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A New Downd
It will be a scene to warm the heart of every golfer who knows from sad experience that fairways can be as hard as cart paths and sand shots are actually easier when there s some sand left in the bunker. Municipal golfers — you who know the special delights of the six-hour round — close your eyes and savor this glimpse of muni heaven: It’s late in the afternoon of Sunday, June 16, and up the 18th fairway of Bethpage State Park’s Black Course walks the 2002 U.S. Open champion. The sun is low, casting a golden glow over this wonderful course, arguably the most ambitious of the great A.W. Tillinghast’s many designs, restored to its intended grandeur.
Perhaps our new champion will be Tiger Woods or David Duval or some other one-man conglomerate. Certainly that would please the networks and advertisers.
Then again, perhaps it won’t be. If it’s someone like Tom Lehman or Jim Furyk, seemi ugly regular Tin Cup kind of guys who one imagines, have played their share of golf on rough and tumble public courses, the story will acquire a special resonance, for — as we are sure to be reminded again and again — Bethpage Black is a truly public course, the first ever to break through what we might call the “Grass Ceiling.” Will it be the last? More importantly, will it boost municipal golf around the country? Some think the answer to the second question is a solid yes.
“I really think there’s a move afoot right now” to take muni golf more seriously, says course architect Rees Jones. “We’re fixing up Bryan Park near Greensboro, [N.C.] and I hear Harding Park [in San Francisco] will be getting a major facelift. I think this is going to generate a lot of interest in municipal golf and persuade city officials to upgrade their facilities.”
But is that likely, or even possible, at a time when municipal money belts are being guarded so carefully? Will a successful “People’s Open” at Bethpage spark a renaissance in public golf, with new courses being built and old ones refurbished? When they see this gorgeous course on their television sets, will mayors around the country suddenly go all dewy-eyed over the browned-out goat track in their own town that they may have tried so hard to ignore?
“Some municipalities are going to continue doing what they’re doing and using golf as orphan children. But with a little smarts on their part, they’re going to realize they can actually use this [municipal course] to their advantage,” says Bob Brock, whose company, Golf Course Specialists, Inc, manages three U.S. National Park Service courses. “I think a lot more are going to start paying attention.”
Just to be clear, in this story we aren’t talking about “daily fee” or resort courses like Pebble Beach or Pinehurst No. 2, both of which have hosted Opens. We’re talking about municipally owned courses like Bethpage, which is operated by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation; or Haggin Oaks Golf Course in Sacramento; Wilmington (N.C.) GC; Triggs Memorial GC in Providence; and San Diego’s Torrey Pines GC, widely touted as the next publicly owned facility with the best chance to be an Open site. Not only are all those courses owned by some public entity and open to play by absolutely anyone, but the cost of doing so is less than a caddie’s fee at Pebble Beach.
By that definition, 2,438 of the 15,487 golf facilities in the U.S. in 2000—or nearly 16 percent— are municipal. According to the National Golf Foundation, in 1990, just 37 of 289 new courses were municipal; 10 years later the number had fallen to 29, despite a record 524 openings.
Still, there are spots of activity. Los Angeles County is conducting an environmental impact study on a 110-acre landfill on the Palos Verdes peninsula, and the city of L.A has commissioned a feasibility study on adding a course to the 13 it already owns. On the other coast, New York City has enlisted a group led by Jack Nicklaus to build the city’s first new course in almost 40 years. Situated on a 222-acre landfill under the Whitestone Bridge in the Bronx, the Ferry Point Park course will cost about $50 million to build and significantly more to play than the city’s other 13 courses. Even using landfill, New York real estate is New York real estate and design can be a large expense. But, city officials insist, Ferry Point will offer a better level of golf than the other city courses. Although that project is on hold while a number of permit issues are resolved, there is giddy talk of wooing the PGA Tour’s West-chester Classic away from Westchester Country Club in nearby Rye, N. Y.
More often than not, though, municipal coffers are bare these days. “People are stepping back and waiting to see what’s going on with golf courses in their market,” says Angelo Palermo, a senior associate consultant for the NGF who managed Spook Rock Golf Course from 1966-88, when he was director of parks and recreation for Ramapo, N.Y. The state of Oklahoma, in fact, would like to look at prival rang some of the 10 courses it owns, all built in state parks far from the population centers needed to support them.
One increasingly common strategy is for municipalities to buy struggling private courses. “It’s the old build-or-buy dilemma,” notes Richard Singer, who, as the NGF’s director of consulting services, performs feasibility studies. “Right now, the ‘buy’ numbers are looking a lot better than the ‘build’ numbers.” Florida’s Broward County, which doesn’t own any courses, is shopping around for one to buy.
And many municipalities can’t—or don’t— take care of what they have. For many old city courses, like Joseph M. Bartholomew Golf Course in New Orleans and Cobb s Creek Golf Club on the western edge of Philadelphia, help is nowhere in sight. Joe Bartholomew has had no major capital improvements since it opened in the 1950s. Cobb’s Creek, which was designed by Hugh Wilson, the architect responsible for Merion East and for finishing Pine Valley after George Crump died, desperately needs to replace its ancient irrigation system.
