Catalina Island GC is just off Avalon Bay in a small canyon surrounded by foothills.

The course is an executive layout with five par 4s and four par 3s along narrow, tree-lined fairways leading to small, well-guarded greens. It was originally designed as a 3 hole course in the 1890s and is acknowledged as the oldest course west of the Mississippi. It was expanded to 9 holes, then 18, and back again to the 9 holes today with most of the design work by John Duncan Dunn.