Go West, old man – and be sure to take your clubs with you.

Good things happen in the Bay Area. There’s something about the very air out there that seems to give rise to great discoveries. It’s the birthplace of Apple, Google, Screaming Eagle — and Pasatiempo. I know, what about Pebble? But if it’s my afternoon off, Pebble Beach is only my second-favorite public-access choice in and around San Francisco (nudging out the delightful muni Harding Park). Those famous ocean fairways have gotten a little too crowded with guys trying a little too hard to impress their clients for my taste. Alister Mackenzie’s stunner in surf-mad Santa Cruz, on the other hand, is just about perfect.

Playing just 6,511 yards from the tips, Pasatiempo may be short, but as you may have heard, length isn’t everything. Even Tiger Woods has not bettered this par-70 by more than three strokes. The game here is pure joy as it rambles through hills enlivened by streams and sandy ravines. Fresh off a restoration by Tom Doak, the course is playing as well as it did when the legendary Mackenzie unveiled it in 1929 and liked it so much he built himself a cottage by the sixth fairway and settled in for the duration.

Of course, if you’ve got the connections, Mackenzie’s even more renowned Cypress Point jumps all the way to the top of the list. Bob Hope once joked, “They had a membership drive at Cypress Point, and drove out 40 members.” Finesse your way in and you’ll step into a time warp — the rickety pro shop and simple locker room looking just as they did when Bob and Bing and the rest of the gang were plunking their balls in the Pacific when the course hosted the “Crosby Clambake.” (And before it withdrew as a host site in 1990 when it refused to meet the PGA Tour’s timetable for diversifying its membership.) But there’s a reason they call this place “the Sistine Chapel of Golf.” Stand on the famed sixteenth looking out at the ghostly cypress and the churning inlet you’re invited to span with your tee shot, and even the most agnostic East Coaster may be tempted to utter a little prayer.

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