“This course could be really fabulous,” says Eric Sayer, Cobb’s Creek general manager. “All it needs is an updated irrigation system.” The system would cost approximately $1 million — a sum that the city is not likely to spend anytime soon.
Even New York state, where everyone from Gov. George PataM on down is energized by the prospect of hosting the Open, is reluctant to spend much in the current climate. “No way could I have justified a $3.5 million renovation [which the USGA committed to Bethpage],” says Bernadette Castro, the state’s parks, recreation and historic preservation commissioner. Indeed, the state interrupted work on a new $12 million irrigation system for Green Lakes State Park Golf Course near Syracuse after the World Trade Center attack last Sept. 11.
“We had to prioritize,” says Castro, who promises the work at Green Lakes will get done and speaks enthusiastically of one day refurbishing Montauk Downs, a course near the tip of Long Island (estimated cost $lmillion-2 million).
For now, the money’s not there. So the current goal is to refurbish existing facilities. As Castro puts it, “If this is all [the courses] we’re going to have, let’s go for it and make them great.”
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as proved by what’s happened at a few key courses in northern California. Sacramento decided in 1998 to resurrect Haggin Oaks, a wonderful 1932 design by Alister Mackenzie, which had deteriorated to the point where it seemed quite possible it would be lost. The city spent $6.9 million to refurbish the course, which follows a new routing while honoring many of Mackenzie’s design principles.
Farther west, San Francisco’s five city courses — including Harding Park, site of two U.S. Amateur Public Links Championships (1937,1956)—had deteriorated badly. Tony Hall, a San Francisco city and county board of supervisors member in whose district Harding sits, stitched together a coalition to approve the use of state parks revenue bonds for a major overhaul. The renovation will cost about $15 million and includes adding a set of tees to stretch the course’s length from 6,743 to 7 200 yards.
“The bones of a great course are there,” says Sean Elsbernd, Hall’s legislative aide who, unlike his boss is a golfer. “It just needs to be cleaned up. Lincoln Park is next.”
How good is the restored Harding Park likely to be? As part of Hall’s deal, the PGA Tour’s season-ending Tour Championship will be held there three times between 2006 and 2015 in return for the tour’s contribution of consulting expertise and support that will eventually amount to more than $1 million. To avoid higher green fees, such as those charged nearby at The Presidio since its restoration in 1996 by Arnold Palmer’s golf management company, another key element in the plan is a proposal for a graduated green fee structure. This includes a new designation, “Bay Area resident,” aimed to allay concerns of senior golfers in nearby Daly City.
You’d think that discovering you’ve got a Mackenzie or Tillinghast in your backyard would be like discovering that the grimy old painting in your attic really is an Edward Hopper and needs TLC pronto. Still, profit may be a better selling point in persuading a city manager to invest in an old course. “If the politicians and the municipalities wake up and realize that a golf course is a great physical asset for a town, they’ll probably turn right around and fix them up,” says Michael Fay, со founder and executive director of the Donald Ross Society. Fay estimates there are at least 40 Ross courses currently languishing in public care. “If you look at successful municipal golf courses— and obviously there’s hundreds of those—they all make money for their towns and cities. All it takes is a little bit of attention.”
Renovating a great old course needn’t cost as much as the $3.5 million the USGA has spent at Bethpage. Fay gives high marks to Triggs Memorial, a Ross course in Providence, where a management company named FCG Associates has a continuing capital improvement program that already built cart paths, gutted and restored tees and bunkers and restored some greens—all over 11 years and at a cost of just $1.2 million.
A few years ago, Fay was in North Carolina doing some work at Cape Fear Country Club when his host urged him to take a look at Wilmington Municipal, which had also been designed by Ross.
“It turned out to be a fabulous municipal course,” says Fay. “But the bunkering had disintegrated over the years. The bunkers had become blotches of sand and migrated from one place to another. We gave them $7,000 to evaluate the renovation possibilities. As a result, they spent $130,000 to restore the course according to Ross’s plans.”
Municipal courses are slowly winning respect in the South. “In North Carolina, where I’m from,” says Reid Schronce, Wilmington GC’s general manager, “not a lot of towns operated municipal golf courses, particularly before 1980. Golf in the South was dominated by private clubs, and public golf tended to be more ranch or farm style. If it was a public course, it was probably on the low end.” Race relations, it seems, played a role in this situation, because some white golfers, who could do an end-run around integration by joining a private club, were not enthusiastic about spending their tax dollars to fund courses open to all.
In Washington, D.C., a group called the Langston Legacy Golf Corporation is making a virtue of the citys past segregation. The Langston Golf Course, situated in a crime-ridden section of northeastern D.C., is “the first and only course built by the U.S. government for segregated purposes,” according to Bob Brock of Golf Course Specialists, Inc., which managed the layout for the National Parks Service until April 1, when the Langston Legacy took over. In the 1930s, black golfers could play at East Potomac and Rock Creek, theoretically, but those who dared try had their tires slashed and worse. Built on a landfill, Langston opened as nine holes in 1939 and a second nine was added in the 1950s. All these years later, car heaters and tires continue to bubble up through the fairways. Brock recently arranged to have 21,000 truckloads of soil dumped in an effort, to bury the stuff for good. “Potentially, it’s our best track,” he says. It may be yet, if the Nation’s Capital Bicentennial Commission succeeds m raising its goal of $20 million. The ambitious plan calls for NCBC to create a full-scale layout, teaching center and a museum of minority golf.
