“I would definitely think twice about coming here if they charged for parking.”

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Will Reisman on the latest move to generate revenue at San Francisco's Lincoln Park Golf Course:

The Recreation and Park Department, tasked with bridging an $11 million deficit, could start charging $1.50 an hour to park at Lincoln Park, with the possible changes coming as soon as January.

Golfers and clubhouse officials have balked at the idea, saying the parking fees would make the public course too expensive. Currently, it costs $21 for city residents to play during the week, and $26 during weekends.

“This is a public golf course, and the idea is that you play here because you pay less,” said Rafael Gordon, a San Francisco resident. “I would definitely think twice about coming here if they charged for parking.”

The Richmond district golf course ran a deficit of more than $220,000 last fiscal year. Rec and Park officials are projecting revenue gains ranging from $250,000 to $430,000 a year with the new parking fees, according to department spokeswoman Lisa Seitz Gruwell.

Ground Zero Of Golf V. Environment?

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Julia Scott of the San Mateo County Times filed an intriguing piece on the Sharp Park situation because it the fight there seems to be heating up thanks to supervisors offering distinct proposals for the course.

This is what I took away from the story:

  • The course is proving to be a valuable wildlife refuge and habit for rare species, yet the Center for Biological Diversity wants it closed.
  • The city says the course is a financial drain, but figures are murky (Scott included a reference to $500,000 in profit last year but it was later taken down). Either way, the neighboring city of Pacifica has offered to take this burden off city hands and was turned down.
  • The course should be designated a historic landmark thanks to its MacKenzie ties, and such a proposal was hastily made by Sean Elsbernd: "Do I genuinely believe it will be landmarked? No. One side is throwing a bookmark down, I'm throwing down another," said Elsbernd, who said he would "fight" to retain the public 18-hole golf course in Pacifica. "Golf and the environment are not mutually exclusive. They can wok together and I have every expectation that we can make that happen."
  • And this rational logic from the golf side: Longtime Sharp Park golfer David Diller, president of the Sharp Park Golf Club, doesn't like the idea that he and his fellow golfers may be an endangered species themselves. Flooding on the course, a seasonal occurrence, has partially closed the 14th fairway, and existing protections for red-legged frogs prevent pumping the water out when the frogs are laying their eggs in the spring.  There's always this misconception that if you're pro-golf you're anti-environment — but nothing could be farther than the truth," said Miller. "(Sharp Park) has been there for over 70 years. If we're doing such a terrible job, why are there still San Francisco garter snakes and red-legged frogs? 

It seems to me that if a place like Sharp Park with such heritage and clearly one making a positive impact environmentally can't be shown to be an essential place to keep around, the game is really in trouble. If golf's leadership is genuine in the game's future, they would be descending on San Francisco to take up the cause of Sharp Park.

Re-routing Harding?!

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The PGA Tour re-routed Robert Trent Jones Golf Club to accomodate luxury boxes but I don't recall it really helping, yet they've done the same with Harding Park for the President's Cup as Ron Kroichick reports:

PGA Tour officials plan only one physical change to the course for next year's event: They will build a new tee on what the public knows as No. 9 (it will be No. 18 for the Presidents Cup), stretching it to 535 yards. That hole will play as a par-5 next October; it played as a par-4 (at less than 500 yards) for the American Express Championship in 2005.

Tour officials also will "re-route" the course, so the customary closing holes - Nos. 16, 17 and 18 - will become Nos. 13, 14 and 15. (This makes it more likely matches will reach those holes.) The holes that are normally Nos. 1, 7 and 9 will become Nos. 16, 17 and 18, respectively.

Those new finishers may be the least interesting holes on the course. Something to not look forward to.

"She argued that golf is primarily played by white men over the age of 45"

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Marisa Lagos posts an item about this week's taskforce meeting to discuss the fate of San Francisco's city courses, and in particular, Sharp Park. Now, I hate to encourage the stereotyping of San Franciscoans. I have to live in the same state as these people, but the item does raise a few questions about the sanity of my neighbors to the north.

There are the locals who want Alister MacKenzie's Sharp Park for soccer fields, even though the course is by no means flat. And then there's this:

The high point of the meeting arguably came when parks advocate Isabel Wade went head-to-head with golf advocate Dave Diller; she argued that golf is primarily played by white men over the age of 45, a statement Diller angrily derided as "racist." Diller's response prompted the packed room to erupt in applause -- though to be fair, many of the people clapping appeared to be white men over the age of 45.

"In June 2007, Lincoln's only fairway mower broke."

