The NCGA’s all-new Poppy Ridge debuts May 31

Very few AGAs (1) in the United States own and operate their own golf course; in fact, only four (the NCGA, and the Oregon, Washington, and Colorado AGAs) do so, and of those four only one—the Northern California Golf Association—owns and operates two courses. Those two courses—Poppy Hills, in the Del Monte Forest on the Monterey Peninsula; and Poppy Ridge, in the midst of the vineyards and golden hills of the Livermore Valley in Contra Costa County—present two very different golf experiences encompassing the wide range of landscapes that comprise “NCGA territory”.

Poppy Hills, which opened in 1986, was the first course in the country to be built and operated by an AGA. The wooded property, which is also home to NCGA headquarters, underwent a major renovation in 2014 that improved drainage across the entire property, reduced irrigated acreage, and replaced the late-1980s-vintage irrigation system with a modern system. Now Poppy Hills’ ten-years younger sibling, Poppy Ridge, which drapes across a rolling landscape of golden hills and lush green vineyards southeast of the City of Livermore, is reopening after an even more comprehensive reworking that has resulted in what is essentially an entirely new course.

The 17th green at the new Poppy Ridge gleams in “golden hour” sunlight, overlooked by rolling hills and the soaring wind turbines that line a distant ridge. (photo credit: Joann Dost)

 

 “If you were to ask people what is a postcard of California wine country, this would be it – Jay Blasi

The new Poppy Ridge will be an eye-opener for players who were familiar with the 1996 Rees Jones layout. The original 1996 design was made up of three nine-hole loops—appropriately named Chardonnay, Merlot, and Zinfandel. This configuration allowed flexibility and variety for the golfers who came to play there, but suffered from compromises in routing and terrain that made walking the course untenable for most golfers, and could lead to time-consuming rounds of golf. The new layout, designed by course architect Jay Blasi based on guidelines provided by the NCGA, has what I consider to be a more sensible use of 27 holes of golf; it now consists of an 18-hole championship layout and the Ridge 9, a nine-hole course with seven par-4 holes and a pair of par-3s.

“We basically started over, and we built a new golf course on top of a site that used to have a golf course.” – Jay Blasi

The new layout is so different from the 1996 design that even longtime course employees have had to relearn their way around the property. Players familiar with the old Poppy Ridge will note that the 18-hole course is laid out over territory that comprised the Zinfandel nine and part of Chardonnay, mostly north of the clubhouse, while the Ridge 9 encompasses part of what used to be the Merlot nine and some of Chardonnay.

Toned Down, But Still Challenging

One of Jay Blasi’s main goals for the redesign was to improve walkability on the new 18-hole championship layout. While still a hilly course, walking 18-holes at around 6500 yards (the blue tees) is now some 2,000 yards shorter than the original setup, with 400 feet less elevation change overall.

Reworking the routing to tighten and smooth the transitions between holes involved moving some 250,000 cubic yards of soil. In many cases moving that volume of earth is done to add, or increase, contouring, but in this case that work was done, as Blasi told me, “…to soften the property, to make those transitions more manageable and easier to walk. We weren’t moving dirt to make things more exciting; the landscape was already big and beautiful and exciting—we were doing it to kind of tone it down a bit and make it more suitable for golf.”

There’s no denying that the Poppy Ridge property is a dramatic and dynamic piece of landscape on which to build a golf course. It is a property of rolling hills on which some holes rise to meet you, some lay out in front of you in full view, and others test your faith with a blind second shot. It is also criss-crossed with deeper cuts, such as the area where the drop-off-a-cliff par-three 17th hole was built. Playing at distances ranging between 154 yards from the championship (orange) tees to a mere 67 yards from the most forward tees (green), the vertical aspect of this dramatic little one-shotter will challenge a player’s club-selection skills. Its neighbor, the par-three 14th, teases with an uphill carry—more so from the forward tees—over an area of native growth; a friendly hillside to the left of the green is a safe aiming strategy for the daring carry on this hole.

Another of the goals for the new course was to make it fun and playable for all levels of golfers. Compared to the old course there is less water in play, and less sand in play. The fairways are wide and accommodating, but careful attention to placement for the approach shot will pay off, and most of the greens are open at the front to allow the ball to be run up onto the green—flying it high and landing it soft will not be the only option for hitting and holding greens.

That’s not to say that the course will be a walkover for the more highly skilled player; once in position to go for the green, careful inspection of the contours around the greens will show that there is usually a safe side and a risky side, so skillful placement of your drive or second shot will often be key to having a safer approach.

A good example of this is the par-four 6th hole, the first hole that I played during the recent preview day scramble. The fairway is wide and confidence-inspiring, as most of the fairways on the new course are, but you must be mindful of where you place your tee shot. A drive to the right side of the landing area yields an inviting approach to the green, while landing too far left leaves your approach shot blocked by mounding that leaves you facing a blind shot (2) to a (thankfully), generously sized green. In turn, the mound on the left side forms a backdrop that can help direct an overcooked approach shot, even from good position in the fairway, back onto the green.

