S. Opens.
Tee times in California are easier to get when you know when they open. Yoink watches 460 public golf courses here, grouped into 10 markets: Los Angeles & Orange County, San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, Palm Springs and more. Choose a market to see every course, then get an alert when a tee time opens or someone cancels.
California golf markets
Los Angeles & Orange County
Alhambra Golf Course, Alondra Park Golf Course, Anaheim Hills Golf Course…
San Francisco Bay Area
Bay View Golf Club, Baylands Golf Links, Blackberry Farm Golf Course…
San Diego
Balboa Park 9-Hole, Balboa Park Golf Course, Carlton Oaks Golf Club…
Palm Springs
Classic Club, Desert Falls Country Club, Desert Island Country Club…
Sacramento
Black Oak Golf Course, Cherry Island Golf Course, Cordova Golf Course…
Central Coast
Avila Beach Golf Resort, Carmel Valley Ranch Golf Course, Dairy Creek Golf Course…
Central Valley
Buena Vista Golf Course, Creekside Golf Course, Dryden Park Golf Course…
Redding & Far Northern California
Bailey Creek Golf Course, Eureka Municipal Golf Course, Glenn Golf & Country Club…
Reno & Tahoe
Lake Tahoe Golf Course, Northstar California Golf Course, Old Greenwood Golf Course…
Wine Country & North Coast
Bennett Valley Golf Course, Foxtail Golf Club North, Healdsburg Golf Club…
More California
Furnace Creek Inn & Ranch Resort, Pine Mountain Lake Golf & Country Club, Barbara Worth Resort and Country Club…
Who runs public golf in California
Cities and counties run California's public golf. Los Angeles County runs 20 courses at 18 facilities and calls it the largest publicly owned system in the nation. The City of Los Angeles has its own courses and a $25 Player Card. San Francisco's Recreation and Park Department runs six, with a resident card. San Diego runs Torrey Pines, Balboa Park and Mission Bay, and residents need a Resident I.D. Card for the resident rate. The NCGA has over 200,000 members in more than 1,300 clubs and owns two courses, Poppy Hills in Pebble Beach and Poppy Ridge in Livermore. Its foundation started Youth on Course in 2006; the program has since gone nationwide.
Public courses worth knowing in California
- Torrey Pines (South): City of San Diego course on the La Jolla cliffs, opened 1957. Tiger Woods won the 2008 U.S. Open here and Jon Rahm the 2021.
- TPC Harding Park Golf Club: San Francisco-owned course where Collin Morikawa won the 2020 PGA.
- Pebble Beach Golf Links: Public course from 1919 on Carmel Bay; U.S. Opens in 1972, 1982, 1992, 2000, 2010 and 2019.
- Rancho Park Golf Course: L.A. city course that held the Los Angeles Open from 1956 through 1972, except 1968, and in 1983.
- Poppy Ridge Golf Course: NCGA-owned course in the Livermore Valley, added in 1996.
Booking tee times in California: the local rules
Each city sets its own rules. San Diego releases tee times at 7 p.m. daily; 0 to 7 days out is free, and 8 to 90 days out costs a booking fee, $32 per player at Torrey Pines. Los Angeles opens city courses at 6 a.m., nine days out with a Player Card and seven without; L.A. County releases eight days out at 8 p.m.
Yoink
The window opens once. Cancellations happen all week.
Booking windows decide who gets first pick. After that, times come back one at a time as plans change. Yoink watches all 460 courses in California and tells you when a time that fits comes back, so you're not refreshing the page all week.
Towns with the most courses
- Palm Desert · 14
- Los Angeles · 9
- La Quinta · 9
- Long Beach · 7
- Riverside · 7
- Moorpark · 5
- Indio · 5
- Roseville · 5
- Bakersfield · 5
- Costa Mesa · 4
- Corona · 4
- Alameda · 4
- San Francisco · 4
- Oceanside · 4
- Escondido · 4
- Rancho Mirage · 4
- Truckee · 4
- Central Coast · 3
- Hemet · 3
- Vallejo · 3
- San Ramon · 3
- Livermore · 3
- El Cajon · 3
- Temecula · 3
Getting a tee time in California
Golf in California is played all year. That means there's no off-season lull to wait for: weekend mornings are busy twelve months a year.
Most public courses open their tee sheet a set number of days ahead, often 7 to 14, and many municipal courses give residents or card holders an earlier window. The best weekend-morning times usually go the day they're released. Leagues and outings take blocks of the sheet before the public ever sees them.
A full tee sheet rarely stays full. Many courses let you cancel without a fee up to 24 or 48 hours before your time, so spots tend to reappear in the last couple of days. A bad forecast shakes more loose, and a foursome that drops to three opens a single. None of it is announced. The time just shows up again on the booking page, and whoever looks first gets it.
Yoink
All 460 courses in California, watched for you around the clock
Yoink checks all 460 courses in California every few minutes, so every open time is in one place and you're the first to know when one that fits your day, window and group appears, cancellations included.
Tee times in California: questions
How do I get tee time cancellation alerts in California?
Pick your courses in Yoink (460 in California), set the days, time window and group size you want, and Yoink sends a notification when a matching time opens up. You book directly with the course.
When is golf season busiest in California?
Demand peaks all year, especially on weekends. Weekend mornings are the hardest tee times to get.
When do tee time cancellations usually show up?
Mostly in the 24 to 48 hours before the tee time, as golfers cancel ahead of the course's cancellation deadline, and whenever the forecast turns.
Sources
Facts on this page come from these pages, checked 2026-09-28. Rates and booking rules change, so confirm with the course.
- news.scga.org · association
- ncga.org · association
- en.wikipedia.org · media
- sandiego.gov · official
- sandiego.gov · official
- en.wikipedia.org · media
- en.wikipedia.org · media
- parks.lacounty.gov · official
- en.wikipedia.org · media
The best tee times in California open up at random
Cancellations don't get announced. Yoink watches the sheets around the clock and buzzes your phone when one fits.