In the game of golf and the pages of American literature, there are few coastal counties that can claim the depth of fame that Monterey, a short Sunday drive south of the Bay Area, can. Rolling along the coastal highway, looking out over the bluffs from the cover of the huge arms of cypress trees and the semi-arid valleys of the interior, this is a place where one wants to be. John Steinbeck immortalizes the Salinas Valley, just over the crest of the hill from the Monterey Peninsula, as a classic venue of the American condition. Kerouac, Burroughs, and their off-kilter colleagues, in hand, immortalized the coastline’s more enchanted, dreamlike qualities. The prose of a generation ago may not have taken much note of anything more than the disenfranchised, but the beauty of the land their words evoked are affirmed along every inch of 17-Mile Drive.

Golf was far from the minds of the region’s great novelists, but the same beauty drew a different fold of the American people to the area. Shortly after the First World War ended, and shortly after a 1917 fire destroyed the original Del Monte Lodge, Sam Morse purchased the land with plans for a luxurious summer lodge retreat, complete with two golf courses. While another fire threatened to take down the new lodge in 1924, wings of it were saved, and still exist today. The first tournament at the Pebble Beach Golf Links was the 1926 Monterey Peninsula Open, which drew the game’s best well west of the Continental Divide for their shot at a share of the $5,000 purse. Three years later, the U.S. Amateur was played on the Links, days from the bottoming out of the American economy, and thereafter Pebble Beach took its place as a prestigious destination for the famous and the wealthy.

Today, the Pebble Beach Company owns three resorts and four golf courses, each element of which can be counted among the country’s best. The old stately Pebble Beach Lodge, a testament to the harmony achievable between man and nature, still stands very much as it did in the Roaring Twenties. Available to the public and looking out over one of the most astounding views in American golf, the visit, while a hit to the wallet, is an essential stop in the lifelong trip of the pure golfer. The stately old building, the unprecedented hospitality, the setting and the traditions: all intermingle to create a resort that Conde Nast readers deemed the best resort in North America in 2003.

Guest rooms are simple, elegant, and luxurious, featuring unprecedented class without the pretensions. Nearly every room at the Lodge is equipped with a fireplace, for those nights where a squall moves in off Carmel Bay, and a patio or balcony, for enjoying stunning oceanfront sunsets on those evenings where the weather cooperates. For the ultimate Lodge experience, book yourself into a Spa Suite, each of which features a private outdoor garden with whirlpool spa.

Beyond the rooms, golf at Pebble Beach is, contrary to popular press, not the only raison d’etre for the luxurious Lodge. 12 tennis courts, an all-embracing spa and fitness facility, and equestrian services to allow guests a riding tour through the coastal bluffs and cypress forest. Kayak tours of Stillwater Cove, offshore fishing charters or a more personal nature tour through the wonder of Del Monte Forest, the Monterey Peninsula is sated with historical and natural graces.

That same spirit of the land infuses the cuisine at each of the Lodge’s restaurants, a sextet of dining rooms whose offerings each invigorate a particular region of flavours on the palate. For the best of the sea, Stillwater Bar And Grill, overlooking Carmel Bay and the 18^th green at Pebble, is the obvious choice. A seafood bar featuring chilled Kaua’i prawns, poached lobster, and tartare two ways, and a menu featuring such regionally inspired delicacies as smoked salmon carpaccio and a Dungeness crab bisque plates these gifts from the sea next to terrific local produce. The cuisine here is a bellwether to the standards held at each of the lodge’s restaurants. Club XIX offers the height of elegance, new designs on pub fare are revealed in The Tap Room, and both The Gallery Club and Terrace Room offer casual favourites on the fringes of an extraordinary setting.

Moving north around the bend of the peninsula, held inland by 17-Mile Drive, one approaches the Inn at Spanish Bay, partner resort to the Lodge at Pebble Beach and an equally spectacular destination. Established in 1987, some sixty-odd years after the original Lodge was established this Scottish-inspired country inn is a perfect counterpoint to the Monterey Peninsula experience. A couple of nights at each is the best way to see the county’s best golf, and to experience the finest it has to offer in dining and accommodations.

Nestled between the Pacific coastline and tall groves of Monterey pines on the borders of Del Monte Forest, the Inn at Spanish Bay features 269 guest rooms tailor-made to both the golf enthusiast, and the resort guest who wishes to do very little except relax. Large, bright rooms facing the ocean catch the light of the setting sun, while those facing the forest or the 1^st fairway of the Links at Spanish Bay offer stunning views inland. With private balconies off most rooms, and a fireplace for when the mercury drops on a cool spring or fall night, the inn is a perfect haven for a vacation, offering refined elegance and luxury in a setting that accelerates the unwinding process. Unquestionable five-star, the endearing aspect of the inn is its quaint, understated feel, as though guests are staying at a bed and breakfast rather than a destination that has garnered the #4 spot in Travel And Leisure’s Top 100 Hotels ranking.

A quartet of great restaurants no doubt figured in the Inn’s impressive ranking. Peppoli’s takes rustic Italian cuisine to new heights, and boasts a wine cellar to fill out all selections on the authentic menu. Roy’s claims Hawaiian-fusion cuisine, and chef Roy Yamaguchi realizes the initiative with dishes such as blackened ahi, Mongolian-smoked rack of lamb, and barbeque ribs slow-roasted on a wood grill. At Traps and Sticks, luxury-casual pub fare is on the menu, with such distinct items as flash-fried calamari and artichokes, assorted cheeses, carpaccio, and fire-broiled salmon. To balance such a fine array of restaurants, an assortment of markets offer guests the opportunity to purchase the perfect picnic basket for a walk into Del Monte Forest. With such a great collection of restaurants, and indoor and outdoor facilities, either the Lodge or the Inn, or best, both, give you both ends of the Monterey Peninsula, and the wonder and mystique contained within both points.