The greens at Poppy Ridge are well-contoured, with challenging but not drastic shaping. An interesting design feature that applies to the greens as a whole is that their size relates to the difficulty of the approach shot—holes that are likely to require a long-iron approach have larger greens; those that are going to be taken on with a wedge or a short iron give the golfer a smaller target to aim at. It is risky to judge the greens of a brand-new golf course; they will always need some bedding-in time before their true character is revealed, but I think that golfers will find the greens at Poppy Ridge testing, but fair.

Teething Problems?

As I mentioned above, the new course is intended to be fun for all skill levels. Each hole features five teeing areas accommodating a range of standard yardages from 7,010 (orange) to 4,225 (green).While good in theory, my group—with one playing from the tips and three from the golds—found that the forward tees were stretched so far ahead of the longer tees that staying connected was problematic, and that, when playing from a cart, getting from the cart path to the gold or green tees often required trekking through native areas.

Another new-course teething issue that we encountered was confusion about the location of the teeing areas in the corner of the course where the 13th green, 14th tees, 18th green, and 17th tees are all clustered within a small and quite hilly area. Better signage and better definition of the teeing grounds themselves would go a long way toward eliminating confusion for players that are new to the course (as everyone will be in the near term.)

A Strong First Impression

Even with only one round on the new layout under my belt, I have already selected a favorite hole—the par-five 4th. This uphill three-shotter plays longer than the scorecard yardage thanks to the elevation gain, and while fairly straight, hands you a peek-a-boo second shot that teases the possibility of getting onto the green in two. A low, running shot with a fairway wood or hybrid might get you there if you thread the needle between a trio of smallish but well-placed bunkers placed right-left-right along the way to the putting surface. I hit one of my better 3-wood shots in recent memory on this hole and just caught the first, and largest, of those bunkers or I might have found myself, maybe not on the green in two, but certainly within Texas-wedge territory.

Windy conditions will be a testing proposition at this somewhat exposed course. It is dotted with native oak trees, but not lined with the fairway-defining rows of tall trees of a typical parkland course that would protect play from the wind. The green of the 4th and the entirety of the 16th hole are the highest points on the course, I believe, and special attention to the strength of the wind, especially in the afternoon, is warranted there.

“If you are an out-of-town guest, if you’re coming from the Midwest or the East Coast, I would venture to guess that two of your three best public options in Northern California are Poppy Ridge and Poppy Hills.” – Jay Blasi

Course designer Jay Blasi, the NCGA, and everyone associated with the creation of the new Poppy Ridge can be justifiably proud of this new course. It is a property that will take some familiarization to come to terms with, but I think that the variety of the golf holes, and of course the newness of the layout, will tempt players back again and again to build course knowledge and test strategies for assaying its dramatic landscape. It’s a good thing, then, that 60% of the NCGA’s membership lives within 60 miles of this stunning new addition to the bounteous variety of Northern California golf.

Poppy Ridge opens for play on May 31st, and the tee sheet is already full a few weeks out, but I urge everyone in the region to experience this new course as soon as they can.

*****************************
1) Allied Golf Associations, the local golf associations that collaborate with the USGA to support the game of golf in the country.

2) Despite a bit of friendly advice from the guide who led us out to the tees at #6, this is exactly what I did...

A calm assessment of the threat Assembly Bill 672 poses to municipal golf in California

Assembly Bill 672, the brainchild of California State Assembly member Cristina Garcia (D–Bell Gardens), poses a threat to municipal golf in California; that is, public golf courses that are owned by cities or counties—but how big a threat? Some responses to the proposed legislation have verged on the hysterical, but I think that a closer look at the wording of the bill, and a wider evaluation of the situation, is called for.

What would it do?

This much is true: the gist of the bill’s intent is to incentivize local agencies (city and county governments) to close down municipal golf courses and convert them to sites for housing. The bill’s text specifies that 25% of the housing is to be “affordable to, and occupied by” low-income households (as defined by the Health and Safety Code), and that 15% of the development is to be publicly accessible open space—but with this twist-of-the-knife proviso: space used as a golf course shall not be considered open space.

Some of the response to AB 672 have been needlessly reactionary; for example, this Golfweekheadline: “Could all California golf courses be converted to housing? A new bill proposes just that”, and a post on the Uken Report website that predicts that local muni courses in the Palm Springs area would be turned into homeless camps should this legislation be passed. The fact that these extreme takes aren’t realistic doesn’t mean that there is no cause for concern.

The Legislative Counsel’s Digest (a summary, of sorts, of the bill’s effect) on the AB 672 page on the California Legislative information website gives the following assessment of the bill in its current form: “This bill would, upon appropriation by the Legislature, require the [Department of Housing and Community Development] to administer a program to provide incentives in the form of grants to local agencies that enter into a development agreement to convert a golf course owned by the local agency into housing and publicly accessible open space, as specified.”

Not exactly a smoking gun, but slightly worrisome even in its vagueness.

Changes over time

The bill, which was originally introduced in February 2021, has been amended four times, and while some of the revisions have weakened the bill’s proposed directives, changes which make it less radical also increase its palatability and may boost its chances of passing.

