On the Road to History

This article originally appeared in the November issue of NCGA Golf Magazine

Emily Chorba traces the past at Pasatiempo Golf Club

By James Raia 

Emily Chorba laughs as she recalls a vivid memory from 45 years ago. She and her husband, Bruce, attempted to play tennis together. It went poorly.

"I posed no threat," she says. "There was no competition, no challenge at all." The couple opted for a new plan: "Maybe golf. Let’s try golf.”

The brief tennis attempt led to something far more enjoyable: decades of golfing together.

While working as a young woman at Shadowbrook and Crow’s Nest in Santa Cruz, Chorba only encountered golf as a beer cart driver at DeLaveaga Golf Course. After her husband gave her a starter set of clubs, Emily took lessons and learned the game. 

“Driving the beer cart was very fun,” she says. “But I thought it would be more fun to golf.” The couple eventually entered a club tournament, confirming her intuition. “We played in that tournament, and it was just so much fun.”

The couple’s shared passion continued. Nearly 20 years after they began golfing together, and after playing every course on the Monterey Peninsula, the Chorbas joined Pasatiempo Golf Club in Santa Cruz in 1999. Five years after joining, Emily Chorba was elected to the board of directors, where she served for many years.

Emily and Bruce have played golf in several countries and plan to travel to play in Australia in spring 2026. Emily currently plays three times a week at Pasatiempo and jokes she’s “getting worse.”

Chorba assumed historian responsibilities for the Alistar MacKenzie-designed, semi-private course in 2019, following the retirement of her predecessor, Bob Beck.

"He was awesome," says Chorba. "Bob did a lot to try to get Marion Hollins into the World Golf Hall of Fame, so that was part of my impetus. Bob was a wonderful mentor. He connected me with all kinds of people.

  "So that was my first mission, to continue the work he tried to get her into the World Golf Hall of Fame," says Chorba. "The third time worked."

 Hollins, the 1921 U.S. Women’s Amateur Champion and captain of the first U.S. Curtis Cup Team, was inducted posthumously in 2021. Inducted alongside Hollins in the Class of 2021 was 15-time major champion Tiger Woods, three-time U.S. Women’s Open winner Susie Maxwell Berning and former PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem.      

Hollins, an NCGA Hall of Fame member who died at 51 in 1944, developed the Women’s National Golf and Tennis Club on Long Island in 1915. Moving to the Monterey Peninsula in 1922, she partnered with MacKenzie to create Pasatiempo and Cypress Point. She also helped establish the Pebble Beach Golf Championship for Women, which she won seven times.

 Like Hollins, Chorba is uncommon in golf. Few women design courses or work as historians.

  "There's no job description at Pasatiempo for a golf historian," says Chorba, 71, a retired software product developer for Oracle. "You kinda get to do what you want, approved by the board, of course."

   With her new role, Chorba’s early goal was to spotlight Hollins’ legacy.

"She died when she was 51; some people re-invent themselves at that age. Had she lived longer, she might have had a larger legacy," Chorba says. "But I think the one that she had in 50 years of life was pretty great, and particularly in the times in which she grew up. But how do we make her more famous to new golfers?"

  Chorba's admiration for Hollins and MacKenzie led her to direct the Founders' Legacy Project on Pasatiempo’s first hole. The bronze figures of MacKenzie and Hollins’ dog Carlos, sculpted by Carmel artist Steve Whyte, began in April 2023 and finished in December 2024. The installation features benches and platforms designed and poured by Tom Ralston Concrete and plaques made by Santa Cruz metal artist Sean Monaghan.

"Everybody loved her (Collins)," says Chorba, who lives with her husband in Seacliff, the Santa Cruz community. "She was such a catalyst for camaraderie. You know, she didn't have any heirs. But she came from a very wealthy family that had huge, huge homes back on Long Island (New York). She socialized with the pros, the caddies, movie stars, and wealthy people. She could fit it everywhere and was loved.”

Chorba's current project is to secure a replica of the Robert Cox Trophy, the United States Golf Association's oldest perpetual trophy. It's named after a former member of the British Parliament. He orchestrated the hosting of the event at Morris County Golf Club in New Jersey in exchange for donating the trophy. Collins won the intricate artwork at the 1921 U.S. Amateur Championship. 

"It is the most beautiful trophy; there's a replica at the visitors center at Pebble Beach so you can see how gorgeous it is," says Chorba. "Kay Cockerill won the U.S. Amateur at Pasatiempo in 1986, so we are allowed to buy a replica from the company that makes them in the U.K.”

"That's on my list of things to do. Shiny things at golf courses are good when people are walking around and looking. That trophy would draw attention, and then I could tell Marion's story.”