Torrey North: "The reality has become something of a nightmare."

Tod Leonard assesses the state of the Torrey Pines North redo--arguably the nation's highest profile public course renovation in the works--and he paints a fairly bleak picture.

But hey, someone's going to get rich!

The current price tag for the North: $12.6 million in hard construction costs, while the soft costs raise it to more in the range of $14.6 million.

Amid this fiscal and public relations mess, the city’s golf division is charged to make this work. Four bids have been received for the construction work. Some big names are rumored to be associated with those bids, including Tom Weiskopf and Robert Trent Jones Jr.

The problem is that no matter how esteemed the architectural firm is, they didn’t sit through two years of public meetings with real golfers, who felt they were heard by Mickelson. They’re not going to have the time to painstakingly study play on the North, as Angus did.