Golf: Living the dream

Richard Dunn

When Brad Booth arrived as head professional at Costa Mesa Golf &

Country Club seven years ago, he had a dream.

Mainly, it was the vision that the term o7 country clubf7 would

actually be true in the facility’s description.

The complaint box was always full. Both golf courses, Los Lagos and the

shorter Mesa Linda, were deteriorating. Bunkers seemed to have dirt, not

sand; water hazards had no water; and the threadbare fairways, well,

didn’t seem quite fair for the price of admission.

Costa Mesa was giving municipal courses a bad name.

Now, “it’s no longer a place where people complain about the golf, and

they haven’t for a couple of years,” Booth said Wednesday. “Even the

driving range has improved. Everything about it is more pleasurable, and

it’s kind of nice for us. Now, it’s habit forming.”

In addition to the enriched playing conditions, Costa Mesa, owned by the

city and operated by Mesa Verde Partners, features a new restaurant and

bar, and renovated landscaping in front of the clubhouse and entrance to

the pro shop -- all recently completed.

“People love it,” Booth said. “Everything is new and clean. The food

operation has been upgraded, and now people are coming over here just to

eat. I saw a couple of business ladies here the other day just to eat,

and it seems more people are coming to eat and be social.”That’s

something that has always been my dream, when people come here for a

little business lunch, and not just golf. The setting’s a relaxed

atmosphere; it’s not your neighborhood coffee shop.”

Details on the golf courses include new signage, benches and ball washers

at the tee boxes, a project headed by course superintendent Jim Fetterly,

who has dressed up the tees into a garden theme.

“None of the changes come without direction, and you’ve got to give

credit where credit’s due, and that’s (general manager) Scott Henderson,

who has put it all together,” Booth said. “We’re here because of him.

“I can remember when I first came here what it was like, and there has

been considerable change from that day. Realistically, it’s night and

day. People take it for granted now. They forget the way it used to be,

what the conditions were like. Maybe they just choose to forget. But

those days are over. We’re into the next millennium.”

Tee times at Costa Mesa, one of the best bargains in Orange County at $24

a round Monday through Thursday, are available up to seven days in

advance. Details: (714) 540-7500.

Six weeks after the Diners Club Matches at Pelican Hill Golf Club, it is

still uncertain whether the made-for-television event will return to the

Newport Coast resort course owned by the Irvine Co.

The tournament is slated for Dec. 15-17, according to the PGA Tour’s 2000

schedule. But where the event will be played, and what company will serve

as title sponsor, are questions still up the air.

Jack Nicklaus Productions, which operates the event, and the Irvine Co.

are still negotiating, Pelican Hill Director of Golf Rob Ford said

Wednesday.

Tournament director Gary Pollard, meanwhile, who still maintains an

office at Pelican Hill, has been looking at other Southland golf courses.

“We’re committed to the event with the tour -- there’s just a question of

the title sponsor and where the venue is going to be,” said Pollard, who

works for Jack Nicklaus Productions, which also produced the successful

relaunch of Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf.

According to a source, it is believed that Jack Nicklaus Productions paid

a site fee of $50,000 to the Irvine Co. to put on the 1999 Diners Club Matches at Pelican Hill, in addition to pledging $100,000 to charity (UCI

athletics).

There are Southern California golf courses that would no doubt pay the

operator that same amount to host the event for national television

exposure, theoretically a $100,000 turnaround for the producer.

“Typically I’d say, yeah, the normal practice is that JNP receives a site

fee from the host,” Pollard said.

Pelican Hill recently received a couple of awards. It was named among the

top 100 golf shops in the country by the trade publication Golf Shop

Operations for the sixth year in a row, and hole No. 17 on the North

Course (called “Gut Check”) was named among the top 500 holes in the

world, according to Golf magazine.

“It’s a very beautiful hole with a lake, and obviously the background has

the ocean,” Pelican Hill marketing director Lynn Davis said Wednesday.

The par-five plays 543 yards from the tips. David Duval and actor Paul

Riser filmed an AT&T; television commercial on No. 17 Monday.

Richard Dunn’s golf column appears every Thursday.