Notes from the effort.

The first time Tiger Woods stood on the sixth tee at Presidio Hills, he stopped, turned to his father Earl, and said: "It's wrong." The green on the 72-yard par three slants hard left to right — the kind of honest little trap this course has been setting for kids since 1932. Tiger was here for the Junior World Championships, the tournament San Diego invented, whose 10-and-under flight called Presidio Hills home for thirty-four years. Phil Mickelson won here in 1980. Tiger won in '84 and '85. Lorena Ochoa won three straight. All of them, age ten and under, on eleven acres in Old Town.

The course itself is even older than its legends. Its clubhouse is Casa de Carrillo, an adobe built around 1821 — the oldest surviving house in San Diego, California Historical Landmark No. 74. In 1932, George Marston — the department-store owner and civic saint they mocked as "Geranium George" for loving parks too much — restored the crumbling adobe and its grounds, hired William P. Bell (Torrey Pines, Balboa Park, Riviera) to lay out a pitch-and-putt, and gave the whole thing to the City of San Diego. To be a golf course. For everyone. Forever.

And beneath all of it: this valley held Kosa'aay, a Kumeyaay village, part of ten thousand years of history that precedes every scorecard — the deepest layer of the story, and one we intend to tell with the people whose story it is.

What happened since the golden years is a longer tale — a slow fade of turf and attention even as golf boomed everywhere else — and it's the subject of our six-part podcast. But if you read one thing about this course, make it Jeff Smith's 2012 San Diego Reader feature, "Head for the Hills" — still the best introduction to Presidio Hills ever written, and the piece that proves people have been trying to save this place, and loving it anyway, for a very long time.

This site is new, and so is the effort behind it. Here's where things stand: the podcast is in production, with the first interviews recorded and more booked. The gallery opens with photos from years of family rounds — professional shoots and, we hope, archival treasures from the course's golden years to come. And the mailing list is live: one list for people who want the story, and one for people who simply want to raise their hand for the course when it counts. Both start here.

If you have memories of Presidio Hills — Junior World summers, lessons from the Abrego years, a first round, a shoebox of photos — we want to hear from you: hello@findingpresidiohills.org.