Proposed changes to Torrey Pines Golf Course hit a snag on Tuesday, Feb. 21 when the Golf Advisory Council (GAC) rejected the city’s five-year business plan for the municipal golf courses by a vote of 8-3.
The council primarily objected to the proposed Torrey Pines clubhouse, which is widely unpopular among residents and is suspected to be linked to an increase in greens fees.
“Why should fees go to the clubhouse instead of to paying for a better golf course?” asked Art Stromberg, chair of the Torrey Pines Men’s Golf Club.
For the North Course, weekend (Friday thru Sunday) greens fees for residents will go from $34 to $40 by 2007 and increase by approximately $2 increments until 2011. Fees for the South Course cannot change until after the 2008 U.S. Open, and will jump from $45 to $75 by 2010.
Concerns were also raised over the increase in junior fees. One-month junior tickets will go from $10.50 to $32 in 2007 and to $38 by 2011.
GAC supported the concept of the plan until councilmembers learned how it was going to be funded, GAC Chair Randy Gustafson said.
GAC also insisted that more transparency is needed in the allocation of tee times. Seventy percent of tee times are supposed to be earmarked for residents and 30 percent for nonresidents, but the city admits that it hasn’t adequately monitored the split.
Gustafson suggested that the board consider the plan in sections, but the board protested, arguing that it needed to vote on the plan in its entirety.
Nonetheless, GAC made separate motions to show its sentiment over certain aspects of the plan. The council unanimously voted against allocating tee times to brokers, including the Torrey Pines Lodge and Hilton Hotel. The city has a lease with the lodge, however, and is legally bound to provide the hotel five tee times per day. However, the proposed business plan will eliminate granting supplemental tee times to the lodge.
At the same time, GAC voted 6-3-2 to retain tee times for the Torrey Pines Club Corporation (Pro Shop), which the council deemed provides a valuable teaching service to the course. In addition to providing golf equipment and merchandise, the Pro Shop runs a junior golf program.
GAC also voted to approve the Century Club’s plans to build a $3.2 million tournament support building. The building includes a new locker room for tournaments, board rooms for the men’s and women’s golf clubs, a pavilion to host tournament events, offices for the Century Club and Junior Golf Association, a learning center for children, a teaching facility for professionals and a storage area.
The Century Club is a non-profit organization founded to bring the PGA tour to San Diego each year and has raised approximately $1 million for charity in the process.
GAC is only an advisory board to the city. The plan will go to the San Diego City Council’s Natural Resources and Culture Committee on March 8 and likely before the full council at the end of March.
More than 80 people attended the meeting, largely to protest the plan. The San Diego Municipal Golf Alliance (SDMGA) submitted a petition of approximately 650 signatures opposed to the plan. Members of the public called for freezing greens fees, which they said are above benchmark level compared to resident rates for similar golf courses.
“You can be businesslike without being a business,” said Paul Spiegelman, SDMGA co-founder. “We don’t need to maximize revenues. The people are the owners of the golf course.”
The five-year business plan covers the three municipal golf courses at Torrey Pines, Balboa and Mission Bay.
To view the five-year business plan, visit www.sandiego.gov/
park-and-recreation and click on Golf Complexes.