For example: the March 18th, 2021 version of the bill would have removed protection for municipal golf courses under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), a radical and unquestionably anti-environment move, but one which would have greatly simplified the process of converting what had been protected green space to residential uses. This provision was removed in the next amended version of the bill for the very simple reason (as I am informed by my wife, a career land-use/urban planner) that it is not possible to simply exclude a development project from CEQA. Can’t be done.

The next version, amended in Assembly on April 6th, 2021, would have required city, county, or city and county entities to rezone municipally owned golf courses to allow residential or open-space uses. The word “require” carries weight, making this version of the bill more worrisome, but again, the wording of the bill was amended in committee, and this proviso was removed.

(Also removed from the verbiage of the bill was a reference to the terms of the legislation being applied to “under-utilized” golf courses, but if you have tried to get a good tee-time any time in the last 12–15 months, you know that there is no such thing as an under-utilized golf course in California these days.)

Too clever by half?

Ms Garcia is making what I am sure she and her staff consider to be a clever two-pronged attack with this bill. First, proposing a solution (of sorts) to a problem which everyone acknowledges—the shortage of affordable housing in California, especially in the urban centers—but a solution which will only affect people who play golf; and second, making a show of being progressive and populist by attacking golf, which everyone knows is a terrible elitist game that is only played by ROWMs (Rich Old White Men), thus gaining favor among know-nothing would-be do-gooders who would willingly trade golf-course space for “affordable” housing.

Careful examination of the text of the bill shows that everything about it, from the early, more openly antagonistic versions to the current relatively toothless version, reeks of uninformed antagonism and borderline incompetence on the part of Ms Garcia and her staff.

The since-removed CEQA proviso should never have seen the light of day, and the requirement that local agencies rezone municipally owned golf courses is the kind of over-the-top direct action that will always raise flags in proposed legislation—these versions demonstrate, to an experienced reviewer, that neither Ms Garcia or her staff are really on the ball.

The other aspect of the bill: the singling out of golf courses, among all possible land uses, is redolent of the kind of misguided populist-elite thinking à la Malcolm Gladwell that informs attacks on golf as an elitist game for rich white men.

Ill-conceived – but still worrisome

While the likelihood of this bill being passed, and thus having a measurable impact on the availability of municipal golf in California, is low, the embracing of this clichéd antagonism toward the game of golf is still worrisome.

Even in its current, weaker, form, AB 672 represents an attack on the game of golf because it still singles out golf courses for this “incentive program”. No other open-space use is cited—not soccer fields, not baseball or softball diamonds, not dog parks, not playgrounds. Golf courses, and only golf courses, are mentioned by the bill. The current version of the bill is vague in its wording, and virtually toothless, but it is worth the attention of the golf community to keep an eye on AB 672, because it represents a potential “thin end of the wedge”. 

A hair-shirt take that only a Pope could love

A recent post on the Lying Four golf-blog site posits the bill as a call to action for the game of golf:

“This episode should be a learning opportunity for golf—a chance to rededicate itself to changing its elitist practices (and, in turn, the reputation), if only out of the self-interest that the California bill exposes.”

The post on Lying Four also mentions that passage of AB 672 would unfairly target one segment of the golf-playing population (and by far the largest), making them pay (potentially) for the sins of the other, which is true—but goes on to say that golf, as a game, must:

“…[resist] the temptation that elites often indulge: to shut themselves away behind strong walls, and to assume therein their safety.

The California bill shows that tendency’s fallacy: the public is at the walls. We can either invite them in, or wait for them to tear down the walls on their terms.”

While it looks more realistically at the governmental aspects of AB 672 than many of the articles and analyses posted over the eleven months since the bill was introduced, the Lying Four column presents something of an hysterical response in itself, assuming that the people and organizations that comprise “the game of golf” are going to adopt the same elitist attitude that is assumed to be universal in golf by people who support actions such as that which AB 672 proposes. The column’s author doesn’t give any examples of ways in which “golf” can push back against the elitist stereotyping of the game, so the article is less of a call to action than it is a strident scolding that is waiting to be turned into an “I-told-you-so”.

In my opinion, the author of the Lying Four column is assuming something of a “mea culpa” attitude, and while golf, as a sport, must have a care as to the way the non-golf-playing public perceives it, supporting existing education campaigns by industry organizations is a better way to do this than the sanctimonious finger-wagging and hand-wringing approach that this column presents.

The Bottom Line

I don’t see AB 672, in its current state, having much chance of passing. It is a grandstand play by Assemblymember Cristina Garcia, but one which was ill-conceived and, so far, incompetently executed.

But… despite its weaknesses, AB 672 represents a calculated attack on an industry that employs 128,000 people in the state of California, representing a total economic output of some $6.3 billion in 2021, and $4.1 billion in wages, while providing a healthful outdoor exercise experience that has been shown to have a positive effect on longevity and general well-being.

The golf industry must remain vigilant in the face of attacks of this kind, fighting back with facts, not hysteria, about the economic, health, and environmental benefits of the game of golf—which have positive effects up and down the economic spectrum—and stave off the ill-informed haters and opportunistic politicians who would restrict, or at worst, shut down, the game we love.