Langston’s early golfers no doubt considered it a slight to be given a course built on a garbage dump. Today, building on industrial wasteland is not just a way to solve environmental problems; it’s a way for cash-strapped municipalities to earn grant money to pay for the project. “We are finding that placing golf courses on brownfields and landfills is a good permanent use of that property,” says Singer, who notes most of the projects he consults on these days involve some form of reclamation.
That’s true of those new courses in the Bronx and the Palos Verdes peninsula, as well as Chicago’s Harborside International Golf Center, 36 holes set on a 458-acre South Side landfill owned by the Illinois International Port Authority. The small city of Hammond, Ind., is building its first municipal course, a 7,000-yarder, situated on an old slag transfer station that has been an environmental hazard since the 1940s—and funding the work entirely with tax increases on industrial projects.
There’s an important lesson here. Muni golfers should not wait for someone else to rescue their beloved old course. Golfers have power — if they choose to use it. In Portland, Ore., a few years ago, a city councilman looked at the city’s five courses and wondered if the city couldn’t earn more revenue for schools by adding a small surcharge ($2.50 per nine holes) for non city residents, which would still place them far below market value. After all, two of Portland’s courses — Eastmoreland, which costs just $23 to play, and the Great Blue course at Heron Lakes ($37)—hosted the U.S. Amateur Public Links in 1933,1990 and 2000 respectively. The rise in green fees did not go over well.
“Basically, we had a revolt by the people who used the golf courses,” recalls John Zoller, Port land’s director of golf for the past 18 years. “Our play dropped 25 percent, which was huge. After two years, they said we made a big mistake. We went through two more years of not only removing the surcharge but also offering incentives. We had to say, We want you back.”
In Los Angeles where the supply-demand ratio of courses and golfers may be worse than anywhere in the U.S., the city’s first public golf association was formed in 1931. Today, with help from unions that staff the facilities and are eager to ensure that city courses don’t go private, it has managed to keep green fees incomprehensibly low, topping out at $25 on weekends.
“Los Angeles takes seriously its mandate to provide quality golf at a price that promotes play and serves as many citizens as possible,” says Craig Kessler, executive director of the Public Links Golf Association of Southern California. Last September, the city’s department of recreation and parks spun off its golf operations, forming a separate division with Cleve Williams as its manager. Williams would like to see the new division operate similar to an Enterprise Fund, which means revenues would be plowed back into the courses. That’s the strategy that’s worked well in Portland, Sacramento and especially Seattle, where courses had suffered miserably when operated as part of a general fund (in which golf revenues are used to fund other city projects)
“Enterprise Funds are definitely the way to go,” says Williams. “You can operate much more entrepreneurially.”
Sо is there another Bethpage out there, waiting to be rescued and awarded an Open? “Not everyone has a Bethpage in their backyard,” cautions John Woode-shick, a regional vice president of American Golf
Corporation, a course management firm. If you poll architects for another likely candidate beyond Torrey Pines, what you hear is the sound of heads being scratched. “Rancho Park [in Los Angeles], maybe, with a lot of work,” offers Damian Pascuzzo, president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects.
While it confers prestige, hosting a tournament is expensive. Some top municipal layouts, such as Brown Deer Park in Milwaukee, are content with the big event they currently host. In Brown Deer’s case, that’s the Greater Milwaukee Open, which takes a lot of work and costs the city quite a bit in lost green fees. Chicago’s Har-borside International might be another strong candidate, but, says manager Kevin Fitzgerald, the Port Authority wants to make an immediate impact so this year it will host the SBC Senior Open, a Senior PGA Tour event.
Still, the one clear lesson is the potential of determined, mobilized golfers to influence policy. Along with its spectacular ocean-side setting, Torrey Pines owes its candidacy to an ambitious community group called the Century Club, which raised $3.3 million and hired Jones to do a redesign. Before the overhaul, which added 552 yards, Torrey Pines had its skeptics, including Tiger Woods. But this year’s Buick Invitational quickly converted him. “They can definitely host an Open here,” Woods enthused.
Kessler stresses it is a mistake to get too wrapped up in hosting an Open. There are other worthy ambitions. “Maybe the best thing Bethpage can do [for municipal golf] is not to raise passion or interest, which are already there, but an awareness that such facilities can be of such high quality they can host an Open.”
Bob Brock, in D.C., has been in the business long enough to remember the power of televised golf. “There’s no question that television and Arnold Palmer changed the direction of golf,” he says, “not just public but country clubs, too, in terms of the level of maintenance everyone expected. Everybody wanted that green sward they saw on television.”
Maybe Bethpage will inspire a whole new army of ardent golfers for the new century. We’ll call it the People’s Army.