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LincolnParkpostcardDan De Vries, Eden Anderson and Richard Harris authored a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed column on the latest at Lincoln Park, where the city and residents are battling over the course's future. I can't imagine why it's in poor shape:

Lincoln Park, the city's oldest and most scenic golf course, is Exhibit "A" for the need to change the public golf course maintenance status quo. Lincoln's fairways are a patchwork of gopher mounds, leaky-sprinkler-fed bogs, and brown patches where the water has been shut off to stop leaks. In June 2007, Lincoln's only fairway mower broke. Instead of repairing or replacing it, the Recreation & Park Department mowed the fairways infrequently all summer with a narrow, slow, trim mower, leaving grass so tall that the fairways became indistinguishable from the roughs. After rain, Lincoln's fairways become waterlogged and inhospitable both to golfers and mowers, due to poor drainage system. The quaint, 1920s clubhouse is dilapidated, its public rooms empty, food service minimal and the bathrooms dank. The pro shop and restaurant have been on a month-to-month lease for more than five years, discouraging the concessionaire from making needed repairs. It is more than coincidence that the number of annual rounds declined from 55,000 in 2002-03 to 35,000 in 2005-06, the last year for which complete figures are available. So far as we are aware, the city has no current cost estimates for the needed infrastructure repairs.
And this was disturbing...
Why is this happening? Between the Recreation and Park Department, the Board of Supervisors, and the Mayor's Office, no clear statement has been made of the city's intentions at Lincoln. But one thing is perfectly clear. Lincoln is extremely valuable property, as it adjoins the exclusive Seacliff neighborhood. When neglected or abused, such property becomes target for developers. And thus civic birthrights are lost. At Lincoln, there is an ironic twist to this old story: a so-called friend of public parks, San Francisco Neighborhood Parks Council, is calling for construction of an "event center" on Lincoln's famous 17th hole. No details have been released, but an "event center" inevitably means building complexes, roads, parking facilities, congestion, noise and traffic. And all of this in the middle of the famous view of the Golden Gate now enjoyed not only by golfers, but also neighbors, strollers, schoolchildren, bikers, motorists, dog-walkers, birders, museum-goers, not to mention visitors from around the world.

A shame the PGA Tour, which is using nearby Harding Park, can't step in and offer the city some assistance. Then again, maybe some of the city don't want any help. The worse it gets, the less it makes and as the columnists note, the more willing people are to accept redevelopment.  

"We could have one incredible event center on the 17th hole. Nobody has been looking at that."

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Thanks to reader NRH for this C.W. Nevius column in the San Francisco Chronicle analyzing the fight for Lincoln Park and other San Francisco city courses.

Bo Links, one of the founders of the San Francisco Public Golf Alliance, says golfers are planning a march on the Board of Supervisors today. The issue is whether the city should study turning its money-losing golf courses into another kind of recreation facility, like soccer fields, or preserve the fairways and greens.

Guess which side the golfers are on.

"We're going to hitch up our britches and go to City Hall," Links says. "We're hoping to have over 100. And some of the guys are talking about bringing golf clubs."

This, of course, raises two questions:

First, what would you use to get up and down from the steps of City Hall? A lob wedge?

And second, in the midst of so many high-profile and contentious issues, how did the city's golf courses get to be such a hot topic?

That part is simple - the golf course debate has something for everyone.

For neighborhood activists, it is about empowerment. For golfers, it is populism. For Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, it's a labor issue. And fellow Supervisor Sean Elsbernd is talking about governmental red tape. McGoldrick is leery of letting a private firm manage the courses; Elsbernd thinks it could not only work, but make money.

Last Wednesday, the supervisors' Budget and Finance Committee met to consider McGoldrick's proposal to create a golf task force to conduct a three-year study of the "adaptive re-use" of the golf courses.

To the surprise of nearly everyone, the golfers showed up in force, some 50 strong. Richard Harris, another of the founders of the Golf Alliance, says the group made its point forcefully.

"You need professional management for the golf courses," he says. "What you don't need is another three-year study. That's asking to literally study it to death until the golf courses deteriorate so badly it isn't an issue."

"Even I was surprised," said Elsbernd. "What I really appreciated was watching the faces of those who thought this was going to be a walk in the park, so to speak."

In the face of that kind of response, it was decided not to send the proposal out of committee with a recommendation for a yes vote. And Monday, McGoldrick announced that he plans to make a motion to put the matter over until at least next month, meaning that it won't be voted on in today's meeting.

"Which has to be a victory on our part," says Elsbernd.

The golfers may have been slow to act, but they have been fired up by talk that some of the city's courses, like the neglected, but scenic, Lincoln Park, might be turned into a soccer field.

"Or BMX bike runs," says Isabel Wade, executive director of the Neighborhood Parks Council. "Or skate parks. We could have one incredible event center on the 17th hole. Nobody has been looking at that."
Oh dear. This is beautiful:
We'll pause here for a moment while the residents of those huge, expensive homes in Sea Cliff consider the implications of an event center around the corner from them. And that's not to mention the fact that any soccer pitch built on the hills and mounds of Lincoln Park would require players to use safety ropes to keep from sliding off the field.